Algonquin Round Table v. Bloomsbury Group – The Hockey Game (play-by-play courtesy of Damon Runyon):
"Good evening, guys and dolls, and thanks for leaving the radio on. Our broadcast is from The Pond in Central Park, where hockey is about to be committed by the Algonquin A’s and the Bloomsbury B’s. What’s that? it’s the Bloomsbury Bi’s? I thought that was a typo. Why not B’s? I don’t get it. Anyhow, the teams are on the ice. For the Algonquin squad, Woolcott fills up the goal and then some, captain Dorothy Parker looks a little unsteady on her skates but gorgeous all the same, just to her left is Heywood Broun, and the starting front line will be Benchley, Ferber and Kaufman. Ferber and Kaufman will start but not finish the game as they’re doing dinner at eight together. I don’t know what they’ll order, but looking at Miss Ferber I can see there’ll be one hot dish at the table. What a dame! Now team Bloomsbury comes out in their familiar triangle formation with V. Woolf at center, John Maynard Keynes on the left wing, Dora Carrington (who for some reason is wearing a baseball uniform) on the other side, and they’ll be backed up by Sackville-West, Roger Fry, and Strachey in goal.
"Before the game started, Bloomsbury captain Woolf lobbied unsuccessfully to have the game played in one continuous 90-minute stretch, saying she had no use for periods. A’s chief Parker snickered and said Woolf was fortunate to have a husband willing to have them on her behalf. In the ensuing fight, Alexander Woollcott destroyed the careers of nine budding dramatists, Lytton Strachey wrote pithy biographies of everyone present, and Harpo Marx got laid.
"Finally the puck is dropped and it is taken by Kaufman, who heads on a lone breakaway toward Gapstow Bridge and the Bi’s goal. His team-mates are hanging back, though – Ferber’s only so big, and Benchley’s in a quandary. They should know better: Kaufman’s a fine player, but he’s not going to accomplish anything by himself. Here comes Parker up the middle, without her glasses, to take Kaufman’s pass … she’s checked into the boards by Sackville-West, who … plants a long wet kiss full on her mouth. Huh. While Parker’s pinned, Woolf comes up and begins beating her with her stick. That prompts a whistle, and a penalty is called. Woolf argues with the referee, refusing to leave the ice until she gets a penalty box of her own. That arranged, the Algonquin power play begins.
“And Heywood Broun scores! That revealed a lot of character. Now Bloomsbury must regroup, no pun intended. Playing short-handed, they’ll have to do something surprising to shake things up. Left-winger Keynes skates out to the center line and dumps a sackful of pucks out onto the ice, apparently thinking it will help, somehow. Woolf is out of the box now, carrying an axe. She’s chopping a hole in the ice, and – yes, she’s jumping in! Woolf has left the game and this plane of existence! Nicely done! Nicely, nicely! And the game has been called on account of ennui! Good night, everybody!”