DUFFER NICKNAMES
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Go to Alphabetical
Nickname List
Hyper Linked Nicknames
You can see a picture of the Duffer
that goes along with the name. Just click on the underlined link and it will take you there!
Our Peoria Duffers have been enjoying the Duffer News
on the internet, but they would like to know a little about our names and
how they were derived. Some names have a story behind them, like
Wheezer.
He got his name after his first shift when Beak asked him his
name and he was wheezing so much, he couldn't answer.
Mini
Wheezer got his name by looking like Wheezer. Rick Feldman
A.K.A Road trip Rick got his
nick name when Beak couldn't remember his name when he was writing the list for
the Las Vegas road trip. He was listed as Gilbert (Pronounced Jillbear)
Some names
are derived from their given name like
Agatha "Agi The Ref", Jerry
“Beer Nuts" Biernat, Bob
“Dill” Deau, Vidas
“Formica” Cermarka (also was called Veto),
Gary “Ghost” Kasper,
Arvydas
“Harvey” Dikinis, John
“Hit man” Heitman, Glen “Par 3”
Oakes, Frank
“Knarf” (Frank spelled backwards) Presecky, Rich
“Muzzie“ Masiulewicz,
Dan “Maz” Mazanec became
known as Digital Dan when he started publishing Duffer
Statistics, Rick
“Dizzy” Dzingel and Jerry “Scrotum” Oskroba. Wally
"Waju" Kraft and
Fred “Fruit Cake” Bobka got their
tags from the Polish translation
of their names. Perry Lea got tagged "The
Flea" when he was a kid, and he carried
it with him to the Duffers. Brian
"The
Brain" Opalka, was our youngest Duffer until GODs
Joe Mazzarella
III and Mike Lopatka started paying dues. Brian plays Goalie he got his
nickname from a misspelling. Gene "Geno"
Cromwell returned after a 10 year sabbatical leave. Emil is one of our Peoria
Duffers and we started calling him Emily on our
San Jose road trip. He didn't really like that name too much, so he is
stuck with it. Bill Conti may be called
the Maestro since Bill Conti (No relation)
the musical conductor/director that wrote the themes to The Right
Stuff, Rocky, Dynasty and Falcon Crest, then again, he may be called Roids after
Victor Conti who supplied Barry Bonds with the Wrong Stuff. Beak invited
T.O.
Tom O'Connor to join us when he was 53 years old, he finally made it two
years later in 2007. Another Duffer picked up a nick name with his
initials, Tom Ambrosia is called
T&A. His son Thomas
is known as t&a. Viorel Tamasi
was called V-Man the first time he told us his name was Viorel, but our dyslexic
back up goalie, Tweedy, thought his nickname should be tomato seed.
Kevin Rench was called "Monkey Wrench" but we started calling him "Meat
Man" and move him to the occupation category since he
started supplying The Duffer Picnic with beef and sausage in 2011. We started
calling Harvey "Kirk" when someone thought he was Kirk
Douglas when he was in the lobby of the hotel on our Pittsburgh Trip.
Steve "The Hammer" Hammerquest
started playing with the Duffers in 2013.
He scored 4 goals on
April 14, 2014.
Johnny "B"
Bocain was first called "Porta John", but "B" was easier to type. John got
his first Hat Trick
in September of 2011. He has since started playing goalie.Rob
"The Ziv" Zivalich
Occupation
Some Duffers get their names from what they do. Tom
"Slime Dog"Kowalkowski Was also known as the
"Tooth
Fairy" because He owned a dental Lab in Westchester.
Paul "Commander" Jankowski
was called "The cop" until he moved up the ladder of the Chicago Police Department and became a commander. His
son Paul was Paul "Jr" Jankowski. Ron “Doc” Dubreuil is a professor at the University of
Illinois, Keith “Doc”
Suchy is a Dentist,
Tim “Drano” Staats is a plumber with a teaching degree. Jim
“The King” Miceli owns the Duffers while
Paul “Marsha” Novak is a lawyer
and he got his name during the OJ trial.
Bob
“Buckshot” Morgan is a hunter and Mike
“The Nailer” DeVivo was a roofer. Dan
“Tweedy” Lopatka got his name in 1980 when he was a 10 years old referee for the Duffers.
Chris "Berserk" or
Chris
“Woody” Mazurk works with wood, although some say he was tagged in
the shower as was Stump. Nick
“The Hammer” Brescia brought a hammer into the locker room and gave
us some inexpensive clothes hangers. (16 penny nails.) Tim
"Basketball Jones" Smith was called Basketball Jones, because he looked
like a basketball player in his old High School Hockey pants. Those pants
have been retired, but the name lives on. Tim almost got in trouble
when his boss came in while he was looking at this picture of Buckshot
and Hacksaw. Dave
Young played goalie as a guest for us, so he has been called Dave the
Goalie, even though he seldom plays goalie.
In 2013, Commander Ken Kroll started
playing with us. He is a police commander.
Mike "Tattoo " Lopatka (Beak's
Grandson) is the owner of the
Boundless Tattoo Co.
Dan"Birdman"
Margolish is a bird expert at the University of Chicago.
William "Piercer"
Barron he will pierce you if you.
Bret "The Dick"
Murawski was a detective.
Association
The following Duffers get their names from who they
associate with: Tom "Butt Head
Morgan hangs with Jim
“Beavis” Coughenour.
Joe
“Cuzin Joe” Gotfryd got his name when his cousin Tom “Slime Dog” Kowalkowski
brought him to the Duffers. Other family oriented names are Jerry
“Prince” Miceli (Son of The King),
Mike
"Son of Frank" Presecky also called “Rich
Storm” when he is contributing to the Duffer News. He was known as Cross Check
Mike in his younger days when he didn't know how to stop. Mike became known as The
Czar when he took over the King's job of running the Duffers in 2003. Bob
“Uncle Bob” Oskroba, is Mini-Wheezer's Uncle.
Ken
“Beak Jr.” Lopatka, is Beak's son, he was later called Grandpa
Kenny when he became a grandpa. Rob
“Piggy Bank” Granato is the son of Don “Brinks” Granato who got his name from his kids. Whenever
they asked for money, Don would say, “What do you think I am? Brinks!”
We have "Peoria King" Koudelka
he got his name by helping set up Peoria road trips. Ed
"Special Ed" Radakovitz joined the team with that name, because he
is special. Scott
"The Bookie" Wayne looks like Mike Moffit (The Broken thumbs guy
from Seinfeld) who played Kramer's Bookie. Scott quit playing with us and we
acquired
Anthony
"Bookie" Antonini. John
"Cupcake" Bobka, Fred's son,
was known as Mini Cupcake
since he was the little brother of Cupcake, but Mini Wheezer claims that there
should only be one Mini. We almost went with Lil' Fruit Cake, but his big
brother quit playing. The Duffers acquired
Greg "Z" or
"Circus" Zerkis at a funeral when Beak was chatting up his very attractive
wife. She called Greg over and told him to join the Duffers.
Dan "Rent a
Goalie" Smith AKA
Snowman Dan has been our go togoalie when we have a road trip.
Barren "The
Bear" Williams became a very dependable goalie until he moved to
Knoxville in 2019. Physiology
Greg
“Beak” Lopatka got tagged for his nose. He has also been called
a "Chick Magnet". Ken
“Stump” Barczynski was as high as he was wide when he joined the Duffers
as a 16 year old goalie. Jim
“Titz” Michaelsen (#29) could fill out a DDD Bro-zier. John
“King Kong” Zagorski had his picture taken with ex-Black Hawk, King
Kong Korab, and was a head taller. John was later tagged "Back hand
Johnny" when he started scoring many back hand goals. John’s brother, Tom
“Ahb” Zagorski got his name by stuttering every time his parents asked
an accusing question, he would say, “Ahb, Ahb, Ahb. Tom was later
called TZ. Some ladies refer to him as Dimples.
John
“Magoo” Landry is as blind as Mr. Magoo. Bill
“Klinger” Giffune would have been named Beak but that name was taken
when he joined us in the early 80s, so he was tagged Klinger since he looked
like the MASH star. Bill Louis was called "By the way Bill" on
his first night when he introduce himself that way, he was later called Blue
Ball Bill when he complained about a pain that lasted a few months.
Bill's wife read the front page article on The
cover of the Sun Newspaper and had him call the King.
During our trip to Toronto
in 2006, Bill brought out some old
Canadian friends to play with
us. Darren Lamont called Dexterous
Daren and Lu Pinet, now known as
Leapin Lu.
(He is the one sitting behind Hitman with his back on the Electrical box) They
had so much fun with us in their home town, that they joined us on our Phoenix
Road trip in 2008. After playing 3 games in 4 days, Lu was signing his
e-mails with Limpin Lu.
Behavior
Bruce “Disco Bear” Schmitz danced his way to a
name at a Duffer New Year's Eve party years ago. Boris
“Hacksaw” Pavichevich exposed a 20 inch scratch on his back when he
removed his shirt. He got that when he scratched his back with a
hacksaw blade. Boris is also known as Mr. Clean.
John
“Cone” Koss gets his name when he plays defense.
He was called “Anti-Koss” last week when he complained about too much ice
time. Lorenzo "Sanchez" Dibaco
got that tag for no special reason, other than to irritate him, he took it
well. Bill
“Alien” Allen is out there, he has problems adjusting to planet earth.
Larry
“The Goon” Hansen is a Hansen Brother. Ed
“Anvil” Hawrysio and his son Nick
DeJesus. Bob
“Geek” Friedlander, Joe
“Papa Joe” "The Judge" "The Barber" Mazzarella, Joe Jr. "Skeeter"
Mazzarella. Joe Jr. Picked up "Cowboy"
in Pittsburgh and "GI JOE" when he showed up a few times in his U.S.
Military Desert Uniform.
Joe's Son "Joe 3"
became a dues paying member in 2013. Gene
“Thor” Miller was named after the
God of Thunder
that is caused by his love of sliders!
Tumblin
Terry Nance falls a lot. A.K.A. Crash.
Jeff "Speed
Racer" Lopatka got his nickname by skating too fast for conditions. He
brought his friend
Brian "Fuzzy"Stewart
to the Duffers when we went to Detroit in 2015.Papa Joe
found out that there are three ways to get in the Duffer News.
-
Score a meaningful goal
-
Do something stupid
-
Be a judge at the Randolph Science fair (No longer works, since
Beak retired)
Joe Evans was tagged "Face Plant" in
Nashville when he was just learning how to skate. He went on to win the Klinger
Krash award for his face plant after dropping the puck in the face off
circle. A year later, several guys started calling him Drago, because he looked
like the Russian Boxer who starred in
the 1985 Rocky IV.
Go to Duffers History
The Docs at work
You
can e-mail History updates to Beak.
Duffer
road trips