Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Suds vs Suckas

Schlitz (21) vs Windsuckers
Monday March 1st
Bavis Arena 9:30pm

1-0 Loss


Ok, we've got a pair of great guest bloggers for this one.... so lets hear from them.
First up is Mike Campbell who had this summary of the night's actions.
Heres Mike:
Yes, Suds vs. Suckas.

The timeline is a little fuzzy, and as you know, I'm not so good a writah, but here's my story... and I'm stickin' to it.

Campbell and Reynolds along with special-guest-star-who-did-a-great-job-and-I-think-we-might-keep-him-back-here-on-D-like-we-did-Reynolds Goody made up the ice-hogging D-Trio. Not sure of the forward lines (although someone in the locker room afterwards referred to one of them as the "good" line - as in "Why didn't we put the good line out at the very end?" - but since there were no goals scored by anyone, it was really hard to tell which was the "good" line.), but the O was made up of Baker, Bell, Pounds, Capraro, Shah and Underhill.

These 'sucka guys are pretty good - with one, maybe two hot-shots and not a lot of weakness. Good C, maybe B level skater with Orange socks (whom we shut down). They also have a beastly, gargantuan goalie, that gives up VERY little net, hence the lack of goals on our part. That said, we gave them a damn good run for their money. Lots of end-to-end action, with very few (dare I say, none?) defensive breakdowns. I don't think they ever got an odd-man rush, never mind a break-away. Their one goal was scored in the second period, after Brian had made a nice glove save, one of their guys (23, I think?) gave his glove a good whacking, eventually knocking the puck out, and bashing the begeesus out of Brian's thumb. It only got more chippy from there...

Reynolds took a hit in the back in the offensive end, and let his guy know he didn't like it. Their resident big-guy with the beard chimed in and told Mark to suck it up, and I told him to f-himself, so the four of us had a little time in the box to cool off. Baker got hit so hard with an uncalled butt-end that he gave the ref a demo of what he had missed. The demo was so good that the ref actually flinched, giving us all a little chuckle. There were a few more hits, and grunts and poundings, and Reynolds and I each went to the Bin of Sin one more time. I don't remember any other calls against us.

They had a few other good chances. At least one off the post, and another one went in JUST after the whistle blew... although Brain will tell you he let that one in, after hearing the whistle. I'm not sayin' anything else about that.

We played better later in the game. We finally figured out that the puck wouldn't go in on its own, and we brought some good pressure, lots of shots and a few chances, but none of them cashed out. I got a little desperate and ended up on the ground, in the crease with the puck in the palm of my glove, so I tried to stuff it in by hand, and even that didn't work. It gave us all another laugh, though.

All in, one goal for the bad guys, none for the hops. Almost every penalty matched, and everyone skated hard. A few beers at the Blacktop Café sealed it as a good time in Rockland, despite the loss.
Good luck tonight boys.
~ Mike
Alright! Thank you Dr. Campbell... your words are always appreciated.
The blogger got another summary on this one, from frequent contributer Mark Reynolds. Here's Mark:
Close game Mon night, but the Windsuckers got the best of the Schlitz in a 1-0 loss.

The lineup was:
Brian in Net
Forwards
Pete-Neil-Blake
Scott-Larry-Steve
Defensive Trio
Goodie-Campbell-Reynolds

The only goal came after a wicked slash to Brian's thumb on his blocker side. There definitely should have been a whistle and a penalty. Instead, the puck bounced out and ended up in our net during the scrum. Overall, Brian played an outstanding game, and as usual, saved our collective arses with some tough saves.

The game got a bit chippy in the second. Imagine that against the Windsuckers. Reynolds gets checked hard into the boards from behind and takes physical exception with the offender. With a crowd of Windsuckers encircling Reynolds, Campbell jumps in on to cover his teammate's ass (thanks again Mike). Now two out of three Schlitz defenseman are in the box for roughing (matching with Windsuckers).

The Schladaveurs penalty leaders were at it again. In the third, Campbell went for roughing and Reynolds for checking.

Both teams played a tight game. The Schlitz passed better than usual and did a good job of controlling the puck in the defensive zone. Our forwards had lots of SOG in the 3rd period. We just couldn't put the puck in the net.

Our defensive trio was solid for the entire game. We didn't allow a single break away and only a few 2-on-1's, which the Schlitz handled well. Watch out Goodie; if you keep playing D like that, you'll end up as a full timer.
Thanks again to the forwards that hustled on the back-check.

Kudos to Blake for his best game of the year. He played excellent positional hockey, passed puck intelligently, and battled hard every shift. Pete played his usual balls to the wall style and was especially effective in the neutral zone. Larry, Steve, and Neil set the pace of Schlitz play in the offensive zone. The Dr's long reach kept the puck from leaving offensive zone on many occasions. He also had some quality SOG himself.

The Schlitz would sure like to have this game back again.

2 comments:

iJosh said...

Blacktop Cafe? I like. I may have to plagiarize that one.

Mike said...

It was already plagarized in its use here. All rights released.