This is the end...

Schlitz (1-1) vs Wolverines (2-1)

Monday September 20th

UMass Boston 9:20pm

Blue Jackets Division Playoffs

Loss 4-1

The Suds second chance at Blue Jacket Division Playoff success came Monday night, curiously against the team we'd lost to just two days earlier on Friday. The Wolverines were back, fresh off a loss of their own on Sunday evening and the rematch was on at the Prison By the Bay.

The Wolver-marmots were well stocked for the second round and added a gigantic goaltender who by all accounts came in somewhere about six five. He played well. They also had some more players to add to their red helmet crew that played so well on Friday.
We aren't going to linger here.
This game just never got going well for the good guys.

Here's your roster courtesy of Dan Gregson:
The D was Hammett, Roman, Dan H. and Mark R.
Forward lines were Larry Ken D. and Nelson; Matt E. Steve and Mike D.

I floated through the lines.

It was a pretty good game, we had some good chances but couldn’t finish. Ken D. got a matching penalty, dwh got a penalty for being bad as well as Larry.

There were some room temperature beers left over from Friday night in my car that was better than no beer.
Thanks Dan.

Further analysis gave the breakdown like this:
2-0 after first

3-0 afte two

3-1 came back early 3rd
Goal Daley from Baker

4-1 final after they scored late in 3rd.

The house of horrors on Boston Harbor has never been really kind to us and this night was no exception as the Suds saw the last game of Summer 2010 slip away.

No finish, not much scoring and a decent opponent and it was oh-vah.

So that puts a cork in the summer season.

Thank you all for coming... last one out shut the lights out please.
See you in two weeks.

Suds go down to the Wolverine

Schlitz (3) vs Wolverines (2)
Friday September 17
Quincy 9:30pm Blue Jackets Division Playoffs


4-3 Loss



The skating Beercans continued to look for playoff glory as they met the Wolverines in Quincy for a rare Friday night Playoff Treat. Management scrounged together a roster but was shy of the full 13 we like to have, and unfortunately we didn't even have ten when the game began.
Team Suds went to war with the Michigan Wannabees with 9 and a good attitude. AK would show late in the first and would make us a nice even ten. For some reason Ken was in an email time warp and didn't get that the game was in Quincy... so after a short visit to the BU rink he made it to us in time to contribute.

Here is your Schlitz Roster
Lizzy in Net
D1: DWH and iJosh
D2: Daley and Jeff
O1: Baker, AK, Gregson
O2: Nelson, Jasse, and Roman
or something like that. The forwards shuffled quite a bit...

The game was a pretty even match. The Wolvies had their yellow shirts on (aren't they supposed to be Big Blue?) so team Beercan skated as the Dead in Red which threw off the scorekeeper but after some explanation... we got it together.

The Wolverines have some older dudes but in general are a pretty young club. The certainly had a pair of guys that needed minding, 20 and 19 both with red helmets and wheels. The Red Suds would have to keep an eye when and where they were on the ice all night.
Play got going and it looked decent for the Red early on. DWH was already in good form making chances and controlling the play in our end. Dan would wind up a beauty and would get the first goal of the game unassisted with that nice shot.
Unfortunately Yellow would come right back on the next shift about a minute later and tie the game. It was obvious from early on this one was going to be a good matchup and a back and forth battle.

Red would strike again 10 minutes into the period when Baker and Daley would put on a passing clinic in the Yellow end. A nice zip zap zip and Baker would bury the chance for a 2-1 lead. This held until the closing seconds of the first when 20 for Yellow would get loose in our end and would bury his own nice shot (unassisted) and it was tied 2-2 at the end of one.
If the blogger is reading the hashmarks at the bottom of the scoresheet correctly the Red Suds outshot the Yellow badgers 6 to 4. Its not often we get a scorekeeper that does shots...

The Second was more back and forth and the Red kind of found their groove now that AK had shown up and we had 2 full lines to rotate. Just 2 minutes into the frame Nelson would feed Roman right out front and the Red would go back up 3-2. The Red would continue to get good chances as the period went on. The Yellow keeper did a fair job turning away chances and Lizzy was holding tight on our end. The Red definitely had more chances but the inevitable came 10 minutes in when Yellow 20 (again) would break one off after a scramble in our end. The game was tied again and despite a Yellow penalty in the closing minutes the Red couldn't get anything else to fall and the Second ended 3-3. Again according to the hash marks the Red out chanced the Yellow 9 to just 5.

The third period didn't keep the same pace as the first two as both teams slowed a bit. Yellow seemed to take advantage of this a bit better than the Red and less than 2 minutes into the period they would strike (21 from 19 & 22) to take a 4-3 lead. Yellow was doing a strong job of counterpunching the Red and it was getting harder to keep things going.

Despite that the comeback climb was on. The Red Cans would rally and press the play and with about 9 minutes left in the game Nelson would slide the puck under the keepers pads and it would creep across the line for the tie. Doctor Jasse on the assist who had been camped out front after getting a handful of good chances himself.
Down the stretch they came, now tied 4-4 and both teams pressing. In this period the shot differential was much closer and for the first time all night Yellow out shot Red 10-9.
You could kind of see it coming friends, as you may have had the feeling while reading this that the inevitable collapse was on the way and with less than 2 minutes on the clock it came.
20 (what a surprise) would set up 11 and they would bang bang close the door on this game with a go ahead goal. Despite stacking a line and pulling Lizzy the Red Cans couldn't get anything going like they had on Monday night and there was no golden last second goal.
Too bad. 5-4 loss and a trip to the "losers" bracket for the rest of the way for the Suds.

4th period Kudos to Dr. Jasse and Gregson who both brought tastey beverages.

Props to our two young fans the Greenstein boys Elliot and Lewis who cheered and shivered all night for the cause. Thanks for coming guys!

TONIGHT QUINCY SUDS VS WOLVS

Schlitz (3) vs Wolverines (2)
Friday September 17th
Quincy 9:30pm
Blue Jackets Division Playoffs

Courtesy of the BIG OVERTIME WIN on Monday the Suds will face off tonight against the number 2 seed Wolverines in Quincy for a chance to advance in the D level playoffs. The Wolverines come in 1-0 thanks to a 5-2 drubbing they gave the Scapegoats last week. We've seen this team not that long ago and things didn't go great.

The Beercans will need a big effort to keep the run going tonight.

Here is your roster so far.

Lizzy in Net
Roman
iJosh
Nelson
Jeff
Jasse
Hammitt
Gregson
Herbert
Daley
Douville
Baker
*Reynolds – 30/70 odds of making it… (flying in this afternoon)
*Parker – asked
*Matvey – asked

Lets get a strong turn out here and get something going against those rodents!

Suds Beat Cats in OT!

Schlitz (3) vs Tigers (6)

Blue Jackets Division Playoffs

Monday September 13th

HinghamC 1030pm

4-3 OT WIN!

The Schlitz took to the ice for their first Playoff game of the Summer season on Monday night against old friends El Tigre and turned in a strong effort, and exciting performance for a big win. This was Larry's Suds squad from waaaay back at the end of the season and the team took the ice with a fair amount of optimism, despite the dreadful clang that the Cads made as they lost their one and out playoff game a week ago.

Here's what the crew looked like at game time.

Lizzy in Net.

D1: DWH and Bauer

D2: Campbell and Jeff

O1: Baker, Mitch and AK

O2: Nelson, Jasse and Larry

O3: Gregson, Daley, and Roman.

A good looking line up to face old rival the Tigers who looked to have 9 or 10 on this night, some decent talent but no ringers and definitely down a few of their better stars. One noticeable absence was their captain, the guy that wears number 8 and has a set of stylish cooperalls. He's a great player and thankfully was nowhere to be seen on Monday night.

The game got going and it was clear from early on that the Gold could have their way with things if they played hard and kept after the feisty Red shirts.

Unfortunately Team Kitty would strike first. This after Mike and Jeff discussed the "man to watch" (number 3) and Jeff professed that he "had 'im" only to lose track of him, right in front of the net where he took a pass and buried a shot from 5 feet. Tigers 1-0 after just 2 minutes.

The Gold was bringing it though and the crew played very well all the way around. Despite some Zebra trouble early for Dr. Campbell (2 penalties in the first) we were able to generate some decent offense. Eric Bauer actually went first for checking not long after the Tiger goal. No bloods on the penalty and in fact the Gold did a good job keeping the play in the Red end despite being a man down. Campbell then went 6 minutes later for his first and this time the penalty kill would be so good it came out +1. And by that I mean Dan "with hands" Herbert would collapse a nice play and take a pass from Mike Daley and put it home to tie the game with about 7 minutes to go in the first.
Campbell would take his second on practically his next shift and he would clearly have to be careful for the rest of the night if he wanted to stick around. Again the PK came up strong and got several good chances on Team Tigre. The first would end tied 1-1.

The second would see lots of good things from the Gold. The forwards were cycling, gathering handfulls of scoring chances. The Tiger keeper deserves some props for standing tall. He wasn't spectacular but he was solid and kept the game tied.
Unfortunately about five minutes into the second Red would get a nice breakaway chance when the Gold D had pinched and scored to take back the lead 2-1. The rest of the period would play out with the only exception of Red taking a penalty about 8 minutes in. No blood on the power play and again the PK held the advantage 1-0 over the PP. ... if you take my meaning...
But despite the good things happening all over the ice the Gold had not much to show on the scoreboard. Daley and Roman showed some nice moves while working together. DWH was a force all night controlling the play and getting chances offensively. All the forwards were changing quick and getting good pressure. Despite all this the second would end with the Suds down 2-1.

The third would certainly start in the right way for Team Beercan and the hard work of the Larry, Nelson Jasse line would start to pay off. Three minutes into the third Campbell would send a shot in and Jasse would feed the rebound to Nelson who would bury it to tie the game 2-2. The Gold felt like they were in business. Unfortunately the good feeling, and time in the Red end didn't translate into goals. The game was getting late. Under 10, under 5 minutes left and still tied 2-2. Then a breakdown hurt the gold. Again giving up a rush the Tigers would break fast and score a nice goal on a hard shot with just over 2 minutes left in the game.
The Gold was down but there was no head hanging. Just hard skating and effort.
With 33 seconds Gold took "time" and Lizzy went to the bench. The cans would put this group on the ice. Daley, AK, Roman and Baker with Campbell and Jeff.
The following faceoff resulted in the puck in the neutral zone but the gold took it into the zone with less than 15 seconds left. Here's where things get crazy.
Baker would send the puck low from the left side. AK would send a shot that ended up with Mike Daley behind the net. Less than 5 seconds now. Magic Mike Daley would walk out to the crease get one shot off that hit the side and came back, another shot off the pads and back, the third time he deposited the puck in the twine. When the D looked up the clock said 1.3 seconds. Tie game and now that meant OVERTIME.
Hard to remember the last time we had and OT game for the playoffs... but maybe the blogger is just fuzzy. Anyway... after Jeff explained to the Zeebs that it was a playoff game... off we went.
Now. We couldn't just have Overtime. Our old sour pussed friend, Zeebra number 2 would make sure to give us a little twist. He would call Mike Daley (of all people) for a hold just 50 seconds into the overtime period. Luckily this was just the boost that the Gold was looking for. The PK had played great earlier and now late was no different. They would get good chances all the way along and the penalty had just ended when this was the setup on the ice.
DWH and Bauer at the points. Jasse, Nelson and Larry up front. The play kept in the Red end DWH was pressing the play into the zone, so much so, in fact that the bench was yelling for someone to cover the point. Larry would get a nice shot off and the rebound would come right to Dr. Jasse. The good Doc would line up the slapper and would connect. Only trouble was it would be slow wobbler that would end up out front. Not his intention but it all ended well when DWH would scoop it up and wrist it home for the W. I. N..
The Schlitz poured off the bench to congratulate the guys on the ice. Lots of smiles and pats on the back and a good feeling to end the night with.

Game Stars
3rd Star: 2 helpers for the Good Doctor Jasse. Dr. Jasse with only 3 games played this summer is sporting a sick 5 assists on his scoring total. Nice work in short time Doc. Attaboy.

2nd Star: Magic Mike Daley. The man with the knack for scoring timely goals. That's a couple at least the Blogger can recall this season, the first being a game winner in the closing seconds against the Leafs. Great work all night by the rangey center... and once again... terrific goal with 1.3 seconds to send the game to OT. Incredible it only gets him the 2nd star... because...

1st Star: Dan with bleepin Hands Herbert baby. Long tall and dangerous was on the prowl all night making plays and scoring MASSIVE goals. Nice work.

Honorable Mention1: Lizzy played great making big stops when needed in the third.

Honorable Mention2: AK for playing great all night making things happen and also not losing the show when hauled down with no call right in front of the Gold bench in the third. Good work.

Talk about a good feeling. Nice cold adult beverages were served in the post game parking lot courtesy of Campbell and the Dans, and a very pleasant postgame ensued. Nothing major for a Monday night but it was a big win and there was lots to discuss.

Pictured here would be the Campbell Declared Last Limey of Summah. Sad to see it go...

Zombies Rung Up by Preds

Cadavers vs Predators
Wildcard Playoff Game
Canadiens Division Playoffs
Thursday Sept 2nd
10:30pm Hingham C

8-4 loss


The Cadavers, Mark's Gold squad from the final 'Daveur, took the Hingham ice last night for a Wild Card Playoff Game against the Predators. There was a bunch of scrambling Wednesday as to how to determine who was playing, as what team and when.

It was ironed out in an 11th hour management boardroom crunch session that Larry's Red squad would be awarded a phony "win" in the Schlidaveur as they had scored twice and it had not been seen or called by the game officials. This gave Larry the choice of which club to play as. He chose the Schlitz, playing as a 3 seed in the Blue Jackets Division.

That meant we had to throw together a roster for Mark's team, now the Cadavers to play in a "one and out" wild card play-in game. The urgency to make it to the double elimination round was palpable, especially since a bunch of guys on this roster couldn't skate.
This is what we ended up with on the ice Thursday night.
Brian "long arm of the law" Carey in Net
D1:Teddy Locke, and George
D2:Reynolds and Valenti
O1: Baker, iJosh and Seaver
O2: Nelson, Parker and Elliot
O3: Capraro, John Carey and Dr.Pounds
Our gal Lizzy was scorekeeper for the night.

Now. We had a slight case of "over manegment" here. Jeff in his haste to put together a solid 13 actually ended up as number 14 when Kevin Parker (the forgotten forward) came through the door as the 'boni was circling the rink. Jeff quickly undressed fetched himself a beer and a waterbottle and headed to the bench. Too bad for the rest of the guys who had to listen to him the rest of the night. Usually he's too busy wheezing to say much.
Anyhow... the game.
It was clear from very early on that the Preds had some added talent for the evening. A generic green shirt with a weak white tape 11 on the back and no face shield was clearly a stand out. The Dead in Red would spend most of the night chasing him around and just trying to contain him.
He could move any way he wanted at whatever speed and pretty much scored at will when he needed to. #2 on D was not far off from his level. Clearly, from the start it was going to be a long night.

I'm here to tell you friends that there was a little Zombie Pride going on out there and the guys in Red did the best they could with the situation at hand. Brian played great. He was tested constantly and early.

Number 6 from Green would get things going at exactly the one minute mark into the first with a sick double move then a wrister that was like a lazer to go up 1-0. The Red would try to take the play right back but had limited success. Frustration was already setting in as Parker would go for a slashing call at 14 minutes. The Red would survive the penalty and play tough. The Green would take a penalty for a high stick at about 1230 but no scoring on the penalty.

Marc "back from hiatus" Valenti would unleash a slapper at the 11 minute mark that their keeper had to make a big save on. Nice to see that slapper... Brian Carey would make a pair of excellent saves at the 10 minute mark that showed he was bringing it and hanging in there.


Then John Carey would score on a very nice lifted backhand shot from Scott Pounds at 7:40 and the game was tied 1-1. The Green would then ramp it up and came with the big guns again and they would take back the lead 4 minutes later when 2 would score after doing this ridiculous drag move at the blue line and fired a sniper shot from 30 feet. This was followed by the 8 and 11 show a minute later for a more comfortable 3-1 lead.
Red would take another penalty, Scott for a trip at the 1 minute mark and 11 would cap the period off with another goal in the closing seconds that would make it 4-1 at the end of the first.
Really things went off the rails about then. The Red roster was frustrated and starting to get mouthy. All agreed that the only way to handle it was to work hard and play the best we could. If douchebag 11 superfuckingstar wanted to score 17 he probably could. All we could do was play as best we could to combat the talent disparity. For the most part everyone did that. All the guys gutted it out and the second passed for a long time with no scoring. Red would send Parker to the box, then Teddy would go but still Red held on. Green would take the next 2 penalties but one was a matching with Valenti and still no scoring.
Green would of course score next at 630 but the Red would answer not 35 seconds later when Matty Elliot would drill a nice shot from the high slot to put up the second tally for the Zombies. All this meant was the big guns were back out and 11 made short work of getting the goal right back in less than a minute.
Baker would take a trip to the box, not without yapping his face off and Green would send one more and the period would end 6-2 Green. Just as a point in recap, we had 4 penalties in that period, and really the refs did us a favor by giving green 3.
Green would, predictably open the period with another goal. This time from 8.
Then Pete Capraro would land a beauty of a shot, again the helper from the Good Dr. Pounds for the 3rd Red goal. Not long after that Jay Seaver would weave his way over the line and pull up and score unassisted on a brilliant shot for the 4th Red goal.
Green would take 3 total penalties in the third, the Zeebs still working with us but we couldn't help ourselves. Baker continued the verbal onslaught.

Three quick examples.

First. iJosh comes out of the zone hollering about being slashed and swearing away and the taller Ref turns and yells "are you talking to me?!?" at which point the ENTIRE bench says "No hes not talking to you." Classic.

Secondly. George goes into the corner with a forward. They lock arms and tumble down. The tall ref is close by. The two get up and head back up ice and George can't help himself and he starts screaming at the ref for not calling something. The Ref pulls the whistle out and calls George, who goes to the box with steam pouring out of his ears like Yosemite Sam with a hockey helmet.

Third. At one point Jeff was holding on to Valenti who was about to go down the bench to stuff something in Baker's mouth which apparently just wouldn't stop working... There were thoughts of Dave Wheeler and Jamie Campbell running in his head. Marc wasn't the only one trying to impress on Steve that his mouth wasn't helping the situation.

The game would close out just as ugly as it had gone. Seaver gets caught up with a guy who gives him a shot and he boils over and takes a punch at the prick and he gets tossed.
Just to close things out old pall 11 would score once more in the final minute to make it 8-4 and put the Zombies to bed.
A truly frustrating night.

Jeff would approach the shorter ref after the handshakes and officially protested the game and basically called "bullshit" on number 11. There was a multiple email conversation with the league office during the day on Friday but (however predictably) there was no action taken against the Predators. Accoring to the leauge all their guys played that season. Funny to imagine that club having a 6-6-3 record with that kind of talent.
Grr.
The only bright spot was the parking lot postgame. Valenti and Jeff brought a few cold ones. Lizzy joined us for a brew, and new fan Heather came along with iJosh for the night and joined the apres skate. Warm night and cold beer couldn't wash away the bitterness of this one though.
Lets hope that Team Beercan fares better.