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.