Suds beat Clinic (whew) @ UMass

Schlitz (18) vs Clinic

Tuesday February 2nd

UMass Boston 9:20pm

4-2 Win

Nothing on this. Well... almost nothing.

We won 4-2. AK had 2 goals, Nelson, Gregson and Elliot with 1 goal each. Neil and Larry with an assist each... and thats about it.

Glad we won. Anyone with any recolection of this game is welcome to comment. Really... please? Anything at all...

Suds Clash with Clinic Game 1

Schlitz (24) vs Clinic
Tuesday March 17th
Dedham 9:20pm

4-4 Tie



The Suds were the first up on the St.Patty’s day Dedham Doubleheader, and took to the ice with a 3 game win streak to protect. There was some decent optimism in the room before the game, given the opponent, and everyone felt pretty good about our recent success.

Now, as game time approached there were not quite as many bodies in the room as management had hoped for. There had been several drop outs during the course of the day, but there was still some hope some extra bodies might just appear from under the rainbow… no luck. There were a hearty 9 ready to go when Campbell opened the door to the room. He was scheduled to only skate the nightcap but quickly donned his gear (forsaking the beers in his bag that he had planned on drinking while watching us…good man) and joined the crew to make an even 10.

So this is how it broke down.
Lizzy in net.
D1: Campbell, Reynolds
D2: Jeff, Elliott
O1: Nelson, Capraro, Fitzpatrick
O2: iJosh, Ken/Mitch, Scott
I think.

Firstly let it be noted, this Clinic squad was a bit fiestier than the average group we are used to. I’m just saying that there were a few more guys on the team that were clearly not just learning to play. Now… regardless of that the Golden Beercans didn’t make the best show of things in the early going.
There were some chances for the Gold, even a few shifts that stayed in the Clinic end and showed some solid promise. However… the game stayed 0-0 for the first 5-7 minutes. Then after a brief scramble in our end the Clinic D sent a nice shot through traffic (and a slight screen) that found the net. Gold down 1-0. Hrm.
To make matters worse, the Clinic would strike again, not more than 2 shifts later. This time a forward not picked up through the low post who made a very nice shot that beat Liz for a 2-0 lead. Double Hrmmm. Despite the verbal courage extolled on the bench the Beercans didn’t come up with anything. The period ended 2-0 Red.
The start of the 2nd wouldn’t bring any more good news for the Cans. The Clinic would score AGAIN, I don’t recall the exact circumstances but the Gold was certainly deflated being down 3-0 early in the second to a team they had hoped to spank.
At this point some of the crew for the second game was filter in and shaking their heads at the scoreboard and watching from the glass.
Finally the Gold would wake up and put a few plays together. Firstly Matty Elliot, who played a very solid game at D, scored on a nice shot, assisted by Pete Capraro. The ice was finally broken, and it wouldn’t take long for the thaw to continue. Next up would be Mark Reynolds who would do his best DWH or Stephan impression with a beauty of an end to end rush that ended up in a niffty shot that would bring the cans within a goal. 2-3. The roll would continue as the hard work of both iJosh and Ken would pay off, when iJosh would feed Ken in front for a nice goal that would tie the game. The Gold were downright excited to be back in the game and were clearly jumping to the puck a bit better than the early part of the game.
A good example would be the play of Ken/Mitch who did some nice work both in the offensive zone keeping the play alive, but more importantly a tremendous backcheck that saved a possible goal. Ken was called for the play but it was totally worth it, and great work by him to prevent the chance.
It was a game going down the stretch. A pretty even affair going back and forth in the 3rd period. The Clinic would show that they were not just pushovers and would land another goal to gain back the lead as time became short in the 3rd.
Once again, the blogger is glad to say, the Gold responded. Who do you think nutted it up, gave a little extra effort and willed the puck in the net… I’ll give you 2 guesses… go ahead… guess. Hey! You’re right (or you should have been). Nelson Sharfman would show why he is THE MAN and would simply push the play to the net relentlessly until the puck was in the net and the game was tied, now with less than 5 minutes remaining.
At the very least some dignity was preserved here but the game would end in a tie, 4-4. Not really the way we wanted to start the double header, but hey… at least we didn’t lose.
I’m not doing game stars for this one… but we will have some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention1: Nelson. Dude just makes it happen when he needs to. THE MAN.
Honorable Mention2: Matt Elliot, another very solid D performance. Thanks for helping out.
Honorable Mention3: Ken/Mitch. A nice hard work goal and a penalty to boot!
Honorable Mention4: Campbell for joining us… when he could have been drinking. Thanks.

iJosh was nice enough to send along some items as well....
"Pete and I were in sync all night. Pete shoulda, coulda, woulda on a quick pass and shoot. He had open net, but give the goalie credit, he get the blocker on the puck and screamed "No soup for you!!!". Chances were there for the two of us, but the hockey gods were not on our side for this one.

Mitch however had the hockey gods smile at him as he planted himself perfectly in front of the net. After the Clinic took a little too much time getting to me just off to the side of the net, with Capraro just in front of me wide eyes toward the net and Mitch just beyond (with the slightly better position) I slide the puck to Mitch who promptly buried it to tie the game."
Thanks Josh!

Zombies Eat the Clinic

Cadavers (3) vs Clinic

Tuesday October 21st

UMass 10:30pm

11-0 win

Woah. So that sounds like it went well.

Here is Guest Blogger Extraordinaire iJosh with the breakdown.

Well it was a whirlwind of scoring last night with a total of 11 goals by both teams. Of course most, actually all of them were scored by the Dead in Red.
Due to the fact that we played the Clinic Team, this one wasn't even close. The Zombies controlled the game almost from the outset and until the final whistle blew. And speaking of blowing, we were at UMass once again. That certainly blew.
To start the game the Cads would dress: On Defense - Valenti and Matt Elliott, Capt George and Mike Daley. The wing pairs would be: Mark Reynolds and Rookie Mike Fitzpatrick, Roman and Matvey, Gregson and Dr. Pounds with the two man center rotation of Larry and iJosh.
Play started with the rookie ref (as explained to us by the other ref) dropping the puck, who apparently got into a fight with a puck earlier this week and had a nice shiner to show for it. He claims the puck took the worst of it though. The first shift would see probably the one and only major rush by the Clinic team as the puck would squirt out to center ice and Clinic would take a shot, have it stop dead on the ice (nice cooling system there UMass) where Brian would have easily scooped it up. Instead the clinic was able to make a another swipe on the puck and Brian would have to scurry to stop the shot. Right after that the Red would put on a clinic for the Clinic. There are far too many goals to remember exactly how they were score so here is the short version.
Mark Reynolds would tuck one in from Matvey at 3:00. Larry would finish off George's rush for his first of the night at 13:00. Reynolds would tip one over the goalie from iJosh at 13:30. And Larry would take the puck away from the Clinic and beat the goalie for his second (unassisted) of the night at 15:30. At the end of period 1 it would be 4-0 Cads.
The second period would see more of the same. George would finally get to finish off his own work by putting one home unassisted at 1:30. At 5:59 Deb Johnson* who did not come out of retirement and play, scored from Dr. Pounds. There would be a bit of a lull as the Cads would not score for a grand total of 10 minutes and 31 seconds. So at 16:30, Matt Ciciari* who came out of thin air, scored from the Original Stat Whore** himself, Larry Bell. The period would end with the Cads holding a commanding 7-0 lead.
At about the time the Cads went up 6-0 Marc Valenti suggested that maybe it would be a good idea, in the name of fairness, to have the defensemen play up and have some of the forwards play back. The newly arranged D corps would be: iJosh & Reynolds, Gregson & Matvey. Roman volunteered to play center as soon as iJosh vacated his spot on the O, causing some people to question who is indeed the team's Stat Whore.
Summarizing the 3rd period best I can: Larry would score again at 2:29.
Larry would again strike just 30 seconds later. The D line of iJosh and Mark Reynolds played a very conservative band of defense, sending the puck in deep to the corners and simply playing keep away. Essentially still play the game but with less offensive aggression. But it still could not slow the scoring. This time OEJ* jumped on the ice and took a pass from Dr. Pounds at 4:29. Finally closing out the scoring would be rookie Fitzy as he would put one home, helped by Capt George. So in the end the Cads would prevail with an 11-0 rout of the Clinic team.

That being said a few notes and acknowledgments need to be mentioned:
1st:: Kudos to Mr. Valenti for the suggestion that we mix things up.
Even though it did not slow up the scoring much, it was the right and fair thing to do.
2nd: Um, there is no need for stat whoring against this team. Play hard, give them a challenge. We are going to put up a lot of goals, but don't cross the line of good taste.

3rd: A golf clap to their goalie. He got pestered with shots all night. The Cads were hitting the point and Valenti, George and Mike Daley were driving shots at the net all night. Plus the offense put tremendous pressure on him at times. He is a decent goalie, but the Clinic team just doesn't know how to protect him yet. So good job by him.
4th: I hate UMass. Have I said that in previous postings?
5th: Thanks to Dr. Pounds and Larry for the beer.

* - None of those people actually played for us last night.
** - Larry's reign of holding the official title of stat whore might be coming to an end. So I will now dub him the Original Stat Whore so that he may at least hold some form of acknowledgment of that title forever.

Great job as always iJosh. Good work to the crew that played....

Keep in Mind the Suds go Thursday Night. Here is your roster....

Schlitz vs Last Call

Thursday October 23rd
10:30 West Roxbury

Campbell, Nelson Jeff, Ken, Stefan, Scott, Greg J,

Parker, Underhill, Chuck, Reynolds, Mike F., Schiller
Lizzy in Net

See you then.

Double header-Double wins against the Clinic.

Schlitz (19) vs. Clinic Maroon
Tuesday February 5th
UMass 9:20pm
9-1 Win.

Cadavers (21) vs Clinic Blue
Same night 10:30pm
5-1 Win.


Well how do you like that? The last two games to be played at the Prison by the Bay this season by ANY NESHL team's and its a double header starring US and the clinic... both Blue and Maroon. At least we made the most of it and had a good night all the way around by all the reports that have been coming in to the Blogger.
Two big blowout wins against a pair of Clinic squads that really... we should blow out.

Let's give it to the Guest Bloggers...
Matvey on Game 1: we had 12 skaters to start and then Nelson came in a little late, so we went with 3 full lines from the middle of the first period. Line that I was on was: Roman, Jasse and myself.
Then one line was centered by Nelson, I think he had Matt Eliot on a line and another center was Mike Daley. Scott, Peter and Killroy were the other wings.
D: Mike Campbell, Marc Valenti one pair
and then Dan and Dan another pair.
I think we started slowly, but it was 9-0 or so close to the end of the game and then they got several chance and magaged to score one late.
Final score was 9-1.
Scoring plays:
Our line had a good chemistry with Roman stepping by passing the puck :)
I scored a goal that was assisted by Roman and Jasse.
Jasse made a very nice pass to Roman who took a quick shot, but shot it into the sprawling goalie. I got to the rebound in time to flip it over the goalie.

Another goal was a nice play, Roman passing me the puck, I send it Jasse's way and Mike just flipped it behind the goalie.

One scoring play was Campbell taking a good shot from the point after getting a puck from Roman.

One more, Nelson winning a face off and in the same motion passing it to Eliott who took a quick shot and beatthe goalie.
There was one small altrecation and Peter was sent to the box as part of matching penalties. I think Peter was just trying to pick up some PIMs to get on a goon squad for the next Schlid.

Nice recap. Now we'll get some thoughts from Dr. Jasse:

Greg James-Freight Train Down the lane. A forward in a D's body. Played hard all night.Kept jumping into the o-zone with the puck and creating opportunities.

Mike Campbell was his usual hard-chargin' self. A bullet of a wrist shot for a goal. Lot of talking out there to his teammates; we need more players to communicate like he does.

Nelson-He only had like 17 goals I think. Played ass off as usual. Always setting the tone for his line-mates.

Matt Kilroy-some spectacular passes (one behind his back from his but). Set Pete C up with a sweet pass for a WIDE open net that.....well, we all remember Glen Wesley vs the Oilers.

Brian the goalie. Got some good zzzzz's the first game but played very solid in the second.

Marc V-what a cannon. When he has the puck at the blue line I'm usual camped out in front of the net in prayer, "Please don't hit me." Very solid 2-way game.

Thought Mike Hammit skated very well-continuous to get low hard shots on net or make plays from the point.The Russians-Brialliant passing and playmaking. They set me up for mine that my grandmother could have finished.

Excellent work. Major Kudos to both Matvey and Jasse and everyone else that chimed in with some info. I'm finishing this a long time after the fact so that's going to do it for this one. I leave you with some lasting momentos of our least favorite league venue...that with any luck we shall never visit again.