Zombie Pride... Iced by the Freeze

Cadavers (10) vs Deep Freeze
Sunday July 20
Dedham 10:30pm

5-1 loss.


Ahh Summer. Cookouts, swimming in the ocean, barbeques, pools, beer, wine, grilled fish, backyard get togethers, burgers and dogs, cold beers after mowing the lawn, the sundrenched beaches with kids and coolers, and yes.. at 10:30pm in Dedham last night, Cadavers hockey. Despite the fact that our roster tried to do all of those fun summer things…. in the afternoon preceeding our game last night, the Skating dead turned in a lively performance against our division rival the Deep Freeze. The blogger has at least 3 things on that list for starters. Hell… I did 2 of them on the way to the game.
The point is that the Dead in Red showed up last night, we weren’t terribly successful but after all that a summer Sunday has to offer, and considering how old we all are there was an acceptable level of Zombie pride from everyone in a Cads uni last night. Unfortunately our new division rival showed up in legion.
The Freeze has developed into a nice club without really many or any breakthrough players, they have two things that are like Kryptonite to the Zombies; namely youth and legs. Nothing particuarly fancy about what they did, but they certainly had enough to put it over on our suntanned, beer soaked hydes. No excuses here, they outworked us, played smart and passed well. The five that they got were all well gained and usually came at the end of solid plays that had clearly beaten a broken down defense.
All this being said there was plenty of Zombie pride on display throughout the game. The towel was not tossed at any time, this best exemplified by Dan Gregson’s break through goal just before time expired in the game to break the Freeze shutout.
Lizzy hung in there all night, making a number of very good saves, many in sequence, and most importantly kept her head in the game from start to finish. It doesn’t look like it from the final score but Lizzy turned in an excellent, gritty performance, giving us plenty of chances to stay in the game, that really felt much closer than the score sheet showed.
It felt like a tight nine, a brotherhood that showed for this one. The blogger felt a sense of that when he pulled in to see Campbell and Jasse reading notes in the parking lot pregame. Lets face it… this game could very easily be very poorly attended. As Kirloy said in the parking lot “everyone here probably had a better offer at home” tonight. Despite that the teammates were there to represent. The blogger offers props to all of you who played last night.
The forwards broke down like this. Matt Elliot centered Mark Reynolds, and Dan Gregson, and the Physicians line of Jasse centering Drs Pounds and Kilroy. The D was manned by Campell, Jeff and Marc Valenti. and Lizzy backstopped.
The game was scoreless for a long time as the two squads felt each other out. The Freeze finally broke the deadlock with a nice pass and shot combo late in the first (certainly after midway through). The Red kept up the pace and tried to launch some type of offense.
The second went for some time as a one goal gap then the Freeze got a break on a high wobbler that found its way in to the top of the net. It wasn’t too long after that, that they would strike again to go up 3-0. But again the Red would hold them off for the rest of the period but would continue to struggle to get shots.
It weren’t for lack of trying for sure. Elliott did a great job with faceoffs all night winning more than his share. He and Gregson had a couple nice settups in the attacking zone off the drop that got good chances. Jasse played very well as a centerman also doing good work with his linemates Kilroy and Pounds. Kilroy had great effort all night (for a nine fingered dude..) even filled in a shift or two for Campbell on D (Mike had the only 2 penalties of the game for us). On one shift knocking himself silly into the boards after just missing a hit.
Valenti, Campbell and Jeff did pretty solid work…excepting those 5 goals… and had some good shifts for a weary trio. Campbell nominated Jeff for a mention for his play in the last 4 minutes. Jeff had a pair of good chances, a clean break and shot that bounced off the keep, and another carreening rush into the zone that didn’t look pretty, or result in a quality chance, but left 3 or 4 guys in his wake.
Campbell had a few words with their better center #8 and that sounded like a very colorful discussion of each other’s sexual preference… or something. Good work by the D guys, despite a tought night on the scoreboard. Lots of effort. Well that’s about it from here. Tough way to start the week…hungover on the train… feeling very old.

No Game Stars.

Honorable mentions to Lizzy, Elliot and Jasse, the the D trio.