Suds and Preds tangle to a tie

Schlitz (16) vs Predators

Wednesday January 27

Dedham 10:10pm

3-3 Tie

An interesting evening in Dedham last night as the Suds would face Division Rival the Predators for a late evening game. Things didn't bode well at the very start as the Gold were almost entirely late for the pregame warmups. Thankfully enough guys were able to make it out and get some stretches in to start the game. The rest of the team would filter in over the first few minutes. We didn't have a whole 13 as was figured upon but decent numbers nonetheless... here's what we looked like

Lizzy in net

D1: Valenti, Goody

D2: Reynolds, Jeff

Offense: Roman and Neil as Centers

Wings: iJosh, Mitch, Matvey, Chris, AK, and Nelson.

First off lets say this. The Preds have some players. By my estimation they had probably 3 guys skating that were better than just about anyone on our roster. In the opening minutes the Blogger was thinking we'd need a great effort just to stay close... but looks may have been deceiving... The first settled into a decent back and forth with the Gold getting more chances than the Preds for the better part of the period.
The Gold would go to the box 2ice, first Roman then Jeff for a trip late in the period. The Preds also sent two to the box earlier on, but no scoring on those PPs. During the Jeff penalty Nelson would make a terrific steal and would rush in and score a great hard work goal that would put the Gold up 1-0 with 2 minutes left in the first.

The Gold wasn't done. Just after the penalty expired Chris Fosdick would score on a feed from Neil (who did some great work in the zone) and would increase the lead to 2 with 30 seconds left. But they STILL weren't done. Neil and Chris had such good results from their hard work that after the puck drop they went right at it again. Neil charging into the zone, wheeling and dealing to get a chance. Chris was there as everyone converged on the net and he jammed home the puck just before the horn blew for the end of the period.
Suddenly the Gold sat on a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period. Stunning, but we knew it would still take a lot of work to win the game.

The Green would come out gunning to open the second. They put out a stacked line that took less than a minute to score. Thankfully their momentum was slowed by another penalty just a few minutes later. The Gold would send AK to the box but the two teams would play back and forth without incident until late in the period. One of their no shield strong skaters, the Red helmeted number 8 would take the play right into Lizzy in the slot and then was tackled by Valenti... who did the right thing. Of course 8 then cries and whines like he's never been touched in his life and... get this... talks the ref into giving him a penalty shot. Unbelievable but true. So as time expired this douche would get his penalty shot which he made about 3 moves on and put behind Lizzy for the second goal. 3-2 after 2.

The Preds would continue to build momentum as they would open the third with the stacked line again and would score to tie the game just over a minute into the period. The Gold was disheartened but to their credit no one backed down and the effort was still strong as the game wound down.

There would be more penalties as Matvey would go after a standoff/pushfest with #2 (another big no shield dude) in the corner. Number 2 would end up pushing a ref and getting tossed. Matvey would go off for ... falling down I guess. Goody would tangle with #8 and they would go for matching roughs.

What it all came down to in the end was that the very frustrated and slightly more talented Predators did everything they could to get the game winner, but it wasn't going to happen. Lizzy made some great stops down the stretch. The D played great, and the Offense for the Gold just kept getting chances and keeping the puck in the the other end when they could. All in all a good tie to earn against a strong opponent.

No Stars for a tie... but good effort by all the skating Beercans on this night.

Cads vs Tigers Monday 1/25

Cadavers (16) vs Tigers
Monday January 25

Milton Acad 9:10

4-1 Win!

Its a familiar story and it comes around again this week. A Monday night matchup with El Tigre over at the Milton Academy rink. An unusually warm night for January and a nice result on the ice from the hard working Zombies in Yellow against a classic division rival.
As per usual we have a couple of guest blog entries to tell you all about the game. Here's Mike Campbell with a nice recap to lead us off:

"Big win for the Dead Beercans… We were gold, since the pussycats wear red, too.
D: Reynolds & me; DWH and Michigan Mike
O: I have no idea how they paired, but the following were in attendance: Nelson, Steve, Pete, AK, Big Dan, Blake, Scott, and Chuck.

Highlights – Well executed game all around; they didn’t have all of their talent, but they had a good chunk of it. Lizzy played very well in net, giving up only one goal, late in the game. I think we had four goals all in – I had one, although It ricocheted off AK’s foot; Nelson rolled one up the goalie’s arm, and it went it. DWH sent a looping saucer from the point, and maybe Steve had the last one.

Overall, good passing, pretty good break-outs, (although we sucked at that at times) and pretty good play in the defensive end. Disciplined play, except for Reynolds who had a bad day in the office, and went out with three penalties – the last one timed perfectly at 1:30 left in the third, and they just let him serve it. (I’m floating the “Mark Reynolds Award” idea… What say you?

Their goalie was great, but gave up enough for us to walk away with the win. I think win makes the Schlidaveur enterprise 4-0-2 since the holiday break. Good 2010 so far.

And the MAPD left us alone long enough to throw back a 12 pack in the parking lot on a balmy Milton evening. ~ Mike"

Thank you Dr. Campbell... good news all around. Thanks for the words this week. Next up we have another contribution... this time from the Cagey Vet himself... Nelson Sharfman.

Here's Nelson: 4-1 win

Goals by Angry Ken (assist by Campbell, shot from the point and tip in); Dan with hands (shot from the point, assist unknown); Mark Reynolds (assist by Nelson); Nelson (assist by Steve)

Strong team effort across the board on this one. Good win, good game. We had more skaters than they did AND WE ACTUALLY WORE THEM DOWN. This is the first time I have ever seen our team use the extra skaters to our advantage. Rumor is that Tigre was missing a good player or two. Whatever. The line of Neil, AK, and Big Dan was a joy to watch. Plenty of hustle and they generated several chances. Strong game by Lizzie in net. Both defense pairs were strong. Excellent overall team defense. Shots were minimized. Lots of back checking.

Mark collected three penalties in the game, but the last was with less than 1:30 left in the game so the ref let him watch the rest of the game from the box.-- Nelson"

And now to wrap things up lets hear from Neil Shah who has a very nice summary of his own to share with us.

Here's Neil: " We won 4-1 on the back of a solid all-around effort. We started out the game strong with 2 quick goals. First goal came from some nice team work and puck possession in their end. I had the puck on the right side boards and skated it down into the corner. When the defensemen collapsed on me, I swung it around the net to a wide-open Gregson, who made a great pass to Campbell for a shot from the point. AK did a great job getting in position in front and deflected Campbell's well-placed low shot for a 1-0 lead. Second goal also came from a shot from the point. I had the puck on the right wing boards and dumped it off to Dan with Hands. He unleashed a great wrist shot that beat the goalie over the shoulder.

Third goal came from a highlight reel play from Mark Reynolds. He took a nice pass from Nelson and fired a shot that glanced off the goalie's shoulder and popped up in the air. Somehow, despite having a defender draped over him, he managed to bat it out of mid-air and into the goal for a 3-0 lead. In the third period, they scored a goal from the point to make it 3-1, but we iced it with a late goal from Nelson off a great pass from Steve (I think).

Solid win overall. We were helped by the fact that they only had 6 guys for the first 10 minutes of the game, but we still kept their offense in check when they had 2 full lines. Great job by Lizzie and our four defenseman- Daley, Campbell, Mark R., and Dan with Hands. "

EXCELLENT! Great work by all... on the ice and with the Guest Blogs. Nice to see that we have collectively seemed to found our way back to the winning side over the last month or so. Good news indeed. Thanks again everyone.
See you Wednesday for a 10:10 Game Suds vs Predators.

Zombies and Suckas MLK Monday

Cadavers (15) vs Windsuckers
Monday January 18

BU 10:10

1-0 Win!

Another matchup with the Windsuckers on the old Walter Brown Arena ice for this MLK day showdown. Sounds like this one was another classic division battle, and a very very close game. Once again the Blogger stands aside and gratefully presents some terrific guest blog comments and stories from the game. As always many many thanks to everyone who contributed. Lets start off with the short and sweet from Mike Campbell:

MC: "PIMs: Campbell 1:30; Capraro 1:30; Angry Ken 1:30
Larry got the only goal in our 1-0 win. We should’ve whooped them, but the win is a win."

Next up we hear some good stuff from Greg James.

GJ: "Ken got into another fight last night (pretty much in the same spot on the ice as a year ago when I pulled a third man in in exactly the same situation). And, despite my overwhelming urge to step in and play the role of heavy and crack some heads.., and despite the fact that by simply changing the date on a word document on my laptop I would have the suspension appeal letter already written… I quickly realized that the NESHL commissioner also had a readymade suspension appeal reply letter already written (coldly reading only: “suspension stands”), I smartly decided not to jump in. Turns out Kenny didn’t need my help anyway and ended up pulling a guy 3 times his weight down to the ground. Nicely done bro.

I don’t really remember anything else from the game except for perhaps some wicked point shots on net by me, sorry Jeff. -Greg"

No apologies necessary Greg. Thanks for the great recap. Now we move on to frequent contributer Pete Capraro who has another angle on things.

PC: "Hard fought win, I think we had 2 good offensive lines going putting solid pressure on all night. We did well bringing it through the neutural zone and putting it on net, lots of rebounds by the netminder that we could have capitalized on. BU ice looked 10x worse than the Capraro arena, with cones on the ice warning of the holes at center ice. Some terrible calls by the zebras but it didn't throw us far off our game, in fact we scored when I was in the box, see what happens when you get rid of trouble?"

Now we hear from a major player Ken Douville about how the night went:

AK: "Larry got a ridiculous goal shorthanded to win the game 1-0. Everyone played a great game which was needed versus that team. ... when asked to elaborate on his "incident":

sure... this team was very physical all night in front of the net with crosschecking etc. So when this guy started pushing I got into a little tussle with him and ended up on top. I usually don't win those so I was happy with the outcome. "

And lastly... but certainly not least... we have the Cagey Vet Nelson Sharfman.
NS: "Larry gets the number one star for a workman-like effort and a more than nifty unassisted goal, the only goal of the game, when he pressured the Windsuckers SHORTHANDED, caused a turnover behind their net, got the puck out from behind the net, skated by himself in front of the net, and roofed a wrister point blank off the goalie's glove and into the top netting.

Brian was also quite solid in net. Hard to win those 1-0 games unless your goalie throws a shutout.

Their goalie was really tough, and they had a very solid defense in front of him (lead by the dude in the yellow helmet, not to be confused with the man with the yellow hat...). We had a lot of pressure against them all night but both the defense and their netminder was more than up to the task. I can think of at least one breakaway, one on zero, that came up snake eyes for us (that would be me), but I believe there were others as well.

Not that many people in the sin bin that night. What's that you say? Well, now that you mention it I don't remember Hammit being there...

A well earned and exhausting victory. The drive home at midnight is a lot easier to make when we have the one and they have the zero. -- Nelson"

Awesome work Team! On the ice and with your keyboards. Thanks for helping to keep the blog on life support.... the Blogger appreciates it. Great win guys... looks like things might be turning around on this season....

GoldenZombies Ice the Minus

Cadavers (14) vs D-Minus
Tuesday January 12
Milton Academy 9:20pm


3-0 Win



A cold night at the nice rink in Milton, and an evening that looked like it might be long on shifts and short on skaters as the room was a little on the empty side about 10 minutes before gametime. Nelson walked in and scratched his head knowing that not many usually show up after him, and he made 7.
Of course let it be known that the early omens weren't good. There happened to be a neatly printed page taped to the door that said "Girls Locker-room" which was noticed by more than one Zombie on the way in. Then there was the copious lack of water bottles... Mike Campbell had a full one in his bag, but since it had been in his truck all day, it was solid like a rock.
Luckily some more players filtered in. Goody, then Blake and Reynolds showed to round the Zombies out to a nice even ten.

Here's what the lineup looked like.
Brian "Long arm of the Law" Carey in Net.
D1: Campbell and Jeff
D2: Reynolds and Hammitt
O1: Goody, Baker, and Underhill
O2: Nelson, AK, and Chris

Not bad for a chilly Tuesday night and all ten made it to the bench in the opening few minutes of the game.
The D-Minus crew had their usual solid turn out. Again the Blogger salutes them for having one of the best Jersey's we've seen in our division in a while. Givent that those shirts are dark red the Cads would skate as the Gold for the night. They seem to have added a girl along the line somewhere and she was a bright spot showing great hustle all night. The rest didn't show too much pop and the Zombies in Gold were able to control the play for the balance of the evening.

Most of the Gold played pretty well but despite many many opportunities in the first period they were unable to break through to gain a lead. The Minus stood up pretty well to the Gold barrage, and Brian had to make a few stops as they counter punched a few times. The first would end 0-0, no goals and only one penalty to Hammitt who held up his man at the offensive point for a hook late in the period. The tie at the end of the first was good because we were able to beg for a water bottle and thanks to the Minus sportsmanship they shared and we had some much needed hydration.

The second saw a step forward for the offense but a continued problem with penalties. First the offense. The Gold was doing a solid job with the forward cycling and doing a nice job keeping the puck in the zone and moving it around for chances. Nelson would make a great play jon the end boards and fired a nice pass out to the point. Jeff one-timed the pass to the net and AK (who was mucking it up in front) deflected it by the keeper for the 1-0 lead.
Shortly after that the Gold would get called for too many men when there was a botched change about midway through the period. The PK went just fine, in fact the Gold was able to get a couple of chances even being down. Nelson and AK both did great work on the PK all night.
Speaking of the PK, Hammitt would make his next trip to the box later in the period. Hammitt got to a puck in our own end and fired it then decked the guy covering him. The ref came by the bench chuckling after the call and had this to say.
"I think that was the first roughing call I've seen from a belly buck... did you see how far the kid went that he hit?" The guy was noticeably smaller than Mike, but apparently had been running his mouth... for what its worth...
The third would see more of the same from the second. Goody would score a nice goal, lifting it over the keeper after a nice pass from Blake Underhill. This was actually the second goal scored in the period but the first one was disallowed because of Zeebra "selective shortsightedness"... he couldn't see the puck... mostly because it was behind the keeper...
The Gold would strike again when Nelson would take a pass from Jeff at the point and pop it home for the icing on the cake. 3-0 and no further scoring to report.
Hammitt however... would make the game complete as he would collect another rough after knocking over his guy after taking the puck from him in our end. 3 and out for Mike again and he watched from outside the boards the rest of the way. Campbell would take one in the closing minute... I think just to make sure Ham didn't get too far ahead in the Campbell Cup standings.

Game Stars
3rd Star: *cough cough* Jeff Fosdick for two nice assists and not a horrible night on D.
2nd Star: Nelson for a nice goal and an assist and his usual excellent leadership through hard work. The guy just never stops trying.

1st Star: Brian Zero Degrees Carey for a nice win and shutout.

Honorable mentions to AK for being all over the place and having a great night, and Mark Reynolds for the same.

One more HM for brother Chris who just happened to have a handfull of cold delight tucked under his seat. There was a very cold footstamping, hat adjusting, cars running sibling conference in the parking lot for no more than 15 minutes. No frostbite to report.

Schlitz defeat the Lobsters 2-1

Schlitz(15) vs Lobsters
Monday January 11
BU 9:00

2-1 win



Alright another Monday game, and another opportunity for a Guest blog from one of our talented players. The Blogger appreciates all the help he's been getting lately keeping this thing going... Sounds like this was a good one, a classic D-level clash with an old time division rival.

I'm going to turn it over to the guestblogger, Mr. George "Captain" Moorachian for some words.
Here's George's summary.

OK. Here's what I recall. Unfortunately I don't remember the details of our goals or the penatlies. So my report may be lacking as far as a narrative is concerned.

The gold skated with strong 13 with Jim Sullivan between the pipes The lines were:

Forwards:
Elliott/Larry/Nelson
Chuck/Steve/Scot
Gregson/Roman/Matvey

Defense:
Daley/DWH
Valenti/George

The Lobsters only had 9 skaters, I think. And it looked like they were missing their strong defenseman and very good female forward. However, they did add a ringer on defense (#10), that did not belong skating at the D level, and could seemingly skate end to end with relative ease. We thought it displayed a lack of sportsmanship on his part. He didn't even wear a Lobsters jersey. Matvey refered to him as Barney, due to his jersey color being nearly purple.

Regardless of Barney, play went back and fort, with episodes of Schlitz playing well in Lobsters end, and with the occasional rush from Lobsters #10. Sully played a solid game in net, turning away several Lobster scoring opportunities, and giving us the confidence to take care of business.

We scored 1 goal in each of the 1st and 2nd periods. The score keeper only marked down the goal scorer. But, I filled in the assists in the locker room after the game.

1st goal: Chuckie, from Nelson and Larry.

2nd goal: Roman, from Matvey and Daley.

And Lobsters finally got one pack Sully in the 3rd period, after shot was deflected twice on the way to the net. As a matter of fact, I think that I (George) got the first deflection off of the blade of my stick.

At the end of the 3rd period, the Lobsters pulled their goalie for an extra skater. But, Schlitz held them off.

The penaties were:

• Roman for a trip in the 2nd

• Nelson for a high-stick in the 2nd

• Matvey for a hook in the 3rd

• Larry for a cross-check in the 3rd

The Lobsters had a total of 3 minor penalties throughout the game.

Overall, a good game by Schlitz, anchored by solid goaltending.

If I had to give out game stars, I'd go with:

3rd Star: The entire defensive corps. With only 1 goal allowed, I'm going to give the D some of the credit.

2nd Star: Sully: Geat solid game in net. Only 1 goal allowed... that wasn't his fault. Great game.

1st Star: Roman. Played a solid 2-way game all night. Scored the game-winner, and applied good pressure by having a few good scoring opportunities (possibly even being robbed by the Lobsters netminder once or twice).

GREAT Guest Blog George! Thanks a lot! Good work on the ice boys!

Fight night at BU! Monday Daveur!

Schlitz(14) vs Cadavers (13)
Monday January 4
BU 9:20pm

Schlitz 4
Cads 4


Well the blogger sent his regrets and it sounds like he missed a fun night at the old BU rink when he missed this post Holiday Monday Daveur. Thanks to some very nice guestblog work we've got a couple of good angles on the game. So without further ado... Here are your guestbloggers on the event. First up is Larry Bell the always fiesty and scoresheet conscious...

Here's Larry: Last nights Schlidaveur was a hard-fought affair with fought, or its present tense "fight" being the key word. The game started late, around 9:20 after the zamboni driver finally showed up. Apparently there was a car fire on 93 north that seriously delayed traffic... Lizzie missed out on the first period, so a sub goalie from the previous game filled in for the Cads

The cads struck first - Matt Elliot banged one past Brian after a freakish bounce from the end boards. LB tied the game later in the first period on a shot from the point that bounced off AK's skate and then off my stick. Schlitz took the lead in the second period when I was able to fight off the red d to send a pass across the slot to AK who finished it off with a shot by Lizzie (2nd assist to Neil). Chris Fos tied it later in the second when he tapped in the rebound of a Capt George rush.

It looked like the Schlitz were going to run away with the game in the third. First, Matvey wristed in a shot from the tops of the circles that was going wide until Lizzie deflected it in off the inside of her stick. Then AK and Neil combined for some nice passing from the corner to behind the goal to me waiting in front for a 1-timer and it was 4-2 Gold. Then the Cads fought back. At around 6 minutes to go, Greg James sent a backhander from the point that Pete Capraro deflected in (2nd assist to George).

As the red were coming back into the Schlitz zone again, and really starting to apply more pressure, Hammit plastered Baker into the boards, Baker took exception to the hit and punched Hammit several time in the face mask. Neil tried to break things up and got a 3rd man in penalty. On the following PP, Nelson tied the game with and assist to Parker (according to the scorekeeper it was #9) who wasn't actually at the game. I think the assist goes to DWH or Daley.

The fourth period featured bud light and Molsen Canadien and a truck driver who could barely manage to drive his snow laden rig out of the parking lot. Cheers

NICE! Thanks very much to Larry Double Vision Bell for this report from the rink. Now we will hear from another excellent guest Blogger... none other than the Cagey Vet Himself Nelson Sharfman. Here's Nelson.

Many interesting elements to last night's game. There was the car fire on southeast expressway that made much of the Cadavers (including Lizzie) quite late for the game. Then there was the Zamboni driver who was AWOL, and therefore did not shoo off the previous hour's crew off until they had consumed a fair amount of our ice. The two random events seemed to cancel each other out, so other than using one of the previous goalies for half of the first period and the fact that the contest finished well after 10pm, the game seemed to go off without a hitch.

Cads went ahead 1-0 and 2-1 on goals from Matt Elliot (putting in the trash from a horrible shot by me; my shot had some rather peculiar English and bounced off of the back glass depositing itself near an unprotected post next to the crease, Mr. Elliot man-on-the-spot finished the job) and by George (putting in his own rebound). Schlitz then stormed ahead with three straight goals, the last by Larry on a rebound. I thought I had his stick hooked to prevent that. I guess not.

With four minutes left in the third period the Cads came storming back. The line of Steve, Pete, and Matt put one in after the Roman, Big Dan, and Chris subjected Schlitz to withering pressure in their zone. (It had to be in there for over two straight minutes. No simple task.)

Then came the Hammit show. By all accounts he had played a "physical" game and that was certainly my experience as well. In the first period I had a deja vu moment when he had lined me up for a check into the boards as I was trying to skate by him. This time, however, I had the good sense to NOT trust that he would let up and decided to juke him instead. That worked much better (though my shot was well wide). Nonetheless, he got me back later in the game and stood me up at the blue line (a play that Campbell would have been proud of) after I had taken a shot. Still sore from that collision...

Anyway, the Hammit show: I couldn't see it very well as it was on the far corner of the ice but there appeared to be some "contact" between Hammit and Steve which Steve found "unacceptable" so they exchanged dissenting views and performed some elaborate choreography. (I don't remember seeing them practice this choreography before the game, but I came late.) The refs needed a fair amount of time to sort this one out and when they did there was two minutes left on the clock and a man advantage to the Cadavers.

In the subsequent power play there was more sustained pressure on the Gold which seemed to be breaking down their defense as I heard Brian calling out to his charges to stop running around. Eventually there was a shot from the point and I scooped in the resultant rebound.

Like all good though somewhat unsatisfying Schlidavuers, it ended in a tie, 4-4.-- Nelson

Outstanding guestblogging Nelson. Thanks... we always know we can count on solid work from you. To wrap this up lets have this comment from Pete Capraro.

Pete: A schlidaveur in its truest ugly form. Generally sloppy play, lots of laughs and a good fight or two amongst friends, making for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Good stuff. Thanks very much to all the guestbloggers for their kind words.