Last night was not good for my teams.
The Tigers started things off taking on the Hotshots for the first time this season. The Hotshots are always a challenge and yesterday was no different. We were up to the challenge though and got the game into overtime. Unfortunately, we couldn’t close the deal and we ultimately lost 2-1. We did, however, get a point for the standings so it wasn’t a complete wash.
The game did have bloodshed though and I haven’t seen that in a long time. One of the Hotshots took on one of our players at center ice in an infraction the refs chose not to call. I don’t know if our guy didn’t something earlier that might have provoked this… if so I didn’t see it. But then, about a minute later, our guy charged the Hotshot and laid him out. We had blood on the ice, blood on players and penalties all around. It was messy.
I was pretty happy with my play in this game. I worked hard and was only one ice for the regulation goal. Sadly I watched it dribble right over the line and couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was unfortunate. I was also out for the goal, so my plus/minus was even for the night.
I got drafted in to the Wizards game as I came off ice from the Tigers, so I quickly switched to white and went right back at it. Thankfully there were five D in the lineup and that was good. The Wizards came up short against the Sled Dogs, losing 3-1 with two of the goals coming pretty quickly. There was good Wizards hustle in the game, so it wasn’t a tragic loss by any sense.
I was pleased here as well. I can’t remember if I was out for one of the goals. I know the two rapid ones I was on the bench. I had some shockingly good shots from the point in this game too, which made me very happy. I’ve been working to get my shot back after a few weeks of disappointment in this area.
The Ordinals game was the disaster of the evening. We played Hegemony, a team we are usually pretty competitive with. We lost 8-1, the second big loss we’ve sustained that we shouldn’t have. Our record is a nasty 1-3 for the season and our goals against is racking up fast. I ended up sitting the majority of this game out after a hit into the boards (and to be clear, it was a clean hit) popped my neck which pretty rapidly put pain into my shoulders.
Sitting back and watching the team with ice on my neck, I’m not sure where exactly our issues are. I see a team that for the most part hustles, that has the talent to shoot and score and yet something just isn’t clicking. I think it might be time to mix things totally up, shuffle the line pairings that are typically used across the board and see if some wins can be generated.
With the Tigers game, Ronnie’s Ice was a highlight of the day. After the crowd of last week, we were down to 12 this week. Ronnie was coached this week (after a brief stint from Roman) and we did some drills that were new, so that was fun. The scrimmage was four-on-four, and exhausting because there was only one sub. I spent a lot of time playing D with Roman. While it was tiring, it was a lot of fun.
I’m really glad your neck is ok. I saw you go down out of the corner of my eye and it was clearly one of those “incidental contact” plays. Scary, though, when I see a fellow player go down for any reason–even with all that padding, the ice is completely unforgiving. Shoot me a note if you’d care for my observations from the other bench. Take care and feel better.