For the second year I joined up with the Pittsburgh Tigers for the Chelsea Challenge. Once again, I had a blast too. Unfortunately, unlike last year, we did not pick up a medal. The team moved up from the developmental division, where we won silver last year, to Recreational B where the competition was more fierce. Out of eight teams, we ended up in seventh place with only two points earned during our three games (yes, that means there was a team that only earned one).
Despite the outcome, I had a good time in the three games we played. Our Friday night game, against DC Nationals, was my least favorite of the three because I made at least three really bad choices that I was aware of and all three of those helped give the other team goals. Saturday morning’s game against the Wizards was good, although it got out of control in the third when the score got run up. The Saturday afternoon game against the Sled Dogs started out crazy as they ran up 5 goals in the first period. This was a super fast, super coordinated team (they play together as a team at Sky Rink) and we managed to adapt to them and held them to only two additional goals for the remainder of the game.
Here are some tournament highlights:
- As always, I love playing with Mike and Adam. I was happy to be playing with them again and am look forward to whatever the next chance for that is. In addition to seeing them, Leif also joined us from San Francisco. I hadn’t seen him since he moved last summer and it was great to share the ice and catch up with him.
- Former Tigers captain Judy came down on Saturday and watched our Wizards game and then joined us for the team brunch. Catching up with her pre-game was awesome. We also snapped a picture of the four Tigers captains that were present (Judy, Bob, Mike and me). The brunch was also fun because Benson started coming up with choreography…
- … choreography he unleashed during the second intermission along with Mark, Mike’s brother. It was pretty awesome to see. For the next tourney there’s talk of some group choreography with some advanced preparations.
- One of our teammates handed out custom M&Ms to the team (I wish I knew who did this, but I’m soooooo bad with names and I’m also not completely sure where the came form as they were dropped into my hand from behind. Anyway, very cool to receive. As up can see from the picture there are “NYC GLBT,” “GO TIGERS,” “HOCKEY ROCKS” and “I ♥ NYC.” Big thanks to the M&Ms provider!
- It was cool to talk about Hat Trick with some people who’d seen the card… or who heard me talking about it with other people. Hopefully those discussions, and the promo cards, lead to some early sales in September.
- By far the most exciting moment of the tournament came during the finals for the developmental division. I went to watch friends play since I had several split between the Minnesota Moose and the Delaware Dragons (all of the developmental teams honored states with marriage equality). Laurie, who joined the NYCGHA and the Tigers with me in 2002, scored the only goal in the game and that along with the Minnesota goalie’s shut out game got the Moose a gold medal. It was thrilling to watch her get the goal, especially since the Dragons goalie had let in only two other goals in four games. Way to go, Laurie!