Hockey Blog: Game 2
x-posted to thepurplecobras.com
September 16th, The Purple Cobras took on my former team, Yo Mamma. The Cobras had a full roster, with Chris Royval and Jeff Luce subbing for Steve Barnes and Ryan Fedel. We were given the news this week that Ryan had to leave the team for health reasons, but might be able to return after the season. It was tough news but its rec league hockey, these things happen. The game took off very quickly with the top line getting a few opportunities right off the bat. I had what I feel was the best shot of my life bounce harmlessly off the butt end of the goal stick in the first 10 seconds of the game. Very frustrating, and kind of foreshadowing of what was to come from this goaltender. On the third line's first shift, David Power scored his first goal of the season on a feed from Brian Fanning. This led to a quick deluge of goals as the first line came back on and scored a goal on a one timer set up by me and scored by Dan Chick, and then again immediately on the face off when Dan took the puck in and had a shot rebound to Nate Bondar who poked it in for the third goal, I got my second assist on this play as well. The fourth goal of the period came at about the 10 minute mark when Dan scored on a feed from Nate, Peter Kirk also got his first point of the season on this play. After that, it was all Yo Mamma... Well, it was all their goalie who stopped an impressive amount of shots and some pretty decent ones to boot. In all fairness, that game could have easily been 7-0 by the end of the first period, but he made a number of amazing saves. The second period saw the Cobras slack off quite a bit, and aside from not moving the feet as well, kept trying to get too fancy. This led to a couple of goals by Yo Mamma and a definite sense of urgency returning for the third period. The third period was a bit more even, with the Cobras bringing some more sustained pressure back to Yo Mamma. Again, their goalie kept the game close by not allowing a goal until late in the game when Randy Edwards recorded his first goal of the season and the defense's first goal, I'm not sure if there were any assists on this play. Yo Mamma scored a final goal with 5 seconds left in the game to bring the score to 5-3. Andy Newell had 2 penalties and there was a bench minor that Mark Christner served.
After 2 games, The Purple Cobras are 2-0 with a goals for and against of 12-6. With assists all totaled with the goals, the players have accounted for 28 points. An outstanding start. This game more so than the first saw some mental errors that can be and need to be avoided in the future. Specifically too many men on the ice twice. The first time, we got away with it and really there was no excuse as to why it happened. The second one was on what was thought to be a penalty and Matt Kuchar jumped on the ice to be the extra man. Turns out we high sticked a puck and Mike Anderson got a little anxious. Not a big deal, and we killed the ensuing penalty. On a brighter note, the team as a whole really clicked, especially early on. Its difficult to sustain the kind of pressure we started out with when you take a 4-0 lead and when you end up so frustrated by the goalie, so its understandable. Most of the time, we probably won't be playing with that kind of early lead so I'm sure we'll have a more balanced game most of the time. The forwards did a great job of covering the points when the d-men pinched and really positioning was almost never a problem in this game. So great job there. A couple of final notes, Garrett Dean played his first game at defense and made a couple of nice plays. It was his first time at D, but he did a fine job. Johnathan Marks was named second alternate captain. Congrats Johnathan!
The three stars as selected by me:
First Star: Dan Chick - 2 goals, 1 assist, game winning goal
Second Star: Nate Bondar - 1 goal, 1 assist, general great play
Third Star: Richard Coleman - 2 assists, and lots of shots that got stopped
David Power and Randy Edwards got their first goals of the season and Brian Panning and Peter Kirk got their first assists.