Last night was one of the best Tigers games I’ve ever been a part of. We squared off against the Hotshots. They had a full bench while we had nine skaters. They had Peter in net, which is always a challenge for us. We had a goalie we’d never played with before, who graciously agreed to step in because Gregg was out with injury.
We played pretty brilliantly. Yes, we lost 1-0 but we kept up some great pressure on Peter and came so close to tying it up, and possibly even getting a win it was pretty awesome. We kept our energy going, which was not easy since we were so short handed. We played a pretty smart game too. Yes, we had our mistakes–blind passes, throwing pucks away, not minding points–but that wasn’t the dominate part of our game.
Needless to say, I had a blast with this game.
The Wizards game wasn’t as good. We opened good against the Blizzard, hanging tough and in the second period it was only 2-0. By the time it was over though we lost 7-0. It was like we gave up. Late second and through the third it seemed like we were trying to be more aggressive, but without really meaning it. It was weird, and I can’t really capture it here correctly. It was unfortunate, and the second Wizards loss in as many days (Friday’s game, which I didn’t play in, was also a blow out–a 10-1 loss).
The game was marred, at least for me, with a dirty play in the final minutes. One of our guys made a dive and took out one of the Blizzard player’s legs. It was a move that was a total lack of sportsmanship, but also could’ve easily resulted in one or both of them being hurt. It’s a shame when the game gets reduced to that. There are legit ways to stop players, but that wasn’t one of them.
Next week brings the end of Thursday Night Ice and a scrimmage on Sunday since it’s a holiday weekend. Hopefully I’m going to make it back to Ronnie’s too. It’s been too long since I’ve been there. I’m glad it’s moving back to six soon, it’ll be much easier to get to than 8:30.
