I ended up a week off the ice because scheduling just didn’t work out for me to get some ice time in during President’s Day weekend.
I did get out for Ronnie’s Ice yesterday morning. It was a great session, lightly attended just like I like. Had a special treat for the coach too. Jimmy subbed in since Tommy was on the road with one of his travel teams. Jimmy did some good drills and played in the scrimmage too. Sadly I had to play against him, though I did take the puck off him once (I think he might have let me do that). Had a couple of assists too courtesy of Roman and Joe deflecting my blue line shots into the net. A fun morning!
The Tigers game was pretty fun too, despite the 1-10 losing score. I had a great (if I do say so myself) end-to-end goal in the first period that provided our single goal for the game. I had a couple more chances that I couldn’t convert, including a breakway during a penalty kill that had everything right going for it except for losing the puck in my skates. I fought to get it back and someone was down with me, but I couldn’t pull off an accurate centering pass because I was being, rightfully, harassed by a Dogs defenseman.
I do feel the game was mismatched. Seven of the goal were scored by a single player and I’m pretty sure he had a hand in the other three. I’ve never seen #71 on the ice before and if you look at the Sled Dogs record, other than early season blowouts against the Rockets that were expected, there’s no score this lopsided for the Dogs. Given we had all of our top players last night and even when he was double-teamed #71 couldn’t be stopped, he certainly doesn’t belong in D8. Through it all though, the Tigers kept playing and trying to score (granted, we should’ve been shooting sooner and working for rebounds) and that was good to see.
Next week, finally back to multiple games in the night as the Tigers and Wizards play.
