Dec 08, 2012 | pstarling | 268 views
Grit and Determination
Arriving at the rink knowing that your team is one player short is one thing, but to get there and find out that in fact 1/3 of your skaters are not going to be at the game is a whole different feeling, especially when you have a short bench of only 12 skaters to begin with!
Arriving at the rink knowing that one player is not going to be there, only to find out that in fact 1/3 of the team would not be there due to work or injury, the game started to take on a whole different slant. In the first meeting of these two teams, Teal won easily by a score of 7-1, 4 of those goals were score by players that missed tonight's game.
Action was fast and furious with both net minders stopping quite a few good chances, with 3 1/2 minutes left in the first, Brock was the recipient of a fortunate bounce off the boards of a cleared puck by fill-in goaltender Greg C, and was able to place it quickly back between his pads. Teal was not going to give up however, even with the poor officiating that seemed quite happy to let a lot of things go, but also to pick out all a good majority of the frustrating retaliation stuff that Teal did, with a short bench already, the first 4 penalties to Teal all went to their 3 defencemen, creating a bit more of a challenge for everyone, especially when 2 of the 3 were in the box at the same time for over a minute and a half. None-the-less, the boys continued to battle it out, and left the ice for the much needed rest at the flood still down by just the one lone goal.
In the third period the boys knew that they needed to play smart and not take any penalties as they were now down an extra man with Kole having to withdraw from the game due to soreness in the chest and difficulty breathing after a bad no-penalty hit in the 2nd period. They started with a penalty left over from the 2nd period that still had a minute and 44 seconds remaining. With that penalty safely out of the way they could settle in to the task at hand, that is until Mike 'Tomahawk' P went to work and took a slashing penalty with just under 11 minutes left. Again, this penalty was cleared with no damage and we carried on until Tomahawk decided he had to go after another guy in retaliation for a slash he had received without a call, unfortunately for him, unlike a whack in the ankle that might go unnoticed, a whack coming straight down on an opponents shoulder rarely does. Back to the box for you!
With the teams now playing 4 on 4, Jeff passed a really nice cross ice pass to Liam who came down the left side of the ice a sizzled a wrist shot into the top right corner of the net to tie the game with 2 1/2 minutes remaining. With 9.5 seconds remaining in the game, and the face-off in the home end of the rink, Lindsay decided to try and pull the goalie to win the game, leaving 3 coaches and one goaltender standing alone on the bench as Mike C had been thrown out of the game at the 3:18 mark for arguing a call. The W was not going to come for the visitors tonight, but they did show a ton of grit and determination to hang in and come back to tie the game, thanks in large part to the stellar goaltending of Greg C in just his 2nd start of the season.