Feb 09, 2013 | pstarling | 348 views
An Early Start to the Day
When you think about playing hockey at 8:00 in the morning, generally you don't think about it being Midget hockey players. However, when playing in a 1 day tournament, someone has to play that game, and since we were the closet team to the host center of Woodville, that honour became ours.
Now, having to play that early is one thing, but going into it knowing that you have already beaten the team you are playing twice in this year, well, that's another thing. And a good thing at that.
Although early, everyone seemed to be playing quite well, especially goaltender Greg who was tested very early in this one, and came up huge.Halfway through the 1st period Mike C broke the zero's with the Lindsay Teal first goal of the game. The scored stayed the same way until 3 1/2 minutes left in the 2nd when the same line-mates (Brock, Mike C and Mike P) teamed up to each get their second point of the game, this one scored by Brock. Just 1:14 later big Dan, playing on defence, broke in and potted the next marked for Lindsay, making it 3-0 going into the third period. Dan apparently enjoyed that goal so much, that he decided to get another one on his first shift of the 3rd period, making the score 4-0. The main reason that Greg was able to get the shut-out in this game was his own play. With just under 5 seconds left in the game, Greg stopped an impeded breakaway, and then had to do it all over again as the Lindsay D-man was called for hooking -- and a penalty shot! Greg came up huge and stoned the Woodville sniper to earn a W and a shutout in the early game.
Game #2 was at 1pm, against Rice Lake. A game which many thought we should win quite easily since they had only beaten Essa 2-1 in their first game, and then we watched Woodville beat Essa in their 2nd game, by a score of 4-1. However, as is so often the case in these situations, what you expect to have happen, didn't happen as Lindsay was shut-out in this game by a score of 2-0. It was not a good game overall. One filled with penalties, game stoppages, and issues with the clock not being started, all of which destroyed the flow of the game. Maybe we had too long between games, who knows, I just know this was not ours to win.
Game #3, the 'B' Championship game would see us play again at 6pm against the Nobleking team. This game was a pretty tight checking game most of the way through, with Nobleking scoring a goal 3:13 into the game. It would remain 1-0 until Jeff stepped off the bench into a pass that had come off Greg W getting checked into the boards and making the pass to Wil, who in turn threw it up to Jeff to pot the tying goal. Through all of the penalties in the 2nd period, the score would remain tied at 1. Halfway through the 3rd period Lindsay would again relinquish the lead and trail 2-1 in a game that looked near impossible to score again in. But, with just 33 seconds left in the game, Brock was tied up as he came in on a break-away, and for the 2nd time in the tournament, a penalty shot was being called in our game, only this time it was for us, not against us! As Brock made his way in to the left side of the goalie, the net-minder thought it would be a good idea to try and force the issue and get out to play the puck. Not knowing our players and what kind of hands they have, he quickly found out this was not a wise idea as Brock stepped around him and placed an easy back-hander into the wide open net, tying the game and sending us to overtime. Overtime started of 4 on 4 for one minute, with no goal. Then 3 on 3, with no goal. It went to 2 on 2, and still no goal scored. Finally about halfway through the one minute period of 1 on 1 the Nobleking team put the final goal in the net to make it a 3-2 final game. certainly an exciting way to end the day, and a good effort made by all to come from behind and get the game into overtime.
Well done boys.