We were the short bench last night, and I have to say, it was pretty exciting! We played a team called Dirk Danglers- a mash up of a D3 team with said name and a few players from Here For Beer. We had 11 skaters- two forward lines, plus an extra winger, and two defensive pairings. They had about 324 players. Ok, it was probably closer to 17. I was on the ice so often, it felt like a rotation pick up game. I started on the right wing, behind a couple of our best players Steve and Eli. Tony and Paul H were our centers. The two left wingers were Vickie and Allen, who play at my level. We switched up about halfway through the first period, and I joined the left side. Our defensive pairings were some of our best- Sean, Jordan, Matt, and Flink. Tyler was back in goal, and once again saved our bacon on so many plays. It's also probably the first time I knew everyone's name. Heh...
The game was one of those smash and bang games where tons of penalties get called. Tempers were kept in check for most of the game luckily, until two Dirk Danglers players were thrown out at the end of the game. They were more irate with the refs than they were with us, though. I am still without a penalty, although if I'd been half a step faster, I probably could have gotten a tripping call at one point. Quite a few of the calls were pure hookum. It's like the refs had been told they were down on their penalty quota for the month.
The Dirk Danglers scored first. We came back pretty quickly after- Steve, I think, knocking in a loose puck in a scrum in front of the net. The score stayed there for the rest of the game. I was in the play quite a bit, including knocking a puck that was heading for the crease. As soon as I did that, though, I hit the brick wall that was Sean. Ow.
We went to a shoot-out to end the tie, and it went ten rounds. Ten! We went though our whole bench, except Flink, who had been in the box when the game ended. I was our ninth shooter. Another first- my first shootout chance in a game. I blew it big time! As soon as I touched the puck, it popped up on it's edge and started rolling. I tried to knock it down, but couldn't. I ended up making a half-hearted shot right at the Dangler goalies chest, to shouts of 'knuckle puck!' from both benches. Next time.
The hero of the game, however, was our tenth shooter- Vickie. She skated up to the crease incredibly slowly, and shot right at the top of the crease- right in front of the goalie. Honestly, it should have been an easy save, but she somehow snuck it through the five hole! She fell as soon as she scored, and stayed down for a while. We thought she couldn't get up- turns out she was digging the puck out of the net to commemorate her first shoot-out goal. Tyler won it for us, ultimately, on the next shot- shutting down all the Danglers shooters. A crazy finish for a crazy game. Celebratory beers at Lowry Beer Garden were a must.
This puts us right in the middle of the pack in the standings, I think. We're 3-3 right now. We were all pretty sure we'd get our asses handed to us all season, but we're making a run at it!
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