I wanna be like... Francois?

I just watched Francois Beauchemin's game winner from the Avalanche v. Sabres win last night.  Only 32 seconds left in the game!  We did one better, though.  Eli scored our game winner with only 27 seconds left.  Ha!

We played the Islaynders, and they've made some distinct roster changes.  They have some seriously good players now, including a guy in my Learn to Play Hockey course.  They scored late in the first period, and took the lead into the intermission.  We came back right at the beginning of the second to tie it up, and then they scored again about 5 minutes later.  It was 1-2 heading into the third, but we were able to score again to get the tie, right at the beginning of the period.  Then came the game winner with seconds ticking away!

It was a great win, especially after our horrible performance from last week.  This game the total opposite.  We skated really well, made some decent passes and were able to keep the giveaways and  breaks to a minimum.  I think I played really well.  I was in on our second goal- scored by the other Paul- crashing the net and cycling the puck down low.  I also managed to really help put on a penalty kill that came late in the game.  Our goals were not pretty, but they did go in.

The game was a friendly affair, with only one minor incident, when we crashed the net early in the first.  A couple of guys, including Flink, went down hard, but unlike the Punx, both teams kept things under control.  Good stuff! 

It sucks to lose, and it really sucks to lose to bad winners

That's what the Punx were last night- bad winners- 0-5.  They've always been whiny and choppy, but it's worse when they are really playing well.  Besides all the complaints and dirty plays, they added snide comments, and overblown cellys to the game.  Granted, we didn't play very well- slow and complacent, giving up the puck every chance we got and never really playing a positional game...it made for a really long game.  Beh. 

Another year and I still can't skate backwards...

It’s been a lazy couple of weeks- I was off work for 12 days for the holidays- good stuff!  Except the 12^th day was because I was sick.. and still am.  I missed out on New Years day skating because of that.  I’ll be skipping out on the game against Team America tonight as well.

We had a spite filled game against the Punx a couple of weeks ago.  It was a really early game, so Alisha and Vibs were able to come.  Jared’s fiancé Laura was there as well.  We did not make a good showing for our families.  We lost 0-4.  The game was pretty dirty and included quite a bit of blood on the ice.  One of the Punx- Paul I.- wears a shield, not a cage and got caught on the chin early in the game.  He took a errant stick, but it was a Punx fault-I think…. They went to the box anyway. They weren’t happy.  They were also not happy with Tony’s aggressive play and at the end of the game, several of the Punx skipped the handshake.  Anyway, it was our first lost.

Our next game started the cycle again- against the Islynders.  It was a different gam altogether for us.  We played well and calm, and Justin had 4 of our 6 goals.  We won 6-2.  The Islanders were getting pretty frustrated and one of their players nearly got kicked out of the game.  One of Justin’s goals- a shorthanded goal that he scored right off the face off. Elicited shouts from their bench- jealousy rears its ugly head.   The game also provided me with another first- my first involvement with a kerfuffle!  Our goalie Adam played his last with us, before moving to L.A., and wanted to try a double stack save- something he’s never dared tried.  The chance came right at the buzzer and it was a beaut of a save.  The Islyneders decided they wanted one more shot though, and one of their players drilled a shot into Adam’s back, he’d flipped to face the net in his save.  Sean jumped into the offending players face and they started in on each other.  I was facing away from the fisticuffs, and found myself confronted with 3 Islynders heading straight for me.  I decided to keep them from my teammates and started pushing.  It was pretty fun actually.  It all ended well though, and after the handshake, there were several side conversations between our team and theirs- we all left the ice friends.

Finally- I started a new Learn to Play Hockey course at DU.  Jared is enrolled too, as well as Gary, a friend of Jared called Jeremy, and my friend Danny.  It’s a huge class of about 30, and I still embarrass myself with backwards skating.. or lack or ability.  Anyway… here are some pictures from our game with the Punx.