Blood, Sweat, and Tiers

Few days ago I got an e-mail from Captain Eric who let us know that we got bumped up a tier from 5 to 4. Great, as if I wasn't having enough problems before. On top of this, I also found out that the third preseason game was against a tier 3 team. I was not looking forward to this game. On the flip side, we were away which meant that I got to wear my old Canucks jersey again.

I got some tips prior to the start of the game from Harry. He told me to watch the stomach to avoid getting faked out. You can juke and jive the head and stick, but the stomach goes where the skater goes. In all my years of playing street hockey this has never occurred to me, but I also never used to be a pylon.

While we were changing, Captain Eric read out the lines, and I was on offense winging with with Harry. What a relief, I didn't have to skate backwards the whole game, of course I was counted on to provide some offense but for some reason we had a low scoring game.

We went on quite a few power plays with the Cold Shots taking some stupid penalties. The other team was playing pretty aggressively, but we didn't really retaliate. There were a few scrums that occurred, words were flown around but nothing happened, luckily for the Cold Shots because I would've made some heads roll.

We were down 3-2 in the third, and one of our players was called for interference with under four minutes to go. The whole team played hard the last few minutes to try to tie up the game. Despite being on the power play the Cold Shots seemed content on just winding down the time. Their careless play led to a breakaway by #96 (I still don't know everyone's name), skating in with two defensemen chasing him down, he wristed the puck 5-hole, but his efforts were in vain as he was stopped by the butter-flying goalie (damn you Patrick Roy).

Seconds kept ticking away from the clock, and the Sharks eventually lost 3-2.

The Good
We kept toe to toe with a tier 3 team. We played a pretty responsible game even though the other team were unbelievably fast. The referee complimented me on my jersey, I responded with "94 baby!" to which he replied: "I know."

The Bad
Their whole team was named Phan. There was a P Chan, Phan, B Phan. They scoured the Lower Mainland looking for players with last names that rhymed.

The Ugly
During the second period, El Capitan Eric skated into the opponents zone, and instead of trying to go around the defender he pretty much treated the guy like a Thai hooker...he nailed him hard. The guy obviously went down, and a scrum ensued. As I mentioned earlier no fights broke out. Even though some Sharks had friends on the other team something like this still happened. Kind of makes you wonder how the rest of the season will go.

Great game, the impact player failed to make an impact this game, but rest assured, despite my futility on the ice, I am (ever so slowly) getting better, I should hit my prime in 5-10 years.