A Night of Controversy

The rivalry continued to build this past Sunday, as the White team and Dark team squared off in a grueling 3-game battle. Due to an early start time, Jared and Brett were captains of the Dark team and White team respectively. Jared, trying to build off of his team's rousing come-from-behind win last week, did some recruiting, adding Jon B and Skippy Fin Fin (aka Scotty F). Jared's team looked to be very formidable. The White team's hope was that Steve F would be able to continue his stellar play from last week.

The first game got under way, and John R was able to score on a couple of one-timers, from Matt S and Brett respectively. The Dark team fought hard though, and kept the game close. The night's first controversey occured as the Dark team scored their third goal. The puck twice looked to go offsides, which after calls from the bench caused the White team to stop play. At that moment Joe Nap fired a shot from the point which eluded Steve, tying the game at three. The Dark team tried to rationalize their ill-gotten goal by saying that the puck-carrier didn't say it was offsides. That however, was quite the faulty reasoning since the puckcarrier NEVER makes the offsides call. Nevertheless, the goal stood. The dark team continued their underhanded play by thwarting an attempted break-in, sending Lenny onto the rink as the sixth player to break up a scoring chance. Apparently that was the secret play that Jared was working on this past week. The tie did not last too long though as Brendon scored the go-ahead to make it 4-3. Again, there proved to be controversy. On this play Brendon took one shot at a puck that was lying loose in the crease. The Dark team said that the puck was frozen, and the goal shouldn't have counted. However, Team Captain Jared was told no whistle was blown - logic that he could not argue with. The win came from an unlikely source. Brett, who despite a fantastic start to the season was known as the "Anti-Clutch" took a pass into the zone and ran up the left side, snapping a puck past Jimmy for the win. His teammates were so stunned they did not know what to do for a moment. Belated celebrating then ensued.

Game 2 toned down the controversey, as well as the drama. The White team easily won 5-2. It's hard to say if the Dark team suffered from a carry-over from Game 1, or if the loss of Cliff to a night-ending injury weighed too much on the team. Either way, Brett found scoring the gamewinner to be addicting, and iced game number two as well.

Jared knew something had to be done for Game 3. The first thing he did was kidnap Lee from the White team. Next he had a true stroke of genius: form the first semi-nude line, as Jon B and Jared played shirtless. The White team did not know how to handle this development. One player overheard Nick say about Jon B: "I am not going anywhere near THAT!". Jared just confused everyone - he was so pale it looked like he was on the White team. That moved, along with sheer fatigue from White team proved to be too much, as the (mostly) Dark team prevailed 5-0. One postive: Brett manage not to hurl on the bench this week, despite having to watch the shirtless-duo in Game 3.

Game Notes: Very good play by Matt S, Nick B, and Matt D defensively for the White team. Mike D was very solid on the wings. John and Brett weren't as explosive as past games, due mostly to constantly battling with Scotty all night, and Johnny not being able to hit the net in Games 2 and 3. Brendon's play was disappointing this past week, with some fairly passive play and some poor decisions with the puck. He did have the goal of the night though, summoning his inner-Ovechkin and scoring while lying on the ground. Also for the White team was the return of Evil Dale. Semi-Team Player Dale this week never had a chance, as he didn't want to waste time passing with the shortened time-frame.

For the Dark team, despite not having many points to show for it, Scotty was a force all night long, battling for the puck and making plays. JB brought hustle not seen from him since last season, and a defense consisting of Mike Ward, Joe, and Lenny played very well defensively, and even contributed some offense (Lenny recording his first Game Winner). Jimmy was out-played by Steve the first two games, but made up for it with his Shutout in Game 3.