Who's stopping you?

The Alliance name comes with a reputation. It doesn't matter who dons the uniform, it’s a curse; a plague. Every "Alliance" team is a group of overreacting, overanalyzing, band of "hockey" players. But it’s the trait that we lack that haunts us the most. We lack the killer instinct. We are incapable of sealing the deal. So many times we have come close, but couldn't close. And for a period over the weekend, I believed that we finally found a team with some mojo. We finally had the team that could completely shut the door. If we hustled and battled for every ball, we could wear down and tire out any team we played. The only snag was if we tired out first.

Weeks of discussion and overanalyzing of the "dream team" went into this tournament. But one thing that was never really in question was the lines. John, Nick and Brett were always together. The almost B-Team consisting of Griff, Borges, and Jared was the other logical line. But, after one bad game, against a great team, all that was tossed to the side. We needed a jolt. And apparently, the line change was what we needed. We dominated in game 2 against a solid snipers team. We played our game and dominated. There really is no other way to describe it: Pure domination.

So with the stage set, the question the team was asking amongst ourselves was:

“Can the dominance continue?”

But, to me, that wasn’t the question at all. The question was: ”Were we going to pull an “alliance”?” Were we going to become fat, happy, look too far ahead and collapse under the pressure after a team surprises us?

What is the answer to that question? Patience. Just give us time. We will collapse.

Game 3: The Voice Reason v.s the Eye of the Tiger

Ah, yes…Just rethinking the events of this game makes my blood boil again. These guys were hacks. And frankly that’s pretty much all I remember about them.

For starters, they had a Goliath as their D-man. He was a real brute. A Fat head. A punk. He was a detestable display of the cheap “I can’t beat you with skill so...” mentality. He was a real life Biff Tannen. He was 6’ 3’’, 250 pounds (ish) and he had an amazing shot. He did de-pants (spelling?) Tony a couple times before we adjusted and blocked his shot for the rest of the game. The big stupid never did adjust. Couldn’t have been easier to defend.

Besides having the Ogre on defense, they had a small “insignificant piece of dust” at winger. He was an instigator, a hack, a cheap shot artist, a tripper and a whiner. Think Jimmy Nelson, except this guy would actually hustle a little bit (doh!). Every two minutes, you’d either hear ”ref???!!” or his arm would go up looking for a call or my favorite move: the look at the ref. Yeah keep staring, that’ll get you a call. For crying out loud, just play the game!

But despite having such despicable hockey players on the other team, our team managed to stay calm, cool and collective. That is, until one player became tired of their shenanigans.

Now, if I were to ask you before that game, who was the most likely to get ‘fed up’ and react to another team, how would you have replied?

Let’s make the answer multiple-choice:

A) Griff

B) Ryan

C) Ryan Griffin

D) The guy married to Melissa

E) The son of a Carron

Let’s be real here. There wouldn’t have been any other answer.

Now, what if I asked the opposite of that question: Who was the least likely to dare I say retaliate?

“It was the most inspirational thing I have ever seen…John Riley had a fire lit under him? The entire team was emotionally charged after that” said one player.

The game was real laugher. This team stunk. It went down in the score book as an 8-4 win, but that didn’t give it justice. With penalties coming from every direction, to both sides, many goals were missed (that was one sided) and everyone was involved in the party. (Almost) Everyone had multiple goals.

The highlight of the game was Jared’s penalty for taunting. Well worth the penalty shot that Tony stoned them on.

Game Notes:

* Nick only played for what felt like ten minutes because Borges kept pulling him because he wanted Nick to “calm down”

*Griff was the most relaxed and rational player (seriously)

To be honest, this game was a lot of fluff goals. Not that they weren’t good goals. What Im saying is we could take nothing really out of this game because the team we played was just awful. But we felt that maybe, just maybe, this was a game that could light a spark that would carry us throughout the play-offs. Hopefully this was a game that would solidify a united effort. In our next game, all this would be blown up and forgotten. The Power of a time Out

Next: The Timeout that will live in infamy.

"He's choking how, everybody's joking now..."

We cant play a game like game one. Our team is not highly skilled or highly talented. We are built to out hustle and out work. We have to use our "intimidating size" to win battles in the corners, create turnovers and hopefully capatalize on opprotunities. We dont have the ability to out skill teams. Our success starts and ends at defense. And, frankly, we lost game one because of soft goals and a loose defense. Scoring was not the issue. If we score 7 we should win. But we didn't and change was needed. That's what the captain wanted. "Oh Captain, My Captain!"

Ok, I'm going to be honest. I had no idea who the captain was until a few games later when the infamous timeout occurred, and I'd like to think that's been smoothed over. But seriously, im not over it. But we can talk about that later. After the melt down in our first game, change was decided. A shake up. But was it for the better or just a complete overreaction?

Game 2: That's what Im talking about

Game two was going to make or break everything. How could we possibly continue to enjoy ourselves if we started 0-2? And lets be honest, if we lost, Jared would have been a wreck for game 3.

It was a game we needed to have. On the surface, the big change was moving Griff up to offense and Borges D. But it was actually more than that. Jared was now playing with John and Brett with Griff. Big shakeup. And it was just what we needed. Borges was instant offense. He managed 2 goals early. One was a quick shot from the point and the other on a penalty shot. We wore the Snipers out. It was a masterful effort by the entire Alliance Team (woops!).

It was actually a very close game (3-1 at the half)until we made it into a laugher as the Snipers became tired out (and uninterested). 10-2 Final. Smiling faces again.

Let me apologize now. Game 3 recap will be much better. I really had nothing for this. I had something completely different last night but I just couldn't make it work the way I wanted. It would have been cold hearted of me to leave it as it was. I scrapped something together, just now, when my original Idea fell to pieces. I couldn't invest anymore time into this disappointment. I had to move on.

To me this picture was the most bothersome....Who was defending this guy?? Obviously we have no idea who was out there, or the situation. Maybe the Dman had the ball behind the net? Thats the only thing I could come up with. But based on what goalie is doing, I'd say thats not the case. I was debating...is that Tony?

Confidence Shattered

The most hyped up tournament to date. The "dream" team was well represented. We had everyone we wanted. In the role we wanted. It had to work out, or panic would ensue. The 2011 Montreal Tournament needed to end with a win...it had to. All of the hype. But so many questions to be answered:

1. Were they right by replacing Tony with Dave Riley a few years back?

2. Will Johnny finally step up?

3. Could Jimmy beat Nick in an arm wrestle?(hint: tehheee..no)

4. What are the odds that Griff is more rational than John Riley?

5. Could Borges manage to gain more weight over the weekend?

6. What do you find more cool to have on your car...ugly plaid lining or a hook on both ends of your car?

7. Will the fat slob realize you don't take this guys' seat without me blowing it way out of proportion? (yeah I wouldn't have said a word if someone else took it. Fwiw, I felt bad when I wrote this.)

8. What's a choke hold?

9. Can the b-team manage to not be the worst team in muckers? Yeah, muckers. Real Question.

10. Any guesses on the AVERAGE time of a John Riley shower? 34 mins. No exaggeration.

11. What is Dehydration? Dr. Robotnik wrote "humiliation=dehydration=asthma attack."

12. How many sideline girlfriends of the other team will say to Brett: "no he didn't (fingers snapping, of course)?

13. Why aren't we elite?

14. How many balls can Tony cover up? Call the Wambulance.

15. Eric, what's it like to have one of your ankle's now be a kankle?

Despite so many questions it really only comes down to one. Could we finally win one of these things?

Game 1: Reality Check

Early morning game time of 9:20. Out too late the night before. Didn't have a good night sleep. Jared didn't get us all breakfast. Did I cover everything from the excuse rolodex?

Game One would ideally be the "warm up game" A way to get the blood flowing, the heart pumping, and your legs under you. Yeah, none of those things happened. From the beginning, it was an absolute onslaught of shots. Corners picked. Passes going tape to tape. An absolutely extraordinary street hockey team. We somehow managed to not only keep up but we scored the first two goals. Maybe we were the great street hockey team? "Let's not be crazy" said one player. "I wouldn't say we were lucky but the first goal was trickled in by Johnny and the other was a beautiful shot by JB."

We were up 2-0 with a long way to go. A very long way to go.

I'm getting tired just thinking of it. 2 on 1 after 2 on 1. Tony was playing in front of net that seemed to be 15 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Not meant to be a dig on Tony...maybe. The point I’m making is these guys were unbelievable at times. Spin moves? Check. In between the leg self passes? Check. Breaking Borges’ ankle on a give go pass? Check. The Flying V? Check. Spinning Nick around on a one on one battle? Double check. I think I saw number 27 walk on water. This team. Just wow. Wow. “Some would say jaw dropping” said one player. “I just ran back and forth. They stood still. There passing was so crisp. Tape to tape wouldn’t give it justice.”

But we kept up the fight. Though it was a losing battle. Griff and Nick couldn’t handle the North Stars pressure and the surface to get the ball out of the zone. No outlet could be found. No winger seemed to get back. In fact, watching the video again, there was only two consistencies in the game: Mistakes all around and, without fail, Griff would be yelling the phrase “get back!” every two minutes.

And despite how awful we were, we lost by two goals. 9-7. Including one empty netter by the North Stars. We tried to get into a scoring battle with a team built to score. We cant win that way. We’re just not that good. We knew we had to play better defensively or we couldn’t last in the tourney for long. It was time for a complete overhaul of the lines by the team captain. Change was needed.

We thought we could play with them. The next day we realized we probably couldn’t.

　 Coming Soon: Game 2: A stroke of genius by the captain?

Food for thought

Back in May 2010 Frendon wrote:


"If I end up on your team, or the B team or whatever...If I can make 10 or 15 plays that help set up goals, then I'm happy. You have to be realistic."

So...did he reach his quota?? Keep in mind he didnt say which team he'd be setting up. :)

Just wanted to say...

Go B's!!!!



And for those who didnt hear T&R's audio, it really was an excellent review:

Link