Second official Saugus Hockey Night since the Pandemic. Not sure why I capitalized the “P” in Pandemic. Feels like it warranted a capitalization after all the time that it stole from us. To quote a recent commercial geared toward the elderly for reverse mortgages: “I’m no spring chicken anymore!” and I’m sure some of you feel the same. For those of you still in your twenties (Nick) and younger (Scotty) you have no excuses, though. On we go!
No Pete the Meat Sr. No Chris Young. Surprise late addition of Reggie! Welcome back from shoulder surgery to probably injuring it again!
Some highlights of the night include some really nice passing for the white team on the night. You know its good when the goalie is screaming at his defense to cover you since you're wide open on the back door all night long.
Jared had a pretty blind backhand diagonal pass to a streaking Andrew up the seam, but the better play was actually Jared hustling to get back in the play when Andrew muffs his first chance, Jared gets a loose puck and feeds Andrew for the goal that he should have had at first. That was some great teamwork.
It was all white team for the first two games, despite not having a sub for the better part of game 1, as Pete was tardy to the party. Games 1 and 2 were not that close, but included a few wild scenes. For one, Elliot had a play where he was fighting in front of the net for the loose puck in front of the goalie, and he gathered it into himself and basically sat down on it. I think we need to start calling penalty shots on scoring chance fouls. That’s bogus. It’s one thing it if it’s an accident….but c’mon. That ain’t no accident, BRUH. You knew where the ball was. And you knew where your butt was. Are you trying to hatch it?
But the big play of the night was a head-on collision between Jared and Dave. It was one of those hustle plays where you realize too late that you just ran out of runway, and it didn’t help that Dave also was lunging forward to cover the ball, which closed the gap very quickly. Jared looked like he made a decently athletic play to pick up his feet as he somersaulted Dave, but unfortunately one of his knees didn’t quite make it and he clipped Dave square in the helmet.
After some time, they got up, both a little shaken up, and Dave took the worst of it. But said he was ok. He will feel that in the morning, and decided right then and there that an investment in a professional NHL helmet was probably worth it at this point. Something with a little more impact-protection than the Franklin street hockey helmet he wears (which was probably designed with kids in mind, not adults running full speed into you with a flying knee). So, yeah, I think that’s a good call, Dave. Get the helmet.
Other highlights included some puzzling on-ice chatter between teams. Trash-talking, perhaps? I dunno. According to the grapevine, Mike's nips were apparently able to cut glass… don’t know why that was brought up, but that fact was confirmed on observation, FWIW. Also Mike has been playing with us for what, 30 years? And he still shows up without a proper white/black shirt option and plays in a highlighter-yellow shirt that was of course illegal and drew the ire of many a white-team-player. CHANGE THE SHIRT!!
So after getting beaten badly two games straight, the dark team could try to get a trade happening. Or they could just play harder? But no. Nick basically did his best Nick impression (when he is having a losing night) and took off his shin pads after game 2 saying he was done. But Jared countered that (with Jared’s best Jared-on-a-winning-night impression) by verbally assaulting him into playing one more game. So we play on.
After two white team wins, last game of the night; dark team was up 4-2 but lacked killer instinct. White team rallies back to tie, then win the game, scoring three unanswered. You gotta want it, dark team.
Oh, yeah and it wouldn’t be a Saugus night without the counting of meaningless stats: Scotty got his first official goal. He thinks he had one last week, but who remembers that? Maybe he did. But cry me a river, he is hardly the only one to get shafted on points due to bad scorekeeping from the bench. Seems like it’s a routine occurrence with us, it’s synonymous with Saugus hockey. Don’t make me break out the world’s smallest violin. I had points disappear last week, so did you, so did someone else probably. If I’ve learned ANYTHING in Saugus, I’ve learned that, your points only matter to YOU, so save your breath. Nobody is going to change the books, now. Sorry, not sorry.
MVP of the night was my wife who had a big pan of Chicken Broccoli Alfredo waiting for me when I got home. It’s like she was reading my mind. And with that, I turn the page. On to Cincinnati!
