So, I'm just gonna say it. Sunday night was Uhhhhg-leeee. With a capital Uhgg. Fourteenth season we've been doing this at Saugus, some of us have been playing much longer, going back to the old milk street park days, and even further back when we used to play at the Mary Queen of peace parking lot or miscellaneous schools around Salem - wherever we could setup those cheap plastic foldable nets...
So some of us have been playing hockey for the better part of 20+ years. You'd think we would remember how to use a stick, right? You'd think we know how to take a shot and not miss wide left by 13 feet, right?
Nope. Wow was there rust! Not just rust, but basically a whole auto salvage yard full of rust. First game seemed like a slaughter to me.
Everyone got off to a slow start, but once the goals started rolling in, seemed like there was no way to stop the dark team. I mean, we had Billy and Nick on Defense and Dave in net. Can you get much better than that?
But we can't put it all on them. As bad as we were at stopping them, we also could not get anything going offensively. Every chance seemed like a broken play or bad turnover. Can't be entirely too sure, because after that egregious, awful, low-down, dirty face shot I took from Hardy, I was a little woozy and don't remember much after that....I remember pieces....visions...blurs, mostly... I remember Reggie's 13.5 foot reach preventing anything from getting past him up the boards. I remember Drew blocking two or three of my shots with his shin guards - this inside part of his shin guards...
I remember Iggy...Iggy was...actually I don't remember Iggy... Anywhoo......Game one was brutal and we lost in a demoralizing shutout 5-0. We needed a trade. Really, what else are you supposed to do. It's not like we had hope. We just couldn't put all that rust together to form anything that remotely looked like an offense.
So John trades me and Billy away for Drew and Jason. So game 2 was much, much more even, despite what the 5-2 score maybe gave the impression. It was 0-0 for the better part of the game, maybe like 20 mins or so...can't tell...too concussed to be accurate about the passage of time...
Jared was talking about maybe getting Steve a Saugus-first shutout for the whole night. Is that true? Have we never had one goalie with a complete shutout for the whole day? I would think that we would remember that, no?
But alas, Steve had to let up two goals to bring his GAA up to a pathetic 1.0 and blew his big chance at a Saugus legend. I suppose we could have helped him with that, but whatever, I digress....
It was a very thin stat night for most players...more so that I can remember in years past...I mean, how many nights can you say that Johnny Rocket was held to ONE point on the night? Ludicrous, right?
Eight players were held to 1 point or fewer. Eight out of Eleven. Only Drew, Jared and Ward managed to get some points on the board. It was very lopsided on the stat sheet. So now it's a three-man race for the scoring title...too early for that?
So what did we learn from week one? We learned you can't count on Lenny Young. Unless he shows up next week and makes up for it. Your word is your bond!
We learned that most of us are wayyy too rusty from taking the summer off. Gotta hit the gym harder...
We learned that first game of the year we need subs. And not the kind you order from D'Angelos. Playing without a sub week one is brutal. We need more bodies out there.
Let's get everyone for the next game in 2 weeks. We need them all. Even Brad.....
Ok, maybe not Brad. Dale, though. We need Dale. If not for his backhand skills, then at least for his blog skills. Let's make a blog great again! #MABGA
DATE: 10/06/19
| rank | Player | Goals | Assists | Points | Games | Wins | GW | GWA | Team Goals | GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jared | 4 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 2 |
| 2 | MVW | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 2 |
| 3 | Drew B | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 5 |
| 4 | Billy T | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| 5 | Brendon | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| 6 | John R | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| 7 | Nick | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| 8 | Reggie | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 2 |
| 9 | Jason H | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 |
| 10 | Chris Y | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| 11 | Ignads | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| rank | Goalie | Games | Wins | Win % | GA | GAA | Shutouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steve F | 2 | 2 | 100.00% | 2 | 1.00 | 1 |
| 2 | Dave | 2 | 0 | 0.00% | 10 | 5.00 | 0 |
