Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Play the ball
I have always said that Crap Teams will always be Crap Teams until they decided not be Crap Teams. Its really a simple concept. There's a choice, an effort, a motive that can change everything. Losing Stinks. And its about time the Alliance takes that next step over the line that divides the winners and losers.
The time is now boys, the time is now.
After a dominating effort on Saturday, the Alliance found themselves, yet again, with a favorable matchup in the second round of a sudden death playoff. Taking Care of Business was inevitable in game one, but we wouldn't be the Alliance without some bumps along the way.
Playoffs, Game One: It's not easy being big.
This was rematch of our first regular season game, a game we won 8-2.
I would describe this team as a team that just didn't belong. What they lacked in skill was not made up for with size or defensive acumen. They consistently let 2 on 1's go against them and let's face it; Brett, Jared and JB will kill you if they have numbers. Brett is awesome at manipulating a 2 on 1 into a high percentage scoring chance. And it's the reason why the first line dominated this team. Toasted them. They basically scored every shift they had, including 10 seconds into the game.
The other team knew they had no chance against our top line and they tried to compensate for it.
Fail.
Their "ringer winger", wearing a Lucic jersey, ended up being a whiny player that Darrin stoned easily many times. They were better off without him.
But that wasn't their only plan at knocking the number one seed down. As the first line dominated with 2 goals from JB, 3 from Jared and 3 from Brett, they decided to poke at the bear on the second line known as Griff. "That's not going to be good for anybody."
This created a rough game, with cheap shots, cross checks, bickering and some trash talk by Griff on the side. This game became very, um, not fun. I couldn't wait for it to end. But before it could there was a side issue with Eric and the other team. I'm going to be honest, it looked a lot worse than I think Eric intended it to be toward the opposite winger. The ref had no choice but to throw out both players involved, 2 on 2 hockey!
Thankfully the game didn't last long after that. The ref finally had enough of the style of "hockey" being played, the game was called. 9-0 final.
Scoring Notes:
Next: The first line is vulnerable?
- Griff had the other goal tallying up to the 9 total
- Darrin had the first ever Alliance playoff shutout. Ironically, I'd argue, his worst playoff performance. Nice work Darrin!!
- Jared could have had another goal, if Griff didn't blow a 2 on 1 by bickering instead.
- Nick could have had a goal on his great penalty shot move (cough) but was stoned.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Epic Gravy
Thoughts of us being cursed like the Chicago Cubs seem to grab more credence with each passing tournament and league game. "Pulling an Alliance" has become a universal saying for blowing it. But this time was going to be different. It had to be.
What started out as just a small pick up tournament discovered by Brett on his honeymoon, has now blown up. The hype, thought and effort put into winning one of these things has reached levels unimaginable. A win was going to happen, no matter the cost.
Year one was a limited thrown together team that over achieved. Great for that team. But the last two years have been a kick in the nuts, a dagger in the heart, a sky dive without a parachute. Year two ended with a misplayed two on one with a patented reaching stick in the background and a downpour of endless Jack wrist shots. And, of course, last year was deemed the dream team with the wrong goalie, against a scary talented team while under the tense stress of the worst timeout any of us have ever been a part of. Two epic collapses. We were a joke in defeat. The aliens sent home as losers again and again.
But the year where the tides would finally turn was coming. The clock was finally going to be on our time. Another dominating regular season was coming. And it means nothing without finally bringing a trophy home. A big one!
The curse will be killed. No one will ever critique our non-practice, drinking, stay up way too late ways again. The negative recaps may disappear off of this site. Champions at last. All of the heart wrenching defeats make it that much sweater.
Yay Muckers!
The Regular Season: Saturday means almost nothing
Almost. The number one seed ensures a first round bye, a late morning start, a cupcake second round and perhaps an easier road. Ok, I'll take that. Great. Awesome. But me, as the steady veteran of the play-on tournaments, have seen this before. Dominating the regular season is a played act, though this was done at a much greater scale. Pure domination. As usual we were the hated, over sized, team from Boston. And it started in game one and the domination continued all day.
While in hindsight, the story of Saturday wasn't the games. Important at the time, of course, but they became a side issue. The means of which to setting up greater championship odds. A stepping stone to a joyous pig pile. A necessary course in order to reach the real goal. But it was also means of trying out our adjusted lines.
Line 1: Brett, JB and Jared
Line 2: Eric, Griff and Nick
Can you say top heavy? But the rationale made sense. Obviously line one is great. You're not getting a better line, in fact. The question was how would line two work? In theory Eric would create his own offense, Griff would do the dirty work in the corners and Nick would be the responsible defensive defenseman to make sure we never got caught.
But there was an issue, we had a simple schedule. You could argue we played the two worst teams in our bracket. You could have ran out any combination of players and still won the game fairly easily. We were headed into the playoffs with two lines that were basically untested in adversity. Would it work?
While all three regular season games were blow outs, they were not left without its scares. On literally the first play of the day Borges was hobbling over his reoccurring knee injury. ( yay! Ice time!) and later on in the day, Eric decided that making a habit of rolling your ankle is good idea. Not to mention Jared's bad back and Griff's swollen foot. Injuries to keep an eye on as the playoffs loomed.
Line one shined on Saturday:
JB with 9 goals
Brett with 7 goals
Jared had 7 goals, two penalty shot goals.
Line two performed but they saved their best for later.
The team played great on Saturday, held tough and above all else showed a killer instinct. I hate to diminish what we did on Saturday but we only did what we were supposed to do, hard to get excited about that.
It was only getting tougher from here...
Next: The Playoffs!
What started out as just a small pick up tournament discovered by Brett on his honeymoon, has now blown up. The hype, thought and effort put into winning one of these things has reached levels unimaginable. A win was going to happen, no matter the cost.
Year one was a limited thrown together team that over achieved. Great for that team. But the last two years have been a kick in the nuts, a dagger in the heart, a sky dive without a parachute. Year two ended with a misplayed two on one with a patented reaching stick in the background and a downpour of endless Jack wrist shots. And, of course, last year was deemed the dream team with the wrong goalie, against a scary talented team while under the tense stress of the worst timeout any of us have ever been a part of. Two epic collapses. We were a joke in defeat. The aliens sent home as losers again and again.
But the year where the tides would finally turn was coming. The clock was finally going to be on our time. Another dominating regular season was coming. And it means nothing without finally bringing a trophy home. A big one!
The curse will be killed. No one will ever critique our non-practice, drinking, stay up way too late ways again. The negative recaps may disappear off of this site. Champions at last. All of the heart wrenching defeats make it that much sweater.
Yay Muckers!
The Regular Season: Saturday means almost nothing
Almost. The number one seed ensures a first round bye, a late morning start, a cupcake second round and perhaps an easier road. Ok, I'll take that. Great. Awesome. But me, as the steady veteran of the play-on tournaments, have seen this before. Dominating the regular season is a played act, though this was done at a much greater scale. Pure domination. As usual we were the hated, over sized, team from Boston. And it started in game one and the domination continued all day.
While in hindsight, the story of Saturday wasn't the games. Important at the time, of course, but they became a side issue. The means of which to setting up greater championship odds. A stepping stone to a joyous pig pile. A necessary course in order to reach the real goal. But it was also means of trying out our adjusted lines.
Line 1: Brett, JB and Jared
Line 2: Eric, Griff and Nick
Can you say top heavy? But the rationale made sense. Obviously line one is great. You're not getting a better line, in fact. The question was how would line two work? In theory Eric would create his own offense, Griff would do the dirty work in the corners and Nick would be the responsible defensive defenseman to make sure we never got caught.
But there was an issue, we had a simple schedule. You could argue we played the two worst teams in our bracket. You could have ran out any combination of players and still won the game fairly easily. We were headed into the playoffs with two lines that were basically untested in adversity. Would it work?
While all three regular season games were blow outs, they were not left without its scares. On literally the first play of the day Borges was hobbling over his reoccurring knee injury. ( yay! Ice time!) and later on in the day, Eric decided that making a habit of rolling your ankle is good idea. Not to mention Jared's bad back and Griff's swollen foot. Injuries to keep an eye on as the playoffs loomed.
Line one shined on Saturday:
JB with 9 goals
Brett with 7 goals
Jared had 7 goals, two penalty shot goals.
Line two performed but they saved their best for later.
The team played great on Saturday, held tough and above all else showed a killer instinct. I hate to diminish what we did on Saturday but we only did what we were supposed to do, hard to get excited about that.
It was only getting tougher from here...
Next: The Playoffs!
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