Post by Old Bucks Admin on Jan 12, 2010 22:17:39 GMT -5
Week 15 saw an excellent turnout with both benches packed tighter than Kip Thomas’ recycling can after New Year’s Eve. Rich Devlin made the teams and dispatched Kevin Saunders over to Red, who took his new post with little disguised irritation, as if he’d been forced into an arranged marriage. “Right church, wrong pew,” was how one of the droller members greeted him. Rich gave Blue a new skater: the youngest Dougherty brother, Greg, hoping his greyhound-like speed would be a good counterpoise to Bob Freiling’s chow chow-like agility. Dave Hunt was back too, so Blue was set on both offense and defense.
The game was unusual in that it had as much excitement packed into the last fifteen minutes as in the previous hour. For brevity’s sake we’re going to skip the first hour and go right to the highlights. Blue was leading 6-5, having led the entire game against a Red squad that seemed to have fallen back into its old rut, Kenny’s absence notwithstanding. Then a key thing happened: with Red on offense, Saunders went into the corner to retrieve the puck while Mike Dougherty trailed after him. Saunders shouldered him off the puck and flung a pass out to Nick Swift who took so long to shoot it reminded us of watching a musketeer rip the paper off the cartridge with his teeth, put a pinch of powder in the priming pan, tamp down the ball and wadding, and then slowly pull the thingy back waiting for the command to “Fire!” By this time Marty was drumming his fingers on top of the goal and in no position to stop the puck once Nick shot, and so the puck found the back of the net, tying the game at sixes. Blue was forced to hunker down, where moments earlier they had coasted.
Blue’s relief was quick but temporary. On the next shift Rich Cerbone, unloading a wrist shot from the point, glanced it off the shaft of Hughie’s stick and into the Red goal for a 7-6 lead. But Red came storming back with three goals in the space of three minutes: two by Bob Freiling and one by Larry Johnson. Freiling had been in Jekyll and Hyde mode all game, depending on whether he was playing offense or defense, and whenever his Jekyll manifested itself the Blue defense took fright and forked over the puck in a very unBlue-like display of timidity.
At this point there was 7 minutes left in the game, and any casual observer would have thought Blue was toast, down 9-7, having just been dealt the death knell of three-goal meltdowns. Not by a long shot. In two minutes they scored two goals, one by each Dougherty brother, Greg and Dan, with Greg’s goal set up by a sweet toe-drag move around Hughie that had “do not attempt this at home” written all over it. On top of that, Blue scored again, near the end of regulation, when Brian Urban (who had just moved to defense after Marty demanded Mike Dougherty be reassigned to offense) landed a dagger from downtown that dinged off the far right goal post and into the goal. Blue thought the game was over. They cast about looking for the zamboni driver but no such luck. Because the ice was open after Old Bucks the game went into overtime. Red kept Blue pinned down in their own zone nearly the whole time, their desire to score matched only by Marty’s desire to deny them the satisfaction. With the final buzzer imminent and Red still pressing the attack, Jim Heffern, skating for Blue, was out in the neutral zone trying to see the score of the Dallas-Eagles game. The puck fortuitously came out to him and he got the breakaway. He took it down ice and buried the puck in the net, thus burying Red’s hopes of tying the game.
Final score 11-9 Blue.
On this date (1968): Angie Sr. scores five goals in a 7-1 rout of Red over Blue, while back at home, Angie Jr. pulls his first tooth, which happens to be his own, and for which the tooth fairy gives him a dollar.
The game was unusual in that it had as much excitement packed into the last fifteen minutes as in the previous hour. For brevity’s sake we’re going to skip the first hour and go right to the highlights. Blue was leading 6-5, having led the entire game against a Red squad that seemed to have fallen back into its old rut, Kenny’s absence notwithstanding. Then a key thing happened: with Red on offense, Saunders went into the corner to retrieve the puck while Mike Dougherty trailed after him. Saunders shouldered him off the puck and flung a pass out to Nick Swift who took so long to shoot it reminded us of watching a musketeer rip the paper off the cartridge with his teeth, put a pinch of powder in the priming pan, tamp down the ball and wadding, and then slowly pull the thingy back waiting for the command to “Fire!” By this time Marty was drumming his fingers on top of the goal and in no position to stop the puck once Nick shot, and so the puck found the back of the net, tying the game at sixes. Blue was forced to hunker down, where moments earlier they had coasted.
Blue’s relief was quick but temporary. On the next shift Rich Cerbone, unloading a wrist shot from the point, glanced it off the shaft of Hughie’s stick and into the Red goal for a 7-6 lead. But Red came storming back with three goals in the space of three minutes: two by Bob Freiling and one by Larry Johnson. Freiling had been in Jekyll and Hyde mode all game, depending on whether he was playing offense or defense, and whenever his Jekyll manifested itself the Blue defense took fright and forked over the puck in a very unBlue-like display of timidity.
At this point there was 7 minutes left in the game, and any casual observer would have thought Blue was toast, down 9-7, having just been dealt the death knell of three-goal meltdowns. Not by a long shot. In two minutes they scored two goals, one by each Dougherty brother, Greg and Dan, with Greg’s goal set up by a sweet toe-drag move around Hughie that had “do not attempt this at home” written all over it. On top of that, Blue scored again, near the end of regulation, when Brian Urban (who had just moved to defense after Marty demanded Mike Dougherty be reassigned to offense) landed a dagger from downtown that dinged off the far right goal post and into the goal. Blue thought the game was over. They cast about looking for the zamboni driver but no such luck. Because the ice was open after Old Bucks the game went into overtime. Red kept Blue pinned down in their own zone nearly the whole time, their desire to score matched only by Marty’s desire to deny them the satisfaction. With the final buzzer imminent and Red still pressing the attack, Jim Heffern, skating for Blue, was out in the neutral zone trying to see the score of the Dallas-Eagles game. The puck fortuitously came out to him and he got the breakaway. He took it down ice and buried the puck in the net, thus burying Red’s hopes of tying the game.
Final score 11-9 Blue.
On this date (1968): Angie Sr. scores five goals in a 7-1 rout of Red over Blue, while back at home, Angie Jr. pulls his first tooth, which happens to be his own, and for which the tooth fairy gives him a dollar.