It has been a long time since the dogs have been together - last time was Vermont in November. And to be honest, we played like we haven't been together. Fortunately for us, we dominated the first team we played, even if we had trouble putting the puck in the net early. That was our Friday game and we won 5-0. We played with 2 lines of forwards and one person rotating through, then we had 4 defensemen. No Amy Mulvey, but in her place Paula got Dani Aud - a real youngster (26). Nice player but more importantly just a classy person. With Sheila and Fran missing from the defense, Paula recruited Diane DeMello.
Our lines were as follows:
First line: Dani Aud, Cathy Silva, Julie Devine-Theodore
Second line: Needles, Paula Casey, first 2 games Alicia, last 2 games Carol
Spare: Vee (I rotated through)
Defense pairs: Laurie and Leslie
Tricia and DeMello
Goalie: Teri
Although our on-ice play was a little rusty, the locker room camaraderie was not. Poor Silva had been sick, so she was even quieter than usual, but with Needles and all the rest of us, we made up for it.
Although we dominated the first game (playing Norwich) and won 5-0 we still had trouble putting the puck in the net. The team had a good goalie - she seemed to always be in the right position. After our game we watched the team we would be playing at 8 am on Saturday and they looked good. When we looked at the program we realized that it was basically the Bears. Ugghhh.
Saturday morning we just did not click. The things we were able to do against the team Friday night just did not fly on Saturday morning. The Space Dog team has quite a bit of speed and strength. We had some chances, but didn't bury them. Fortunately for us Dani got a breakaway and managed to prevent a shut out. We lost the game 4-1.
We were confident going into our Saturday night game as they had lost to the team we beat Friday night. But again, we didn't seem to be clicking when the game started. But slowly we came around and ended up winning the game 6-0.
For the finals on Sunday Billy told us we could win. We needed to play our game and play as a team. I was hoping for a couple of things. First, maybe they went out drinking Saturday night. We've had good luck in the past with teams playing in the finals with a hangover. Or perhaps they'd come into the game over confident and we could jump on them right away. I don't know if either of those things happened, but what I do know is the Dogs played their best game of the tournament - by far. Each and every player was playing better and smarter. During the first period Silva kinda got rubbed out against the boards. No penalty was called, but the refs did blow the whistle because she was slow to get up. Because they blew the whistle, she had to get off the ice. With the face off on the far side of the rink just outside the other team's blue line, instead of sending Needles all the way over to the face off dot, we kept her by our bench. The ref dropped the puck, Needles stepped off the ice and Silva stepped on and proceeded to score with a slap shot to the upper corner. That was really cool.
The game remained 1-0 until the second period when Dani scored our second goal. To be honest, I don't remember much about it except it was in pretty close and I think she roofed it. I scored from the slot off a gorgeous pass from Paula Casey to make the score 3-0. Unfortunately we let the other team score with less than 20 seconds left in the second period (I think with something like 5 or 6 seconds left). We entered the third period up 3-1 and that's how the game stayed. But there was tremendous effort to keep them out of our end. I have this picture of Leslie sprawling on the ice to poke the puck away from the other team in the neutral zone. And when they did get into our zone and manage to take a shot on net, Teri was all over it. She played awesome all weekend.
I'll put some more thoughts into the details as I don't want to slight anyone. Alicia was awesome in the two games she played, and was a real trooper to drive the hour from her house to be at the 8 am game so Carol wouldn't have to drive 2 hours to get there. She was funny though. Commenting on how she came to the wrong game (against the tough team). And as luck would have it, Carol did score 2 goals Saturday night - and hit the cross-bar on a third attempt. She probably would have had a hat trick as the shift I subbed for her, I scored.
The other funny thing Saturday night was a puck squirting out just past the hash marks in the slot and Leslie skating in a taking a slap shot. CLANG off the post. Thank goodness it was the post and not a person. Billy on the bench says "doesn't Lester have a wrist shot?".
I can't remember what game it was, but two of our defensemen ran into each other (I think it was Tricia and DeMello) and there was talk of calling a penalty on your own teammate.
Paula had a few major collisions - at least 2 in the finals. One she got a penalty for, the other she didn't. She shouldn't have gotten a penalty either time. I'm thinking that girl won't be skating with her head down for a while.
VeeAnn Cross
