After competing in two morning games of inline hockey at Gawler as part of the Vikings Cup tournament I made my way back to the Ice Arena to play in the Knights' final game of the regular season. We were taking on our old enemies, the Rangers, and the game would determine who had to play the elimination game against the Storm the following week before the playoffs proper commence.
We had ten skaters and Tommy in goal. This is almost as good as it gets for us, still being a player down from when Bacon and then Matt were taken from us. The Rangers iced twelve skaters plus their goalie. We had Justine managing the bench. She was assisted by Nick on the gate. The Rangers had three coaching staff.
I should have written this up shortly after the game as life has been busy since (will be a common 'problem' in coming weeks, alas) and the details blur very quickly. Therefore, as has become my practice on this blog, I will be more impressionistic than narrative in my style in what follows.
The Rangers scored against us pretty early, in my first shift. It was one on one as their forward crossed the blue near the boards, I was coming back from a more central position and should have had him covered but I lacked the urgency a D needs in moments like this and he got clear beneath me and took his shot. I put the goal down to my failure to engage properly, and the fact that I did so due the fact that my body hadn't yet awoken to the fact that I was playing my third hockey game of the day.
I'm not sure of the details of the play that led to their second goal, but do know that I was battling in front of our crease to keep our goalie clear. I think I achieved this aim, but took a couple stick blows to the helmet while doing it. My only real surprise was that, while the ref's saw the goal clear, they didn't see me getting hit around the head twice. Sigh.
We scored shortly after I hopped off the ice late in the first period.
I was on for their third goal, relatively early in the second period. Again, the shot came in from the outside and again I was holding up my man from crowding the crease. I was doing what I needed to do and didn't feel too guilty about it afterwards (same as the second goal).
About midway through the second period our young centre got deliberately boarded at full speed pretty well right in front of our bench. It was a mean and dirty hit and quite upsetting to see. Our centre played out the rest of the period on the wing and then didn't return to the game due back pain. The opposition guy copped a minor penalty for the hit. Unsurprisingly, the game acquired an edge from this moment on.
We'd been playing with four D and two lines prior to Baden's injury. From towards the end of the second period (when it became obvious he couldn't continue to play at all) we started playing with 3D. They scored two more goals before the end of the game, we scored one. I was on the ice for our goal (though uninvolved in any real fashion) but not theirs.
In the last period I played probably my best hockey, keeping the puck in their zone on a number of occasions by multiple interceptions, soccer skills, etc, clearing it from ours, taking them on along the boards and tying them up to the point of uselessness in front of goal. I also managed to pick up a two minute penalty for hooking with about twenty seconds to go (a nice way to end the season, in the penalty box!).
Perhaps the strongest memories were three different forwards of theirs getting upset at me for totally being concentrated on them when they were in the slot and not even caring where the puck was or what the play was doing. I've never before had any forward take exception to the fact that I do this, let alone voice it to me. All three took a moment out from our struggle to tell me where the play was, or where the puck was, and asked/told me to direct my attention there.
Two of the three I didn't even deign to reply except to give them a bit of a shove. My favorite personal memory was having the forward who'd put the illegal hit on our player look me in my eyes as I stood right up against and staring at him ask me, "What are you looking at?"
"You. You're special."
"The puck's over there," using his eyes to glance over my shoulder.
No reply. Shove.
"The play's over there!" Frustrated.
Shove. Stick lift.
The play moved on and we cleared it from our zone. The forward used this as his opportunity to back away from me and skate off.
"We'll be keeping a special eye out for you in future!" I skated off for the end of my shift. Indeed.
The other two gave me a big grin and congratulated me on an 'excellent game' during the handshake. The dirty player, on the other hand, didn't meet my eyes for the remainder of the game after our goalfront encounter (including when I was controlling the gap on him resulting in a successful poke check) and looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there by the time I shook his hand (I wonder what others of the Knights had said to him by that point, I said nothing and was deadpan in expression).
GP 16 G 2 A 3 Pts 5 10/4/1/1 PIMs 14
Ice 4
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