SUNDAYS #2 vs. SLACKERS:

(vol. 10S, no. 2; newsletter by b.n.)
What idiot scheduled a 5:00 p.m. game on the nicest Sunday of the Summer !!?? Don't answer that. I'm sure said person had his own reasons for scheduling the game at such a lousy time. I wanted to write something else about said person, but I was forbidden from doing so, so that is the only mention you will see of him. On other fronts, our second game of the mini season found us playing the formidable team of the Slackers. The game was set to mark the return of TPOC, but after some pre-game jockeying, he was nowhere to be found. The Slackers consisted of Dave Kurasz in goal, former Pirate Nick Garguuugoasusdfosdf and numerous familiar faces. In fact Brian N. was on the Slackers. Brian N. was also on the Pirates.

On the opening face-off it was Brian N. winning the face-off, then on the next face-off, it was Brian N. being victorious. It went on like that all night, even when Brian N. lost one here or there, it was none other then Brian N. winning it. Hmmm ... I'll have to go back to referring to one of those guys as #67, otherwise I'm likely to loose it. Glenn Farkas opened the scoring by picking up a bad clearing pass from Kurasz, and flipped it into the open net. For those of us that have seen Kurasz at his worst, we could not help but think of that night just a few months ago when he couldn't stop a thing. Of course unlike that night, Dave was able to regain his composure almost immediately; before we knew it, our 1-0 lead had evaporated and we found ourselves down 3-1 at the end of the 1st.

Unlike people who will not be named in this newsletter, Jimmy Ferraro did not say a peep to me about mentioning his name or how many times he missed the net. And it's not like he missed the net that often, it's just that when he didn't miss the net, it didn't go in. Jimmy's trouble began in the 2nd when he found himself camped-out on the right side of the net with #67 breaking in alone on the goalie; Kurasz was locked-on #67 and when the puck was passed to Ferraro, he had nothing but net to shoot at — unfortunately, Jimmy shot it just wide. The Pirates didn't give up and continued to chase the puck, but Kurasz eventually was able to pounce on it to draw a face-off. Things got uglier for Jimmy later in the period when he found himself alone in front of Kurasz once again; this time he went to his right (Kurasz dropped to his knees and dove to his left) and Jimmy flicked the puck up, but Kurasz was able to stop the puck in midair with the wide part of his goalie stick. The Slackers would pick up another in the 2nd to make the score 4-1.

If you counted the number of games that the Pirates were able to come back from a two or three goal deficit you would come up with a mind-numbing four times ... and that is in the last five games alone! So when Wildman scored on a feed from Farkas with under 10:00 minutes remaining in the 3rd, there was quiet confidence on the bench that the Pirates were on their way to pulling out yet another come from behind victory. Unfortunately, that's not the way it worked out. Throw in another goal for the Slackers and another Jimmy Ferraro wide open chance in front of a sprawled out Kurasz (and an emptynetter) and what do you get? A 6-2 Slacker victory.