WEDNESDAYS #1 vs. GERIATRICS:

(vol. 12W, no. 1; newsletter by b.n.)
The new season started this past Wednesday December 4, 2002 with the Pirates lacking their Captain on the floor. I won't go in to detail why are intrepid Captain was a “scratch,” but you can read all about it in last Sunday's newsletter. Our opponents were my favorite former team, the Geriatrics. Games against the Geriatrics are always crucial— in seasons past the games against the Geriatrics were always a barometer of how the team would fare in the season: a win against the Geriatrics and we were almost always in the playoffs. Lose? Well, we had a streak prior to the Spring season where we couldn't beat the Gerrys to the loose BenGay in the locker room, let alone the loose pucks on the floor. That streak seemed to coincide with the streak of non-playoff appearances.

So with all that said, let's get to the game! Both the Pirates and the Geriatrics had 11 skaters for the night. The Gerrys strangely enough had their #1 goalie playing wing and their #2 goalie (and ours too!) Doug Collimore, playing net. Why? I don't know. The Pirates had the Evan, Scott Miller, Farkas, Chris Goione, Wildman and Jimmy Ferraro and Allen on “O.” While on “D” we had Keith, Dave, Glen Chambers and the guy who knocked Russ out of Sunday's game (and was taking his spot on defense and really needed to step-up to cover his absence).

The 1st period saw the Pirates jump out to the 1-0 lead when Chambers hit Wildman for the score. The lead was short-lived however, when one of the Pirates lost the puck as he skated from behind Harris; the Geriatric who stripped him of the puck was able to hit frequent Pirate-killer “Big Ant” who was wide-open standing in front of the net — “Ant” was able to one-time it past Harris for the tying score. That is the way the scoring stayed for the rest of the 1st.

In fact, that is the way the scoring stayed through the 2nd. It wasn't like the Pirates didn't have chances: Collimore was clearly on top of his game and was able to steer aside everything that was fired at him.

Going into the 3rd, the Pirates were much aware that we needed to put some pucks in the net to get some separation from the Gerrys. Finally though, it was the Gerrys who able to chip a rebound puck past Harris from an offensive-zone face-off for the 2-1 lead. Ouch! The Pirates were able to jump back in when Chambers picked-up a rebound from a puck that was blasted from the blueline (the puck was over the net, but came off the glass) and Glen worked it to Farkas for the score, 2-2. But that was not how it ended either. With just about a 1:00 minute remaining, the guy who knocked Russ out of Sunday's game and was taking his spot on “D” (and really needed to step-up to cover his absence) decided to step-up to keep a puck inside the redline; he was able stop the puck with his skate, but it deflected to a charging “Ant” who was suddenly all alone breaking into the zone with the puck on his tape. “Ant” lived up to his Pirate-killer reputation by blasting the puck past Harris for the go-ahead goal, 3-2. The Pirates were still not done and showed continued hustle by forcing a face-off down low in the closing seconds. Russ, directing the troops from the bench, called on my favorite face-off guy(#67) to take the face-off to Collimore's right. The face-off was won and pushed back to Ferraro who blasted a shot just wide. The Pirates got one more shot at it when the puck was covered with just :12 seconds remaining. This time my favorite face-off guy (#67) won it back to the point. Unfortunately, no one was on the point and the puck slid out of the zone as time expired.

End of the World? Hardly
End of the season? Don't bet on it ...
Russ returns next week.