SUNDAYS #9 vs. CHIEFS:

(vol. 24S, no. 9; newsletter by k.r.)
The Chiefs haven't won back-to-back games against any team since the 1978 Federal League playoffs. But they did it tonight. The Pirates played a spirited game for 39:00 minutes before the wind went out of their sails — and their season. The entire was roster was in attendance minus Kevin, who was still nursing an injured back while moonlighting for another team (word has it that the S.O.C. is investigating possible fines into this conduct) — that left the trio of Keith-Russ-Nick manning the blueline. Up front was Chris, Scott, Ralz, Dan DiPierro, Glenn Farkas and Wildman.

This contest — a Semifinals match against the second and third seeds — was equally-played for most of the game. The Chiefs went up 1-0 in the opening :17 seconds, and added another about halfway through the period off a face-off in the Pirate zone. With Casey manning the net this time around for the Chiefs a 2-0 lead looked pretty grim, but the Pirates managed to cut the lead in half before the first buzzer when Keith fired a pass into the crease that was deflected by Ralz before Glenn would smack it into the net. The 2-1 score held for the remainder of the 1st period.

The final 22:00 minutes would be a different story. First blood in this frame would go to the Pirates when Glenn returned the favor and set-up Tim for a tally to even things up 2-2. Unfortunately, the rest was down hill for the Pirates. On a arguable call with just under 7:00 minutes remaining, Scott LeMatty was awarded a powerplay when he was pulled down crossing the opposition's blueline; although this was the Pirates' fourth powerplay of the night and the third that Scott had singlehandedly drawn, many felt it should have been a penalty shot — and in hindsight we would have been better off if it was. The Pirate special teams had been unable to capitalize on the previous three powerplays and before this 2:00 minutes was over our old nemesis, Reggie Dunlop (aka Brian Newcomb) would steal the puck deep in the Pirates zone and beat Harris from pointblank to give the “Pride of Johnstown, Pa.” the 3-2 lead. A few seconds later a puck dumped out of the Chiefs zone somehow found a rut in the ice, er I mean plastic, and hopped under Harris' stick to extend the Chiefs lead to 4-2. For those of you paying attention, that's two shorthanded goals within a minute's time. This would prove to be the final score and with that the Pirates were eliminated from the Playoffs. It's not fun to lose, but let's put this in perspective: Sometimes you just need to get away from things for a while and some of us do that by playing this game. Thank God for hockey. Till next time ...
date of game: 3.05.06