Our Paris team had a busy four days of hockey that included
3 games and our season’s Skills Competition.
Although, our players worked hard, with these back to back games, their
performance was not affected, in fact, if anything it raised the bar of their
performance level.
Last Thursday night, our team had our final league road trip as we traveled to Simcoe to play against the Simcoe Warriors 2; unfortunately, we were without two of our defenceman, Liam and Oscar, fortunately, Jackson and Jack were quick to step up to help on our point.
Seconds before the first face off, I encouraged our players to have some fun, skate hard, make smart, safe passes and most importantly get that puck on net as often as you can, with the aim of obtaining rebounds and goals. Our team had two even forward and defence lines that made moving the lines on and off the ice easy and allowed our players to jump into the play even if it meant covering another position until a whistle was called for a full line change.
Our first period saw a lot of opportunities but very few goals and it was looking like we were going to have a no score first period until Simcoe with 46 seconds remaining found the back of our net.
With the start of the second period the Warriors still buzzing from their first goal made another quick play and secured a two goal lead in the game in just two minutes entering this period.
Whether it was due to frustration or intensity our players seemed to lose focus and began receiving a flurry of penalties that bogged down our chances of scoring. It was only in the middle of the third periods when we were back to full strength that Jack was able to pass up the puck to Spencer who reciprocated a pass to Ryan who secured our one and only goal of our game. Although, we lost 2-1 to the 3rd placed team in the league our team performed well.
Friday night we returned to our home ice to play our sister team, the Paris Bantam LL1, for what was a much anticipated game for our players, coaches and spectators. All players delivered a great performance, unquestionably one of their best games this season.
Congratulations to Jaden for securing our first goal of the game in the second period when he received a two way pass, starting all the way down from our zone as our goalie James had the first pass to Hayden who offered Jayden a pass to set him up for his breakaway goal. Our second goal of the game was again a three way play with Spencer passing to Ryan to Fletcher to clench a short time lead in the game, until our Paris 1 was able to match up with a goal; unfortunately, our team was unable to find a third goal of the night; fortunately, James was able to block out any further goals to allow us to earn another tie in the season.
Sunday night’s game was a disappointing, low point for our team as our team lost sight of the game and found many players receiving many, uncalled for penalties that was credited for dismantling our game plan that resulted in a 3-1 loss to Tillsonburg Tornadoes. For those players, that remained on the ice, showcased some great penalty killing play during the 28 minutes of penalty time, at times, with just 3 players from our team on the ice. Great work by our goaltender James; for putting up a great wall and allowing only 3 goals in, all night. Congratulations to Jaden for scoring our sole goal of the game that was unassisted. With this last game loss we are no longer in position to be able to play in the semi-final round, a disappointing reality that I shared after the game that was seen on the faces of many players.
With only two remaining league games I am hoping that our players can regain focus on the game and control the puck and not the opposing players, to stay out of the penalty box and earn our team, a much needed win to rebuild our team confidence to look ahead at our exhibition game series and final tournament of the year in Paris.
