Midget Wolfpack travelled down to the shores of Lake Erie to
meet up with the Port Dover Pirates on a wintery Monday evening. Before arriving to the arena many of us had experienced
a lot of ice time already as we drove on some slippery roads leading from Paris
to Port Dover due to the weather.
Fortunately, all players made it to the game in good
standing and were ready to lace up to meet their contending Pirates.
Once again, our team was missing 5 players from our line up, so I contacted our AP players and was fortunate to have, for the first time this season, Liam G from our Bantam LL2 team to play up for our Midget LL2 team. Reviewing his player stats I was pleased to note that already in this season he had 25 points, with 15 goals and 10 assists. A great track record that has helped his Bantam LL2 team be overall first in the league standings. His Midget teammates Ben C and Fletcher were glad to have him join their second line.
Gazing up in the stands, I noticed 3 of our players, Spencer, Ben and Jaden who had come out to support their team, before the game their laughter and menacing smiles made me wonder what tricks they were up to, they reminded me of the 3 Stooges. My only question was who was acting like Larry, who was behaving like Curly and well ... we know Spencer resembled Moe.
In discussing the game sheet, before the game, the referees informed us that we would be curfewed at 8:50pm, leaving us with only 50 minutes for our game; however, the game sheet listed 10,10 and 15 minute periods. I suggested that we change the last period from 15 minutes to 10 minutes citing that we would not be able to complete a full 15 minute period. The game sheet remained unchanged with a 15 minute final period and this meant we would have to watch the hour clock and not the scoreboard to know when the game would end.
After missing our last game with Six Nations, our team was relieved to have Calvin, our captain, return to play with our team against the Pirates. His line comprised of Wyatt and Owen played extremely well with one another.
Our first goal came from a three way play that started from our defenceman Jack to Fletcher to Wyatt who put it by the Pirates net, this first goal, for our team, came in the final minute and a half in the first period, closing down the score at the end of the first period to 2-1 for the Pirates.
Our Wolfpack were quick to jump back in the game in the second period with a goal in just 30 seconds of play from Jack to Liam who tucked away the puck in the Pirates net, claiming his first goal in Midget. Our team continued to play hard and were rewarded with a third goal in the second period with another great 3 passing play from Liam to Fletcher to Ben who tied up the game at 3-3 to end the second period.
Like the second period our Wolfpack started out strong in the third period with earning the first goal of the period putting our team in the lead for the game by a goal from Calvin that was assisted by Campbell.
Port Dover, not showing signs of giving up, returned with two goals in the last period, allowing them to have the lead in the game, again. Reviewing the hour clock we were coming close to being curfewed so our bench motioned to Ethan to come to our bench and with a few pauses our team rushed to our opponents zone, allowing us to send out a 6th skater. For many people, including Rick who arrived just at game time, did not know why I was pulling our goalie with what seemed like over 6+ minutes remaining on the scoreboard.
Although, our players had some good chances to score and tie up the game, the Pirates were able to steal the puck and send it down to our zone and score an empty net goal, widening their lead by two goals and with the inevitable curfew, our team ran out of time to score any further goals.
Great playing by all of our players and a special mention to Jack and Fletcher for earning two assists in this game and our AP player Liam for a goal and an assist this past game.
Our team will remain busy this week as our last 3 season games, for the first half of this season, will be this Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, so stay tuned for more great hockey!