Wolfpack first win, News, Midget LL4 |, U18, 2018-2019 (Paris Minor Hockey)

This Team is part of the 2018-2019 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Oct 24, 2018 | midget4 | 254 views
Wolfpack first win
This past Sunday, Oct 21st, our Midget LL4 skated out onto home ice, as we welcomed the Burford Coyotes.   Reviewing our schedule and results page, Burford was playing us for their third league game of the season while our team was preparing for our second game of the season; however, in between our first and second league games we had some practice in an exhibition game with our St. George neighbours.

As they say with practice you get better and that is exactly what our team is accomplishing, as we went from losing our first game, tieing our second game and then winning our 3rd game against Burford.  This win not only improved our rankings in the league standings but it offered our team the must needed confidence for our players, not to mention, smiles from ear to ear.  Just in time, for our team photos that are scheduled for Tuesday evening.

This past weekend at practice in speaking with our goaltender Caleb, I asked if he would like it if I counted his shots on net for each game to calculate his goalie stats, without a beat, Caleb smiled and confidently responded yes.  However, I hadn’t counted his shots on net in the first two games, Caleb quickly interjected by confirming that he had 20 shots in the first game and 22 shots in the second game, as he keeps count for himself.

With counter in hand that I just purchased for this new role, I had my niece, Lily who was sitting beside me, to track the number of shots on net, which we would record per period.

Impressively, with just 35 seconds into the game our team scored first as a result of a pass from Fletcher to Lucas who netted his first goal of the season.  Looking back at our first league gamesheet, I noticed a new trend developing, as we scored in just 16 seconds during that game.  If we continue this pattern in games to come, this will become a rewarding trademark to help our team with setting the tone of each game in our favour, keep it up boys!

Continuing in the first period, Josh taking a powerful shot on the Coyotes net that went just whizzing overhead of the net, forcing the goaltender to duck down.  The puck ricochet off the back glass and rebounded back towards the goalie, bouncing off his back and falling into the net, a great spectators goal.  Fortunately, Josh’s father Dave was videotaping the whole play, which his family will be reviewing countless times, post game.

As the buzzer sounded to end the first period the Wolfpack were leading the game 2-0 and a quick review of the counter showed that Caleb had only 3 shots on net in the first period, this was a good showcase of our defensive players to keep the puck away from our net.

The second period sadly did not start off with a quick goal; however, our players were continuously on the puck and dominated much of the play, this frustrated some of the Coyotes and the first hooking penalty of the game was called, offering our Wolfpack the first power play.  The Coyotes played well and were able to kill off their penalty and instigated our player, Fletcher with getting a cross checking penalty.  Now it was our team’s turn to be on the penalty kill end of play, which we managed to do without giving up a goal, in fact, we turned the tables on the Coyotes as Jonah scored with a short handed goal with a second remaining in our teams penalty, with a textbook 5 hole goal.

Our team was in a comfortable 3 goal lead but they were not ready to let up and with a minute and 47 seconds remaining in the second period Evan passed the puck to Riley Mc.H. to score and finish the period with our 4th goal.  5 was the number of shots on net that Caleb was able to save to hold off any goals for Burford in the second period.

What would happen next at the start of the third period after a tripping call, was a confusing and disappointing string of events that ended in a bad call from the referee against our player who refused to participate in a fight.  The result was two players being tossed out of the game with only 44 seconds into the last period and it left a lot of uneasiness in the air in the arena that you can feel as a chill in your bones.

The mood was quickly changed in our team’s favour in a few minutes later as Jonah scored his second goal of the night by an assisting pass from Spencer.

Burford battled back hard in the third period and played their best game in the last 15 minutes of the game by having 17 shots on net in the 3rd period, essentially doubling the number of shots in their first and second periods, combined.  Their efforts resulted in two goals in the third period, exclaiming to our players that the game was not over yet.

Our boys did claim a second goal in the 3rd period in between, the Coyotes two goals to keep the Coyotes chances at a distance.  Evan earned his first goal of the game with an unassisted play to the delight of his dad on the bench who was all smiles and if his hands were not in his coat jacket you would have seen him celebrating with “Jazz Hands” in applause for his son’s concluding goal of the game.

Terry was not all smiles on the bench, as he had to avoid pucks coming into the bench on not one but two occasions and had to walk off the bench to the safety behind the boards glass to avoid high sticks it was as if he was watching a puppet stick show.

Before the end of the game our goalie was whistled for a tripping penalty with 4 minutes remaining in the game, offering Burford a powerplay opportunity; fortunately, our team iced the puck at every chance they could and successfully ran out the time of the penalty.  However, it was in the last minute of play when Caleb had the most share of shots in the game when he saved 4 rebounded shots in a row that he amazingly saved.

Congratulations on the first win of the season, looking forward to more wins ahead.

Go Wolfpack Go!

Kevin Noseworthy