Jan 25, 2010 | Treading | 879 views
Busy Weekend for Novice LL Cyclones ... Battleing the Flu Bug as Well
Due to a cancelled game, the Novice LL White's schedule was very quiet since the Minto Tournament. The whole team was excited to get playing games again. With 3 games on the Jan 22nd weekend was just what we wanted. But someone forgot to tell that nasty FLU bug to leave us alone. Many players battled with sickness leading up to the weekend, most of all our star goalie Seth. With our best goalie in the hospital for the weekend and other players missing due to sickness or other committments, we would be 3 short for 2 of our games on the weekend.
Our first battle would be against the 2nd place Hanover team. Jacob stepped up to stand between the pipes and we called up 2 AP players, Josh Jacklin and Brett Smith (they ended up helping us out in all 3 games this weekend). In the first there was no scoring but Hanover was keeping the pressure on us in our end and we had a hard time getting any scoring opportunities. Three minutes into the 2nd period Hanover opened up the scoring and then again a minute later making it 2-0. It seemed at that point that the Hanover Juggernaut was going to run over us and take control of the game. But we seemed to wake up, our defence controlled the puck better in our end and began moving it up to our forwards giving us our first scoring chances. Nathan made good on our first chance with assists to Emma and Josh with 3 minutes left in the second period. Braeden combines with Nathan to score with over 1 minute left in the second period to tie the score 2-2. The third period was very tight. Jacob turned away 2 good Hanover scoring chances and our players kept up with the Baron's. A scary moment with less than a minute in the game saw the puck sitting on our goal line until Emma shot the puck out of harms way. The game ended 2-2. Given our missing players and the records of the teams, it shouldn't have been close. But our team showed that we can compete with the best teams in the league if we work together and put our full effort into it.
The next morning we travelled to Walkerton for an 8 am game. While we all got out of bed earlier than we wanted, our cyclones seemed to have a lot of energy on the ice. Emma stepped up to play goal for us (on her 8th birthday) leaving her mother chewing her finger nails in the stands. This game started like many other games, with no scoring in the first period. 30 seconds into the second saw Jacob scoring with assists to Ayden and Brett, and Nathan scored 20 seconds later with assists to Jake and Braeden. The cyclones scored 2 more times in the second period (Jake and Jacob) making it 4-0 (assists to Nathan, Braeden, Josh and Ayden). In the third, the cyclones scored once more (Nathan from Jake and Jonathan) to make the final 5-0. Emma stood strong in net to record the shutout and our defence was stellar keeping the Capital's scoring chances to a handful (Ayden, Josh, Jonathan).
The final game of the weekend had us travelling to Drayton Sunday night. Chloe was back but Seth and Sara were still sick. We were all excited to hear that Seth was finally coming home from the hospital. The coaching staff tried to spark our team but they didn't seem to have the energy to put their best effort forward. Jonathan was taking a turn in net. Defencively we played well (Ayden, Josh, Choe, and Emma) but we couldn't seem to put together a good forecheck and apply pressure to Drayton's defenders. Jonathan stopped 2 very good scoring chances from Drayton to keep us tied at nil. Then with 8 second left in the game, Jacob broke free to score giving us the 1-0 victory. It wasn't our best effort but it finalized an excellent weekend for the cyclones. Without Brett and Josh helping out we would have been in bigger trouble so a HUGE thanks goes out to those boys. Hopefully our team becomes healthy quick with 2 games coming up five days from now then the Drayton tournament in early February.
Congratulations on a great weekend of hockey Novice LL White's
Coach Paul