WEDNESDAYS #8 vs. GERIATRICS:

(vol. 13W, no. 8; newsletter by b.n.)
What? Another Wednesday night regular season has come to a close and, well wait a second, I seem to be getting ahead of myself ...

Before the season could come to and end, the Pirates would have to play the Geriatrics for the second time in three weeks. The Geriatrics, as faithful readers realize, have been known to steal more than their fair share of games from the Pirates; and with Casey LeCompte in net for them on this night, they were set to be an even more formidable opponent for the Pirates. On the Pirate side the offense consisted of Chris Goione, Wildman, Farkas and #67. The game started with Russ and Keith on defense with Mike Farrell on the bench.

The first shift of the 1st period seemed to have a lot of pressure, put couldn't get the puck in the net. Same with the second shift. It kind of went that way in the 1st period until Evan stick-checked a Geriatric who was about to pounce on a loose puck in front of Harris; #67 grabbed the loose puck just outside the crease and made it all the way to the blueline before Bobby finally decided that what he had witnessed had not been a stick check, but rather a hook and the joyous “tweet, tweet, tweet” blew the play dead and gave the Gerry's a powerplay. The Geriatrics were able to work the puck behind Harris and passed the puck to an open old guy in front of the net for the score. The period would end with the Geriatrics holding that 1-0 lead.

The Pirates continued to get chances in the 2nd period including a notable play where Harris picked-up a loose puck and pushed it up the left boards to Farrell who passed it to #67; #67 was able to outskate the Geriatric “D” and turned the corner past the face-off circle and was able to lean in and get the puck back to his forehand (Before I go any farther, it must be noted that Harris was really looking forward to picking up the assist on this play. Unfortunately, he screwed himself two weeks earlier when he went out of his way to jinx #67 by mentioning that #67 was in the scoring race. As predicted, he hasn't picked up a point since); with that said, I really don't need to finish describing the play. At some point in the period, Russ moved up from “D” and the Pirates experimented with the unconventional move of going with six players on offense while just the Norris Trophy-winning tandem of Farrell- Richardson manned the blueline. Things finally got going for the Pirates when Keith came to the bench for a rare breather and #67 jumped on for an equally rare shift on defense; no sooner did his skates hit the floor when Mike Farrell cranked a shot from the far point that deflected of Chris's skate past Casey for the score. The second period ended shortly thereafter with the score knotted 1-1.

The 3rd period highlighted the Richardson-Farrell tandem as they played the entire period while the two offensive lines continued to rotate. Mike Farrell announced his presence once more when he blasted another shot from the point — this time it was Russ who jabbed his stick on the puck (after being tied up by a Geriatric); the redirected shot found the 5-hole and gave the Pirates their first lead of the night, 2-1. Keith would finally get on the plus-side when he flipped a somewhat harmless shot from the blueline with 5:00 minutes remaining; the puck knuckleballed on Casey and slipped past him for the score and the insurance goal.