(vol.
17S, no. 8; newsletter by b.n.)
For the final game of the Winter 2004 season (or maybe
it was the Winter II 2004 season, or maybe it was the Spring 2004 season),
the Coastal Pirates were up against their dreaded rivals, the Zombies. It
used to be that the Zombies sported that dreaded rival, #67, but due to
conflicts of minor league baseball #67 decided to spend the past season
among the Pirates instead; I would like to say that the changeover signaled
a quantum shift in the power structure of the Sunday “B” division,
but if I said that I would be lying (perhaps “lying” is too strong
a word, maybe “exaggerating” would be a better choice). Anyway,
whatever word you choose, there is no denying that the Zombies were stacked
with offensive firepower. After playing with the core group of Zombies for
the past couple seasons, I have seen the team light-up opposing teams with
their first line of #67-Neil-Oleg. Hah! Just kidding. In reality that was
the third line,
but since the second line never paid their league fees, the third line became
the second line by default. No, the first line of the Zombies consists of
Steve-Dana-Bill; as the first line goes, so go the Zombies. Speaking of
Zombies, they were sporting their second goalie — Steve Carr —
as their first goalie (and frequent second Pirate goalie) Doug Collimore
was unavailable. You know, when Doug is not flipping loose pucks into the
corner, you can find him flipping Ford Excursions:
Amazingly enough, Doug and his entire family were able to walk away from
this scary-looking wreck (Doug reported that the flip was no worse then
the typical runs that Chris Goione takes at him in the crease.)
As the game got going the tandem of Tim Hand and Glenn Farkas connected
to put the Pirates up 1-0. That turns out to be the way the 1st period ended.
It was also how the 2nd period ended.
It started to look like that would be the way the 3rd period was destined
to end, but instead it went something like this: At about the 4:00-minute
mark (or was it the 11:00-minute mark? I can never figure out how that works),
Kevin skated out of the Pirate zone with the puck; earlier, Kevin had blasted
a puck off the lower leg of Neil Shuster that sent the Zombie captain limping
to the bench, so when Kevin got to the blueline and raised his stick to
the sky all the Zombies froze; as Kevin let off his usual blast though,
the puck deflected off the blade of the left defenseman and smashed into
the chest of the opposite defenseman — it was as if someone shot poor
Mark as he turned from the initial impact and dropped to the floor like
a 500-lb. bag of elephant shit. As the game came to a halt (and Mark was
scraped off the floor and deposited on the bench), the game that the Pirates
had controlled since the 1st period was about to come unglued: After the
game resumed, the play moved back-and-forth until the puck was frozen to
Harris' right ; as the Pirates looked up to scoreboard it was still frozen
at the 3:46 mark that it was when play was originally stopped for the injured
Zombie (much discussion was made after the game about how long play had
continued for during that time with estimates ranging from :45 seconds to
1:30-minute, but whatever the number was it seemed to suddenly energize
the Zombies). Before the 2:00-minute mark, the Zombies were able to capitalize
on a loose puck that Harris was unable to cover (don't believe Harris when
he tells you that #67 climbed over his back and knocked his helmet over
his eyes so he couldn't see the puck); keeping the puck in the zone, the
Zombies were able to put the puck past Harris to tie the game, 1-1. The
Pirates had done a great job all night of containing the first line of the
Zombies, but as they say with all things, it's only a matter of time. And
with time running out, the guy named Bill suddenly found himself alone on
a breakaway, and just like that, the Pirates were now trailing in a game
they controlled for the first 41:00 minutes. The Pirates would get two more
cracks at tying it up with a face-off at center ice and then a face-off
to the left of Steve Carr, but as Kevin blasted the puck from the point
the horn sounded when the puck hit the outside of the net. Game over.
