SUNDAYS #5 vs. ST. PATS:

(vol. 24S, no. 5; newsletter by k.r.)
In 1973, when Yogi Berra said “It ain't over, 'til its over,” he must have been looking into the future at our game against the St. Pats. Even though the Pirates held a 5-0 lead just 12:00 minutes into the game and a 6-2 lead at the break, they were not able to walk away with two points in the standings. Playing in front of Harris were two full lines: On defense was Keith, Wildman, Kevin and (substitute) Mike; while up front was Russ, Glenn Farkas, Chris, Dan DiPierro, Scott LeMatty and Nick.

The Pirates came out on fire as they built-up a 5-0 lead — scoring on nearly every shift (they were helped out by a shaky St. Pats goalie). With the fifth goal coming from the redline, the St. Pats called a timeout in an attempt to stop the bleeding; this had the desired effect as it straightened out their keeper and cooled of the Pirates at the same time. Returning from the timeout, the St. Pats would tally two straight goals — cutting the lead to 5-2— before Chris would dent the twine to close out the 1st period scoring, 6-2.

The final period was a mirror image of the 1st period — except it was the Pirates who were looking at the reflection. The St. Pats took it to the Pirates in a barrage of five unanswered goals. When the Pirates finally called their timeout late in the last period, they found themselves now trailing 7-6 with only 3:20 minutes remaining. The Pirates were able to regain their composure and knot things up at the 19:30 minute mark to force an eventual overtime. But still, who would have thought a team that was up 5-0 would have to rally from behind to tie things up 7-7 in the closing minutes?

And — in another strange twist— after scoring fourteen goals between them in regulation, neither team was able to tally during the 3:00-minute overtime. To amend Yogi: “It ain't over, 'til it's over – and thank God it's over.” Till next time ...
date of game: 1.22.06