SUNDAYS #3 vs. TEAM BC:

(vol. 36S, no. 3; newsletter by r.n.)
In my usual style, I can't remember all of the details of the Sunday game but I will give it my best shot. it was one of the more unlikely victories as it came against the team I was told was named “The Bob Currao” All-Stars. The BCASs, resembling the King and his Court of softball lure, played without subs and included such GoodSports renowned players as Currao, Masino, Weigers, Osa, Black and Casey in the nets. To be honest, another player joined in to create a sub at some point. I didn't recognize him and don't want to as he undressed me a number of times going down the right wing.

The Pirates were minus Captain Sparrow in the nets as he was tending to family obligations. A mysterious goaltender, James Roehrig, was recruited from Lehigh University to fill the diminutive pads of Captain Jack. James fortunately brought his own equipment that is clearly fully twice the size of Harris' stuff. He was very solid and gave us the backing needed to push the BCASs hard.

The Pirates were understaffed against our usual norm of ten strong. Mike, Kevin and I played “D,” while Tony, Jay, Scott, Glenn and Dan were the forwards. We played hard all night and were especially tenacious forechecking the BCASs. Glenn and Scott followed the lead of a very focused Tony Toscano. To be honest, everyone of us rode his coattails on this night. He fought for every loose puck, hustled back to help in our end, made smart passes and scored two goals. As usual, he made Jay look like Phil Esposito in his glory days by feeding him with pass after pass in the slot. In the 1st period, Jay tallied but was thwarted thereafter by a number of sparkling saves by Casey. The game made it to the break tied 1-1.

The final period became the Tony Toscano show as he won puck after puck to keep play in the BCASs zone. With the game tied 1-1, I was able to squeeze by Black along the right boards and cut in on net, he pulled me down from behind for what I thought would be a penalty shot. Apparently, the refs felt there was another defenseman around. That was interesting as I got a shot off and got to the rebound while on my knees and no BCAS showed up until after Casey had stopped me twice. No penalty shot was a blessing as I jumped off and Mike came on. He and Kevin exchanged a few passes after the ensuing face-off and then Tony was finally rewarded for his night of effort with a goal off a Kevin feed and the lead was ours. We did a pretty nice job of locking it down and Tony got an open net tally off a feed from Glenn.

The match had been played at an excellent pace and without much other than good hard play. I think we were happily surprised at the outcome and have to be thankful to Roehrig and Toscano for getting us to this surprising result.

FOR THE RECORD
Attendance (players): Toscano, Serkin, LeMatty, Nicolosi, Farrell, Farkas, McLaughlin, DiPierro. Net: Roehrig.
Scratches: Gucci, Hand.
Scoring: 1st period: 1-1 tie: Goal by Serkin (Toscano). 3rd period: 3-1 Pirates: Goals by Toscano (McLaughlin), PPG; Toscano (Farkas), empty net.
date of game: 12.28.08