JCC Floor Hockey

 

Juranka's Corner

March 17 (quarter final elimination game), 2008

We have had a safe, fun
and competitive year.
The regular season ended
with all six teams within
5 points of each other.
In no other year had this
level of parity been
acheived. In the very last
game only green
had the by while
black, blue, white and red
all had a chance to clinch
second place.
Since black and blue tied
with 21 points, the black team
with more goals
(than anyone else)
took second and
had the by.

march 17 was the date
of the feared do or die
elimination games.

This is both an exciting and
sad time of year.
Great games are played and
great teams are eliminated.

THE QUARTER FINALS
ELIMINATION GAMES

GAME ONE

Apathetic Fog vs,
The Blue Masons

the fog had done well
against blue
even without lessem
and we all knew
ahead of time that
both lessem and reznick
their defensive and
offensive backbone
would be absent

we were also aware that
blue would be without 2
of its top scorers
sander and aron

i had a chest cold and
harris was a game-time
decision with a back injury

its a pity that
resnick, lessem
slipacoff and shalinsky
were absent because
we really don't know what
would have transpired
if the full line-ups
were there

grey seemed to have
blue's number during the
year, winning the first two
even without some of
their top scorers

i hadn't slept well
the night before
so i took a power nap
at a friends house
at five o'clock
thinking i'd be up
way before the game

bad move !

it was amir's phonecall
at 6:45 that woke me up
i couldn't even talk to him
because i didn't have time

i just stormed out
and arrived 5 minutes late

romo had to be amazing
because from what i saw
grey was giving blue
an early pounding
but as harry and i
arrived at our bench
10 minutes into the game
the score was still 0-0

les openned the scoring
and two by greenstein
put the masons up by three

harris and curley collided
chasing a loose ball and
at this point it seemed
that harris' back injury
may take him out of the game

after a couple of shifts
he was back
more determined
than ever and
scored the next goal

with a few minutes
left in the period
curley tapped the ball
to his forehand
right off the faceoff
and let a shot go
from centre
that beat romo

the second half
began and the apathetic fog
wasted no time
scoring two more

sanjay and curley
scored to make it
4-3 blue and
we all knew that
once again it was
anybody's game

at this point but
the bounces began
coming my way

roy took over defense
and the mason passes
really started to click

then came the play
that would decide
the rest of the game

harris carryied the ball
to centre where
he was stopped
by cornberg (i believe)

at the same time
curley had caught
up to him from behind
and was trying to
run past him to his right

harris' didn't know
dan was there and
as he pulled back
to avoid a colliding with joel
his elbow hit curley
right in the face and
he was out cold

it was serious
because he lay
completely motionless
for a couple of seconds

sanjay mitch ron and cornberg
did their best afterwards
but without their
top three players
it was an impossible task

the game ended 8-3

we all want to salute
the apathetic fog
for their contribution
to this great season

they had injury problems
early in the year

resnick missed 8 of the
20 games and had the
7th highest goals per game
in the league

dan curley finished
the scoring race in
6th place overall
with the third highest
number of goals
in the league (35).

it is remeniscient
of manny's rookie year
and we expect him
to be even better
next year

i'll never forget how
reznick jamie and curley
dominated the all-star game

dan's 10 goal performance
has got to be a record

this year and last
joel lessem's absence
in the playoffs
made a crucial difference

dean brauer was incredible
during the first half
of the season and
sanjay helped them
climb to within 5 points
of first place

GAME TWO

White Out vs. Red

the second elimination game
was the most exciting game
i'd seen all year

read amir's post for details

with 15 minutes left
and four goals down
red started a comeback
that was unstoppable

they were all over
every loose ball
and scored 4 goals
to tie the game

we couldn't believe
that red could get this one
into overtime

as it turned out
we were treated to
two five-minute periods
of intense but scoreless
overtime hockey

then the shootout
began with 5 shots on romo
by either team

manny and dave lantz
were the only two to score
so it was tied once again
and this time kevin
was in net

someone on the bench
predicted that gabe
would score the game winner
in overtime but then
in the second round of shootouts
gabe managed to take a shot
that got thru kevin and
trickled into the net

once manny scored
a second time
it was all over

red had eliminated white
in the most amazing comeback
i've seen since the days
of deranged when dave lantz
would get us back into a game
even if we were 6 goals down

two great teams
white and grey
are now out of the finals
and i miss them both

they were always fun
to play against

mark and jamie have
finished the year at the top
of the scoring with
jamie having higher total points
and mark having a higher
points per game average

furious romo leads the
goalie race

tomorrow night will be
the first round of the semi-finals

the first game will be
the sad colours of bruises
black and blue

while the second will be
the happy colours of xmas
red and green

looking forward to some
exciting games !


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