Monday night at the River Cree South Rink, which has been recently renamed (something about Miss Saigon, or Panda Hut... cant remember) hosted a 10:15 tilt between The Bulldogs and your favorite Edmonton beerleague squad, the Gators.
The Gators crawled into this matchup sporting a 5gm winless streak. Not pretty. Add to this some key scratches of Fetting (Vegas drunk), Hutchinson (Dallas drunk), Tremblay (St. Albert cerfew), McNamara (same weird city cerfew / beauty sleep excuse as Tremblay), Aylward (business owner busy season), and McRae (excuse probably rhymes with mussy fipped) and things from the start may have not been looking up.
However, assurances from the Gators ironman Overton were that Conrad "Conman" Wideman would be making an appearance in the green and gold. "f'n rights! He's good at the hockeys" Lowrey was quoted thinking.
Foreshadowing the start of the game were memories of Conrad past... he might not have a good record of actually showing up. Spoiler alert: he didn't. However Buckely and Detillieux did... TeamSnap app doesnt have a 'probability of attendance' percentage in their 'Maybe' tab, and they should. By icetime we had 11 skaters including a chomping-at-the-bit Hayes. Anything 10 or more is good news.
First period saw a surprisingly well positionally played game by the Gators, causing the bulldogs fits. The lone goal of the period came off a broken play in front of the bulldogs net, with an untouched Filewich shooting mid-cheese blocker side for a Gator lead.
Second period continued with the tight checking and glorious backchecking of the Gators. At the 5:30 mark of the period the Bulldogs did strike back to tie off an absolute rocket going top corns. Then it go a little chippy. Less than a minute after the dogs took a high sticking penalty. On the ensuing PP a loose puck was picked up by Overton and buried high glove side... that spot just head high near your melon. Goalies hate that spot, but who better to know where to place it than Overton (psst, he's a former goalie). Next play afterward a little mele (see other gator news for defintion) ensued and Scrads drew a coinciding roughing penalty with a dog players cross check. off to the bench. A half minute out and he was back in, this time drawing a body checking penalty to match a dog players interference.
Third period saw a little more Gator pressure in both zones. After a crafty Hayes backcheck, a little digging around in the corners and a slick in flight pass to the smooth skating Michaels who sniped a beaut and extended the lead to 2 goals. In the process another Gator goalie was on the scoresheet. Not to be done on the night, Hayes 30sec later found himself on a breakaway and fired in the game sealer for a 4-1 lead. The bulldogs tried as they might but couldnt mount anything substantial and the game was over. Filewich with 10sec left found another Bulldog to engage in some extra-curricilar activities as time ran out. I think we now have a thing... Scrad-trick
Buckley awards Overton with a well deserved #GatorOfTheGame for being a machine on the point
Lowrey stops 21 for the win
Other Gator News:
Culby's nipple still hurts from a blocked shot last game
A mele is a confused hand-to-hand fight or struggle among several people
Spenny was -2
Disneyland is better to go to than Disney World
When Landis went to Disneyland he was easily 2ft older than anyone else
Michaels game was pure sandpaper
a "muff pot" is the area on a snowmobile when you place something to heat up to eat... near the muffler... get your mind outta the gutter you degenerate.
2 of 3 Gator goalies got on the scoresheet