Bruins at Knights - Hockey League - Week #12 - Game 11

This week's game really brought a trend to light. Thus far, all season, only one team has consistently brought all of its players to play every weekend. That would be my team. The least players we've ever had on a weekend was eight. Each team is filled with ten players, which includes a goalie. The weekends where we had eight players was when our goalie didn't show. Therefore, our bench has always held two lines minimum. Well, this week also showed us the converse of our situation. The Knights only had 5 skaters available. Talk about being dog tired after the game is over. Those shifts were seriously long.

As you can imagine, with two full lines against barely one, we had a distinct upper hand. This game was a no-contest event. We handily won this game, but you couldn't tell by how we were playing. We're all there to play and it would appear that we, as a team, don't care one way or the other (winning or losing) to adjust our game. We pushed them as hard, if not harder, at the end of the game as compared to the beginning of the game.

For me, this was a dangerous game to play. Somehow, the previous week, I managed to misplace my mouth guard. As most of you know, I have put a considerable amount of money into repairing my teeth. To play a game with as much potential for damage as hockey without protection is just foolish. Well, there wasn't much I could do about it once I was at the court. I played this game without one. Thankfully, nothing happened to my teeth during the game, but this situation isn't something I want to readily reproduce any time soon. Additionally, when I was searching my gear for my guard, I discovered that the lining of my equipment bag has ripped. All three of the pockets were bleeding into the center area. I guess it was past time to get a replacement. I can't remember how many different sports I had used this bag to transport equipment or for how many years I had done so.

As far as my performance this week, I felt I played more physical based on what I had learned the week before. Unfortunately, at the end of the game I was still minus on the +/- shift chart (I think). During these past 10 games, I have come to realize that my shift is weak on allowing odd man rushes and being too forward most of the time. This week, I made a conscience effort to try to contribute in the avoidance of odd man rushes. However, since they expect me to be playing offense, I wasn't able to do a very good job of this. Although, when we were in our blue zone trying to play defense as a team, I managed to contribute a few times to the rush up court.

There were two such occasions that really frustrated me. There were two times that I was on a 2-on-1 rush with Woods. He was carrying the puck into the offensive blue zone and I was his cross court help. Neither time did he even show the thought of trying to make a pass to me. Granted, both times he scored, but when we're winning so well against an opponent, it would be nice if they would give us, other not-so-well-skilled guys, a chance. However, I was a good teammate and I didn't say anything to him or the other guys on the team.

As for injuries, I managed to leave the court with a bruised knee. It took a couple of days, but it really wasn't much to fuss about. A little bit of stiffness for a couple of days and a little bit of discomfort bending it to walk stairs or to sit, but not a big deal.