This time things went differently.
Mike D'Ignazio tallied three goals and added an assist as it was the Red Army who erased a 3-0 lead to fight back and defeat the Puck Ewes 6-4.
Poetic justice.
"We struggled out of the gate. We were really unorganized," D'Ignazio said. "Passes weren't connecting, we weren't shooting. It was bad hockey."
D'Ignazio, who scored the first goal for the Comrades to cut the lead to 3-1 with less than five minutes remaining in the second period, talked about the importance of that goal.
"I shanked the shot, but it somehow just squeaked in. They say put the puck on net and good things happen. Well, if you put the puck on net very, very slowly, great things happen. In fact, I do believe that will be next tweet."
Before D'Ignazio and company began chipping away at the lead, they played the role of gracious hosts, allowing the Puck Ewes to do whatever they wanted in the offensive zone.
The Puck Ewe's first strike, and only goal for either team in the first period, if nothing else, was controversial. A shot ripped from the high slot beat fill-in goalie Chris Celenski, struck iron, and then ricocheted out into the corner boards. Play continued for a few seconds before the referee signaled that the puck had crossed the goal line. The referees huddled to discuss, and the original call stood, giving the Puck Ewes the lead.
"I don't know about that one," Jason White said. "You could hear it hit the bar, and it made that high sound 'ping', not the low sounding 'thud' or 'thunk', which it would if it did hit the back bar. As an aspiring composer of classical music, my ear is finely tuned for these things."
Added Pete Collis, "I myself found it to be more of a "tink" or a "thwang", both of course, as my colleague Mr. White alluded to, would imply that the puck struck an exterior metal bar, and not an interior one."
Ryan Odell, who has spent countless hours singing in the shower as well as in various barbershop quartets, defined the sound as thus: "The puck hitting the bar created a melodic "clanging" sound. The key here is "anging", as an "ang" sound means no goal. An "ud" or "unk", like you would hear in a "thud", a "clunk", a "fud", or a "frunk", would mean it did go in. Like the adage goes, "A clang or a cling, it didn't go in. A flunk or a thud, that son-of-a-bitch just scored."
The Puck Ewes would make it 2-0 early in the second period after a rare lapse in defense by the D'Ignazio and Hand line let a defenseman walk in for an uncontested slap shot.
After a Soviet power play went awry, the Puck Ewes struck again, as a forward was able to sneak behind Celenski and slide in a puck that the goalie had thought he had secured.
With the game slipping away and tempers rising, a timeout was called.
"We had to settle things down," Mark Hendricks said. "We were all pretty mad at each other. Ryan was mad at Jason, Mike was mad at everybody, Steve was mad at Mike, I was mad at Celenski, Pat was mad at me, Pete was mad at Jamie, Jamie got his feelings hurt, I was mad at Pete for being secretly mad at Jamie, Steve got mad at me for always siding with Pete, and Mike got really mad at Steve for not moving over on the bench. After twenty seconds or so of us yelling at each other, I think everyone ran out of breath and we had one of those silent moments where everyone cleared their head and focused on the task at hand. I think the only thing that I said was, 'Plenty of time left'. That's why I'm a leader. I just have a way with words."
D'Ignazio sparked the comeback with his shank-shot to make it 3-1. Then on the so-called second line's ensuing shift, they made it 3-2 and 3-3, as Steve Hand and D'Ignazio tallied a minute apart from each other.
"We just had to keep shooting," Jamie Simek said. Simek's defensive poke check at center led to D'Ignazio's strike to tie the game at three. "A well timed poke check is an important weapon in any defenseman's arsenal." Simek, a self-proclaimed Asian, often speaks in fortune-cookie form to enhance credibility. "Feed a man a puck, give him a goal. Teach a man how to steal the puck, give him a purpose" Simek said to reporters, as they awkwardly retreated from his locker stall.
The Hendricks and King line, which had been relatively quiet all night, gave the Soviets their first lead of the game with under a minute remaining in the middle stanza. After Hendricks was denied in tight, King stripped the puck from the defender trying to start the breakout, and fired a snap shot just inside the post.
"It wasn't top shelf, but it was high enough," King said. "It was the first quality chance I had gotten all game. I had to bury it."
Continued King, "That early 2000's rock CD I found in my car really was the driving force behind that shot. Thank you, Bullet for My Valentine."
As to be expected, the mood on the bench between periods was much different in the second intermission than first intermission.
"There was a lot of talking," Captain Steve Hand said. "We were talking about what we needed to work on and just to focus on defense. We didn't need to press for goals, they did. We wanted to play our game and make them take chances."
For all the talk about playing defense and not worrying about offense, it was the Hand and D'Ignazio line that did in fact score another goal just nine seconds into the third period. Hand won the opening faceoff back to White, and White headmanned the pass to D'Ignazio. D'Ignazio gained the zone and unleashed a hard, high slap shot go that beat the goalie into the top right corner of the net.
"Defense wins games, but offense is sexy," D'Ignazio said.
The remaining 14 minutes of the game were hard fought. Comrades back checked hard and threw themselves in front of shot, the best example of selflessness coming from King, who took a slap shot right off his foot.
The Puck Ewes made it 5-4 with seven minutes remaining, but Hendricks struck on the following shift to reclaim the two goal bulge, one that this time, would not be relinquished. Celenski staved off the final few shots and the horn sounded, sending the Puck Ewes home, and more importantly, the Soviets to round two.
"You can't win the championship in the first round, but you can lose it," Simek said, before turning bright red and bowing.
THREE STARS:
3: Pat King
2: Jamie Simek
1: Mike D'Ignazio
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