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| Ice dog |
Well, day two of the tournament held much promise, but in the end was bittersweet.
The Goal Diggers, our female friends from Greensboro, started off their day at 9am. They had a hard time against their first opponent, losing 5-0. Tough way to start off the day.
And as much as I'd like to tell you that the Ice Holes fared much better, alas, it was not to be. As you may already know if you read the Twitter feed or the Facebook page, we ended up losing our second game 5-1. A game we should have been much more competitive in. We had some differences of opinion with the officiating and some very poor attitudes, but in the end, we were our own worst enemy, setting up the other team for most of their goals by giving away the puck as very inopportune moments. With two losses out of our three preliminary games, we figured we were about done for as far as advancing to Sunday's semifinal rounds, so we resolved ourselves to just have some fun and try to put in a good showing.
Heading into our final game for the day, we were up against a team that we faced in the State Games earlier this year, and lost to fairly badly. We were determined to not let that happen again. We might lose, but we wanted to make them work for it.
In what turned out to be a very spirited game, the officiating once again played a larger role than it should have, with very inconsistant calls detracting from what was shaping up to be our best effort of the weekend. We actually scored first in the game, which was, well, a first for us. We got up two goals before the other team put a point on the board. After that, it developed into a back and forth game, with neither team gaining more than a one goal lead on the other. Late in the third period, we thought we'd gotten a good goal to put us up again, but the refs somehow found a way to wave it off. I think the official excuse was that the follow-through on the close-in shot knocked the net off its moorings. Really?
In the final minutes, the Holes took the lead once again, and this time it didn't get called back. It took an empty net goal from Mike Fierschnaller, however, to seal the deal. Holes win 6-4!!!
Now for the kicker. It turns out that three of the four teams in our pool had 1-2 records, so we all tie, right? The first tiebreaker was goal differential. We ended up one goal behind the team we just beat in goal differential. Had our goal that was waved off stood, we would've advanced due to the fact that we tied that last team on goal differential, but beat them head to head. Bummer. But hey, that means we get to sleep in in the morning instead of playing an 8am semifinal game. Lemonade from lemons, folks.
Some assorted pictures from today's activities:
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| Our pals the Goal Diggers |
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| The Holes' executive committee |
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| Jon L focuses for the game |
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| Adam's "angry face" |
Your 2012 USA Hockey Adult Classic Ice Holes team. If some of us look pissed off, it's cause we're cussing at the Zamboni driver, who was yelling at us to get off the ice as we were trying to get a team photo after our final game. For the record, it took about 10 seconds to take the photos, during which time, the Zam covered about 5 feet. Don't worry folks - at no time were we in danger of getting run over.
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| Doug Thomas inspects damage caused by blocking a slapshot with his metatarsals |
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| Pat livin' it up at Texas Roadhouse (on the birthday saddle) |
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| The birthday brownie |
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| Cranberry vodka cocktails at the Hampton Inn |
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| Once again, cranberry vodka cocktails at the Hampton Inn |
So, overall, not a bad weekend. I wish everyone a safe trip home, and thanks for tuning in.
