I’m so damn excited to play tonight that I have a Grinder girl ready already, so as a post-game Grinder girl for Monday Night’s game where reports came flooding in about the 2 on 1’s and 1 and 0’s and 2-0’s that peter had to face and the outstanding saves made in those situations, and Gord’s goal coming from a hard pass off of Clarke, and our re-occurring ability to LOSE IT - couldn’t happen to a better opposition; I present to you Scarlet.

Scarlet shall also be known as the Pre-Game girl for tonights game again the Burnaby Jets, Friday 8pm at 8 Rinks. We’ve been playing against the Burnaby Jets for about 7 years now and the games are always very even - going either way depending on puck luck. Last game shots on goal were 25 to 27, but we managed to eke out a 3-1 win even with having to kill 2 penalties. We did have out ELITE spares with us as compared to tonight where we will have to rely on our own resident skill, so play hard guys, mucho shoto and victory shall be ours!

Due to the untimely disappearance of our beloved beer cooler, an exhaustive search has been undertaken to find an adequate replacement. Until now, no reasonable candidates had been identified, however we believe a suitable replacement has now been found.

Please provide your feedback, as we need to ensure that we are making a responsible decision in this time of bereavement. We want to ensure that this is not simply a “rebound cooler”, but will be a worthwhile companion for the Grinders for seasons to come.

Last post I said that until morale improves all you will get is naked male hockey players. Well the images I came across scared even me so you’re safe for now. But still no Grinders girls for you! wedensday night at 10:30pm vs The Cougars was NOT the showing that we had wanted.

Congratulations gentlemen, The Grinders are now the most penalized team in the division.

Proud, I am not.

We came out with a short bench, 10 skaters. It went without saying, keep the shifts shorts and stay outta the frickin box.The tempo of the whole game was rather lax, so we could have been in there. And in fact we were for the first period. we made it through with no scoring from either team, but we realized that if we were going to make an impact we had to step things up, all things except the cheap crap. Oh!!!! Thats the problem, we should have been more clear about that at the bench during the intermission. Okay gets lets step it up, more passsing, more skating, more speed, more shots, and LESS crap.

Our fault, never mind.

And then it started, Flutter-by master Bob Bradley gets a tripping call. Thats his first penalty in 10 games, so then it must be alright for the rest of us, right? Apparently we thought so:

Santa goes on to take two unsportsmanlike penalties and a high sticking penalty for a total of 8 PIMS
Nickason takes a tripping and high sticking for 6.
Geiber, Andy and Tanchak take a measly 2 PIMS each just to fit in.

Some familiar names in there to be sure: Santa with 40 PIMS, Nickason with 10 PIMS, Geiber with 14 PIMS, and Tanchak with 14 PIMS. All of our PIMS leaders sitting in the box at one point or another during a 4-0 loss.

One of the penalties, our player mugged theirs in the corner. And the Cougar skated away.

Another; after a harmless redirected shot that careened around the boards our player rode a Cougar into the boards. And the Cougar skated away.

A slash! and the Cougar skated away.

High sticking! and the Cougar skated away.

They gladly accepted the power play, dominated the flow, dominated the game, scored 4 goals and skated away.

We bitched, we whined, we went to the dressing room and blamed the refs. And the Cougars drove away; with a win.

too muchch crap, too little respect.
My $0.02

I miss two games and all hell breaks loose.

Well the first one sounded good. Rumour has it, that if I had had time to post a Grinder Girl that game the 3 stars woulda went something like this:

1st Star - Peter with a well-deserved shutout and Jacques-Plante-esque saves.
2nd Star - Harry! (breaking the no-stars to spares barrier) with stellar performance on D
3rd Star - Troy with the game’s only goal (nice assist Rob)

But then, game two happened: A loss, Lots of penalties and copious amounts of bench bitchin’.

We’re ahead of schedule girls. This usually doesn’t happen until Mid-January, early February. Are we losing sight of the reason we come out to play already?! You senile old bastards are getting harder and harder to appease every year. Remember:

• It’s for fun.
• We claim to our wives it’s for exercise and that we earned that last beer.
• It’s to be able to tell our co-workers that we belong to a team.

But if you guys can’t play nice with each other (or with the other team for that matter) then we’re gonna have to do something drastic, like join the 35+ league, or (don’t tell Bob I said this or he wont shut up about it) start our own league.

So let’s strip our game down to the basics, gentlemen. Lets go out to be competitive, and to win, but drop the “at all costs” notion. Respect your fellow team-mates, and respect the other team. Too often we accuse ourselves as dropping to their level and yes we do have to learn to skate away once in a while, but admit it, take a close look at yourself, we start a lot of the shit as well.

Play the game hard, play to win, but cut out the crap and listen to your teammates when they tell you to relax. Perhaps you ARE cross checking in front of the net (Santa) , Perhaps you ARE too critical (Gord) , Perhaps you ARE taking long shifts (Dave), Perhaps you ARE taking it too personally (Andy), Perhaps you ARE too skilled for this division and should ease up on the competition (Glen).

Anyways, until morale improves all you get is naked men: