The Cuppa Joe Grinders

Burnaby, 8-Rinks – Grinders vs Sydney Millionaires by Gony Tallagher

It’s not like you really had a chance.

Take a look at your forwards: Trainor, Leng, Teigen, Williams, Gabriel, Schoffer: Shoe-ins for the Turtle Race if ever I saw any! These names don’t exactly give you goosebumps or send a shiver of excitement up your spine do they? Oooo, well maybe if you had Clarke in the line-up it would have been different. Trainor, legs of lead and staying out of the fray like he was afraid to repeat the penalties he received last game only had one shot on net. And that shot came at a time when he should have passed it to Williams wide open in front. Christ, the Millionaire’s goalie only had to come up big once, off the back-hander from Nickason.

So you got up by two goals thanks to the remaining two forwards; Geib and Schmidt. Geib, as always was a factor out there and buried his chance on a breakaway, and Schmidt surprised the goalie with a wrap-around. (By the way, he wasn’t the only person surprised by a wrap-around that night, but let’s stick to hockey and talk no more about shampoo bottles. The rest of the time, the shots were few and far between, non-threatening and mostly from the outside or from the point. There wasn’t the rebound potential out there like you saw against the Shockers so the point shots, if they got through, were of limited use.

You Grinders had 26 shots on goal. Normally this wouldn’t be too bad, but the Millionaires had 8 minutes in penalties and defended a couple of 5-3s, all in the first two periods. That goalie should have been peppered.

Then, the defining moment: the Millionaires stayed out of the box and the Grinders decided to play team defense.

Team defense. Okay, half of you guys still can’t skate backwards. You still check someone with a wave of your stick as you skate by, your positioning is atrocious, and you collapse all five guys in front of your net effectively screening your goalie from the point shot that will inevitably occur. Good plan, that team defense.

Why the hell don’t you stick with what works? Pressure hard in the neutral zone and always, always, always have a guy forcing their puck-carrier no matter where he is. Forward pressure so the other team makes a mistake is what works for you guys. You have to rely on their mistakes. Why? Remember the list of forwards that I started out with? Add to those names the powerful flutter-by shot of “Alice” Bradley, the agility of Houghton, and the Lady-Bing performance of Santa. If this guy doesn’t take a penalty, his head isn’t in the game.

Feel good about being in this game. Feel good about the 2-0 lead over 2.5 periods. Don’t lament the two tie-ing goals in the third or the OT goal that finished it for ya. It was bound to happen. Your goalie can only take you so far. Geoff “Goats” Gauthier had a stellar performance and he had better show up on the three stars graphic – if the webmaster ever gets his act together) for both previous games or else. But you can’t rely on “The Glove” to save your ass every game.

The Grinders have now dropped into a 5th place tie with The Cougars, whom you face Monday, October 16th at 9:30pm. Skate hard all game, maintain forward pressure and don’t rely so much on your Stopper and 5th place may solely be yours – oooowhee.