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:

Goats, this one is for you. You deserve the goalie-girl this week after that game. As PSP said the only D we showed tonight was “De-breakway” 50-Mission showed a helluva lot of speed up front and their seagull took the puck time and time again in for breakaway chances.

The last we time faced the 50 Mission they had neither the goaltending nor the snipers that we faced tonight. here’s an exerpt from the March 2006 game write-up, which we won.:

This is also a shout out to the team as a whole. Both Rob and PSP made comments after the game about how great it was that everyone on our team kept it positive throughout the game and didn’t start raggin’ on each other during this loss. We played hard. We moved the puck well in their offensive zone, the D got off numerous point shots, our breakout was fairly effective, the forwards covered the D on their rushes and everyone hustled, no one panicked when 50 Mission was pressuring, good communication…

The score wasn’t indicative of the game and by no means is it Goats’ burden to bear. 50 Mission had snipers and speed on the front line that are more akin to Div 6 than 16.

Good on ya Grinders.

Oh! And lets not forget Frank. Coming out to support us during the late game AND picking up a new cooler for the team. (Bob, we owe Frank $60)

I’ve been slippin’ on my duties as of late but I’m here to make it up to ya.The roster is decimated this coming Friday night with Frank, Brad, Peter, Tidy, Bob, Gord and Guy all out of the line-up. HOWEVER, the farm-team is loaded with top quality prospects as we welcome to the lineup: Goats in net, James, Stace, PSP, and Rob Valero….

As a way of thanks,I offer to you this week’s Grinder girl: