This game we knew we were going to be very short. All sorts of players said they couldn't make it. I called Nik to sub, who has played with the Flames before and would have been a regular this season if it hadn't been for the issue of money getting in the way. We're lucky she was able to play. We had three D and five forwards once she said she could come. Dena was in goal. We were expecting a really hard game because in the spring league, this team won it all. Not so now.
I walked in first with my gear and a man about my age approached me and asked if I was with the Concord Flames and I said yes. He looked behind me and said she's with them and I looked to see what appeared to be a girl around twelve slumping a little and getting that oh crap look on her face. Her dad chuckles and said she was a little scared when she saw how big I was. My reaction was to say, "don't worry, she'll probably skate around me all night 'cause I'm so slow'. :)
I talked with her dad for about half an hour before some of our other players showed up. He was really nice. We mostly talked about hockey, his daughter getting prepared for college, and what she was going to major in. It turns out she's a junior in high school and is sixteen years old and has only been playing for two years. She's was just really small for her age. I had reassured the dad that not everyone on the team was my size and most of us were moms with little babies and had a ton of injuries. It's not a lie either. Dena and Deb came in and I pointed out that they had a one year old and a two year old. My Bink will be three at the end of this month.
To make a long story short, this team wasn't the same team from the spring. Their seniors graduated and were gone and when we started playing them, it was obvious they hadn't all been playing that long. We dominated them the entire game, winning six to nothing. Some of our players even passed them the puck just to let them skate it up the ice some. Oh, and before the game started, their captains came up to say have a good game and all that. We were like, huh? When you're use to teams wanting to kick your ass, it's kind of funny to have a team being nice to you before the start of it all.
I will say the refs were sketchy at best. They didn't call icings on the kids team, but they did every single time on us. And he kept yelling at both teams to hurry up with getting to the faceoff circle. We figured they were pissed that they were missing the Eagles game for our game. ;-)
There is a big difference in strength between a girl and a woman. Anytime one of our players pushed one of them a little, they were off the puck and some fell down like a ton of bricks. And I took a slapper that knocked a poor kid off her feet. You feel bad in one sense, but on the otherhand, you don't when you consider all the times we've played teenagers who love to hit you and slash you because they know the refs won't call crap against them. Thankfully this team wasn't like that, which to be honest, surprised me a lot. These girls were nice! No one hit me from behind, no one was checking our players into the boards, no one slashed the crap out of us. It was a nice game by both sides.
They had a few players that needed to step up their game. I saw some sandbagging done by some of their bigger players, and some of our players noticed that their goalie basically didn't seem to care much about being in net for this game. That's not a good attitude. The majority of the girls on the team hustled their asses off, so I'm pretty confident that in a year of two, their team will really be good. I think I'll check their league web site out to see how they do. I've always wanted to follow a girls team, but there's nothing down in my area in south Jersey, so I think I'll pick their team and league to see what goes on with those girls.
Overall, this game was another good one to get back out on the ice after being off for two weeks during the holiday season. We shook the rust off and now we have to get back into the swing of things for the remaining half of the season.
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