Close one!

My early return from the islands allowed me to take my position behind the bench for our second Novice B playoff game. In my preview of the game, I wrote last week, "The next playoff round sees us host the Chiefs (no, not those Chiefs), who battled us to a 2-2 tie and then lost to us 3-2. We'll need more goals than the lone regulation tally in the first game."

The game was a battle without many shots through half the first period when we put one in. We tallied another early in the second period to go up 2-0.

Then the walls caved in.

Child Three made a brilliant pro-quality save on a hard riser to his glove side. He threw out his left pad in doing the splits and reached across with his trapper to deflect a sure goal into the corner. What a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately, one of our defencemen soon after coughed up the puck as he was trying to stickhandle out of the slot. Child Three was ankle-cuffed by the quick shot and the score narrowed to 2-1.

The Chiefs kept coming. Somehow, our defense gave up a two-man breakaway that resulted in a high rising goal to tie the game. We started the third period knotted at 2-2.

The first shift of the third saw a long, hard, low shot put us behind 3-2. Child Three probably should have saved that one, but he was too deep in the net - at least he knew it.

We were in a hole, but some good effort and some even better saves kept the Chiefs at bay until we tied it up. We pulled ahead with three minutes to go on a beautiful rush and pass by one of our least skilled players. Our little Frenchman took the pass and buried it in the open side of the net. Child Three had to make two game-saving stops (see the sequences below) before the buzzer sounded, but we eked out a lucky 4-3 victory.

We'll have to play better in the semifinals against our fellow NDGers.





Bonus search of the week:

Some panicky parent found this blog with a Live Search search for "baby ate chinchilla poop".