The Vikings winter season opened on Saturday night. We played in the first Div II game against the Shufflers. They had six skaters of whom five are on their roster. We had five skaters (to start with) of whom only me, Merrilyn and Brenton were on the roster. We also had Craig (Bumpers) and Rachael (U14's) playing with us. In goal, we had our new goalie, Mike. The Shufflers had Jye in net.
I was only active for the first fifteen minutes during which time I put in maybe five shifts. It was on the fourth shift that I picked up my solitary point for the evening, collecting the puck behind their goal line and angling a shot on net as I crossed the red line, which deflected off of Jye's pad into the slot for Craig to hammer it home for the only goal of the half.
My last shift was highly abbreviated as by that time my Exercise Induced Asthma Attack was grabbing a hold of me, to the extent that I just hovered around the centre line, limiting myself to rolling East West and using my head to best position myself to either direct or deflect passes. It was a productive minute resulting in at least one good chance at goal before I had to get off due lack of breath.
I hovered on our bench, making it clear that I was not able to come back on. I was trying to hold out to half time, which I planned to use to get my keys and get to my car to get the asthma medication I keep there for just such an emergency. However, with only a couple minutes to go, I realised that things were worse than I'd thought and so left the game to sort myself out.
What follows is a summary of the remainder of the game, of which I was only vaguely aware while I sat on the sidelines receiving treatment. More of that in a future post...
The Shufflers scored on the first shift after half time, but from there it was all Wheelers. Craig played a part in every goal, putting in another three himself and getting a helper point on the two remaining goals. Brenton and Merrilyn each scored both a goal and an assist. It was a comprehensive win. I suspect it would have been points to us even if Craig hadn't played (assuming I had remained healthy) but we'll never know and he certainly made a difference.
In my five shifts I participated in about five face offs, or which I won four. My favourite play involved a swoop in from the boards across the goal front, somehow capturing a puck and doing a spin o rama to pass it to an open Brenton (?) in the slot. It didn't end up in a score but drew a few comments at the time. Crazy move, for me!
Mike our goalie will be a real asset to our team. He is very focused and has a good loud voice to lash us into activity. I don't mind the play being directed as long as there's a hockey brain behind the voice. I think we get both with Mike.
GP 1 G 1 A 1 +1 1/0/0
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