<div align="center">Game 18: Detroit Falcons v Halifax Raiders
Game Thread



Goals

DET- Alex Kepka (Hans Moleman, Alexander Odegaard) at 15:01 (1st)
DET- Rising Hippo (Zach Evans, Prince Daniel James) at 18:06 (PP) (1st)
HAL- Reed Laing (Greta Iversen, Victor Lindstrom) at 8:41 (2nd)
DET- Alex Berkis (Alexis Metzler) at 14:58 (3rd)

Penalties

DET- Rising Hippo for Hooking (Minor) at 0:18 (1st)
HAL- Matthew Sheat for Roughing (Minor) at 3:56 (1st)
HAL- Reed Laing for Holding (Minor) at 12:40 (1st)
HAL- Niklas Flower for High Sticking (Double Minor) at 17:33 (1st)
HAL- Victor Lindstrom for Holding (Minor) at 10:10 (2nd)
HAL- Pietra Volkova for High Sticking (Minor) at 15:22 (2nd)
HAL- Joey Ryan for Tripping (Minor) at 5:51 (3rd)
HAL- Pietro Volkova for Roughing (Minor) at 8:16 (3rd)
HAL- Hogan Miller for Roughing (Minor) at 10:28 (3rd)

The Game</div>
A spirited effort by Detroit early was enough to push the Falcons over the line against Halifax tonight, in front of a packed audience at the Scotiabank Centre.

Detroit had yet to win a game this season before tonight, and the crowd had an opportunity to make their amusement known early on when Rising Hippo took a penalty just 18 seconds into the game. The Falcons held on, however, thanks to the efforts of Jeremy Anderson, who in his first regular season start for Detroit made 21 out of 22 saves and gave the Falcons a chance to win.

The hooking penalty by Rising Hippo, however, was the very last penalty against Detroit that night; the Falcons ran a clean game for the rest of the evening. By complete opposite contrast, Halifax incurred no less than 8 minor penalties for the rest of the game, including a double minor penalty for high sticking by Niklas Flower towards the end of the first period.

Detroit recovered after the early error, and buried Halifax in shot attempts for the rest of the period, eventually scoring in the 15th minute. A bad pass by Halifax defender Blake Fenrir was caught by Alexander Odegaard, who set up Hans Moleman and Alex Kepka for a two-on-none breakaway. Goaltender Richard C. Hocolate was caught off guard, expecting the shot to come from the more experienced Moleman; instead Hans passed the puck back to Kepka, who took advantage of Hocolate being on the wrong side of the net.

A few minutes later, Rising Hippo got an opportunity to redeem himself in front of the silenced Halifax crowd. A strong effort by Prince Daniel James, with assistance by Zach Evans, allowed the veteran to make the score two to nothing, scoring through the five hole on Hocolate. It was a close run thing- Hippo initially missed the pass entirely and was lucky to retrieve the puck before star Halifax rookie Solaire Azarov.

Halifax rallied as the second period got underway; ensuring the shot on goal tally was levelled for that term, and eventually managed to score a goal back; an impressive coordinated passing effort by all five skaters on the ice (Miller, Iversen, Toucher, Lindstrom and Laing) around the Detroit defensive zone enabled Reed Laing to finally put one home past Andersen and put the Raiders back within one goal of the lead. But unnecessary penalties again dashed the hopes of the Halifax team, with Lindstrom and Volkova giving away holding and high sticking penalties respectively to return the momentum to a relentless Detroit outfit.

The Raiders did not find any improvement or solace in the third period, giving away three more penalties before Alexis Metzler intercepted the puck off a bad pass by Colin Banning, and set up Alex Berkis who put the puck top shelf, making the score three to one for the Detroit Falcons. Despite continued strong efforts by both teams, neither side was able to make any further impact on the scoreboard. The Detroit Falcons face the Prince George Firebirds tomorrow night, while the Halifax Raiders travel to Montreal to play the Militia.

(I've spent 6 hours fucking around with infographics that just flat out don't work, advanced statistics that I can't calculate, and gifs that don't match what happened even as described by the simulator, so this is going up with just story of the game, goal explanations and a table with some period by period statistics that you can only get by counting manually. Others can find pips like those above for all 8 teams by clicking this link.)