Prompt 1

Well, that sucked. After starting to get into sync with this team the first few games, the game against the Hall of Famers undid all that good work. Harry Carpet got chased 3 minutes into the 2nd period, and the HOFers led the entire way. The Grizzled Vets are no strangers to hard, physical hockey—outside of Gibbles, Seger, Carpet, and Zheng, every other player has experienced deep playoff runs and Challenge Cup wins. Still, the referees swallowed their whistles as Tor Tuck, Mike Izzy, and Ben Dover took copious cheap shots on the veteran squad. This gave players like Jason Visser ample extra space to dangle his way to 4 goals (2 in the first period). The shutdown pairing of Alonso Garbanzo and Bojo Biscuit completely erased the powerful top Steelhawks unit that embarrassed the up-and-comers in Game 1; Aaron Wilson finished the game playing 18:43 with a -3, 1 hit, and 2 shots on goal.

After Dover tripped Martijn Westbroek and slashed the back of his neck with his stick, Corey Kennedy stepped in to defend his longtime teammate and friend, leveling the old Steelhawk. Dover received no penalty, while Kennedy was given a game misconduct. The passionate defender blew his top, shouting and spitting in the face of totally-not-biased referee Hallsy. The grizzled vets put together some of their best pressure offense on the resulting penalty kill, including their sole goal of the night; Brennan Kennedy Jr picked Joe Kurczewski’s pocket, and slid a pass to mid ice. Barry Batsbak collected it on the change, dangling for a few seconds before hitting Andreas Kvalheim with a drop pass. Kvalheim barreled down the ice, made a pretty dangle past Garbanzo before hitting Michael McFadden 5 hole.

Even then, the final score of 7-1 burns. During a post-game meeting, the team committed to never have another game like this. The group of veterans--representing the last 14 Challenge Cup Champions—grit their teeth and got ready for the next game.