Referees Are The Best

Tonight’s B2 Carmel Hockey by the Highways, Byways, and Roundabouts is brought to you in part by referees doing their best and worst, like the rest of us.  Turns out that the -Itis after gorging holidays caught America by surprise, and half of America’s Team was missing in action tonight.  The rules and regulations for adding mercenary players to a team have evolved over the years, but current bylaws allow for captain negotiations if a team has 7 or less skaters, which was the situation that America found itself in tonight.  The Golden Showers faced off tonight in the featured game of the week against the boys in blue that were on California time for the late start in Bestfield.  They had at least 12 skaters, though I might be counting Schmitz as two different skaters, pending frustration levels. The Blue CHiPs were tied for first place entering this game, and it would have certainly been a blowout without the current rule that allows for an 8th skater.  America is wise, though we aren’t debating strategy.  We chose James, and he accepted.  He regaled the locker room yarns about his aptitude for playing defense after the game, but we were just happy that CHiPs didn’t make him play with a left handed stick.  I have been on teams that have handicapped him thusly previously.  

But seriously, there were a ton of Blue players for a 10:30 start, and they were all eager to skate hard.  O’Connell scored the first goal at 14:24 on one of the prettiest hockey plays of the night with a deflection after a series of tic tac toe passing.  It felt like real hockey with Pickett and Schmitz collecting the ref-awarded assists, and their forward lines were pressing all night.  Then, Pop did Pop things with one of what I think was the first of three goals, but maybe Nelly got the last goal.  Our league benefits from a guy like Pop that scores the more incredible goals.  We all ohh and ahhh because that’s what one does, but America’s Team was now down 2-0.

Being awarded the Golden Jacket has an effect on how you play the next game.  That’s my hypothesis, and I plan on getting my sterile friend involved in studying this.  Rhodes won the Jacket honors last, and he started the scoring at 8:10, though the referees gave no one credit for helping Johnny.  As far as you know, he went coast to coast, dangling and dipsy-doodling around an entire army of Blue.  The truth is that Jacket Bearer had excellent plays all night.  The Golden Showers then tied it up at two on an ugly goal.  There were several bouncing puck plays, but this one had me juggling the puck off my right thigh for control, like I was a Dream Weaver, and I passed the puck to Talus.  It happened fast, and he felt the soccer energy, so he kicked the puck towards the net.  It was a pinball type of goal as it bounced off at least three other crease squatters. 

Pop put the Blue CHiPs up 3-2 to finish the first period with another one to behold.  Of note, I think I made two good plays against Pop for the night, so I have that going for me.

I also made an uncredited second assist, as Williams opened up the scoring in the second period on a setup from Talus to tie the score at 3.  These refs were maybe in a parallel universe tonight, but we all still love them because chaos would ensue in their absence, as we shall see.  Later in the period, I got my clockwork reset by Frasier on a wraparound play that I thought that I would score for sure.  I’m pretty hard-headed by nature, but I swear ref said that there was a penalty.  Same ref said that he would prefer that I leave the ice because of violent head trauma.  I was trying to keep my shifts short all night, which was difficult with two forward subs.

Benson, in a foreshadowing of Jacket honors, scored with 40 seconds remaining in the second period from Williams to put the Golden Showers up 4-3 to end the period.

Nelly gets credit for tying it up in the third period in an intense game, though I’m pretty sure it was Pop again.  We love refs, and there were hardly any assists tonight.  

The game was rugged to the end, and there was one particular moment on the boards where too many players were piled on the puck, so a faceoff was called.  The media was expecting overtime, but Benson had other ideas as he body-stick willed the puck up to a streaking Kang at center ice.  I remember saying that he has time, and he did, as he pulled off one of the greatest dummy-drag goals of all-time.  With 8 seconds left, 8 Americans (with a goalie) did the impossible beating the CHiPs 5-4.  The CHiPs were not happy in the end, chirping the refs, which made the victory 50% more enjoyable according to some in America’s post-game interviews.