roadhockey.net

Double trouble

Rudy wanted redemption. But all he got was a double dose of frustration.

After losing Sunday's first game, 15-5, the veteran player, making his first goaltending start of the season, tried to put the offensive barrage and his teammates' defensive deficiencies out of mind. But his opponents weren't about to let him forget.

"I really wanted to salvage something," says the lanky netminder, who went on to lose the consolation match, 10-7. "It's really hard to do that against guys like Kid and Elvis, who were really on their game today. They were able to pick corners and make those cross-crease passes."

It was a dismal outcome for a day that had started so well. Seriously outgunned in the first game, Rudy made a number of key saves early to allow his team to claw their way to within a goal at the end of the first period. But that was as close as they got, as Kid and Elvis started to execute their pass plays with impunity, and Nibs found his range from the point.

"All the big guns on their team just started to wear us down," says Wendel, another two-time loser on Sunday. "We hung in tough for as long as we could, but eventually they just broke through. We just got a bit undisciplined and disorganized."

"We had no defense going and we certainly couldn't get any offense going, we just seemed to stall," says Paul One.

As One and his mates realized the futility of their effort, that stall became a skid, and they looked to the second game for salvation.

"It seemed like a foregone conclusion anyways," says One. "We kinda slacked off through the last part of that first game, it wasn't like we went gangbusters."

"You've got to throw the old game away and just get ready to start again," says Wendel.

Rudy was also looking ahead.

"You've always gotta concentrate on the next goal," says the neophyte netminder. "You just try to stay prepared for the next shot."

While a redraw of the sticks gave his team a little more offensive punch, adding Nibs and New Guy, the outcome was the same.

"It hurts," says Wendel, of the double defeat.

"To lose two is just downright embarrassing," says One.

"It was really tough," says Rudy. "I just couldn't really find too many little victories out there."

Posted by jaysuburb at January 11, 2004 03:48 PM