roadhockey.net

Last shift letdown

Wink and his powerful linemates, Colonel and Lak Attack, picked the wrong time of the game to run out of gas.

After leading their team back from defecits throughout Sunday's game, including a four-goal hole early, they fired blanks on their last shift, allowing Rudy and his speedy wingers to score three straight goals and a hard-fought 20-18 win.

"We had three pretty good guys out there, and we just couldn't finish," says the humbled gameshow host. "I really felt that after we got the lead, with the guys we were sending out there, we were gonna win it, we're just gonna go out there and be freakin' heroes."

They had taken to the court with only their second lead of the game, 18-17, after Wendel and the Living Legend, who had been struggling most of the day, combined for two quick goals, the go-ahead marker on a seeing-eye backhand over Gump's shoulder

"Towards the end, we got better at playing a good aggressive forechecking game, and both lines were doing a good job at making things happen," says Wendel. "We thought we finally had the game under control and with our power line out there, we had momentum on our side."

But their opponents responded with a speedy trio of their own. Elvis battled the boards while Rudy and the Kid cycled to the crease, creating cracks in the defensive coverage and scoring chances on a beleaguered Lobsterboy.

"We just wanted to end it," says Elvis. "A lot of it was just good play by Rudy and the Kid, a lot of movement and good passing and just trying to get Lobsterboy moving around a little bit."

"We were just trying to chip it out and put it on net, get to the rebounds on Lobster," says Rudy, who scored the gamewinner past the diving crustacean.

"They were quick, and we just ran out of gas," says Wink of his line's last-shift letdown.

But the seeds for their swoon may have been sown much earlier in the game. With the second unit struggling, it was up to the first line to lead the charge back from a 5-1 defecit at the end of the first period. Wink and Lak Attack scraped, while the Colonel scrapped, first with Beetle Boy and then with Rudy, to take a 7-5 lead.

"I think our line played really well all game," says Wink. "We had lots of chances, we worked really well as a group."

"We were on our heels a lot of the time against Wink, Lak and Colonel," says Rudy. "They had a tough line to match up against, they really pushed hard through the middle of the game."

Maybe too hard, says Wendel. And when they needed to draw on their reserves to put an end to the longest game of the season, the tank was empty.

"Sometimes it's tough to get that final push in," says the diminutive winger. "You spend so much energy just trying to get back into it, and then you still need more energy to finally win the game."

"We were behind... but we always fought back," says Lobsterboy, who lost for the second time in as many weeks. "It looked like we were a heartbeat away from winning, but just a couple of bad plays and it's game over. It was a heartbreaker. We should have won, but we lost it."