roadhockey.net

The big O, almost

In his quest for that rarest of road hockey commodities, the shutout, Pig Farming Goalie was his own worst enemy.

With his team comfortably ahead in Sunday's game and running circles around their slower, more methodical opponents, the only question still to be decided was whether the veteran shotstopper could limit his foes to single digits, the Sunday Morning equivalent of a goal scoring goose egg. That's when he whiffed a slow dribbler, knocking it back into his own net as it rolled around at his feet.

While his side quickly recovered to win the game, 20-10, PFG remained haunted by his goaltending gaffe.

"I lost the shutout on the worst goal ever," said the humbled creaseminder as he peeled off his equipment. "It hurts a little bit."

Especially when the shutout is such a rare achievement. In the close confines of the road hockey court, shots come fast and furious from every angle; it's not unusual for a goaltender to face 60 or 70 shots in a game, many of them in flurries of rebounds and crease-crashing chops.

"It's very difficult (to get a shutout)," said Billy Idol, who's endured the shot barrage on more than a few occasions. "You're probably facing 60-70 shots a game, so to try to not let in 10 is pretty rare. They're coming at you from all sides."

And they're only getting more difficult to achieve as more skilled players throw their sticks into the pile.

"The quality of play here is so much stronger now," says Gump, who was on the losing side of his rival's rearguard feats on Sunday. "There's a lot of people who can score here, no matter who is in the net. It's gonna take a pretty lopsided draw to get a shutout nowadays."

With some of the game's fastest, most skilled players lining up on one side of the court Sunday, the table seemed set for just such a lopsided rout. Kid and Lak Attack anchored their lines, while the Colonel bombed blasts from the blueline and Billy Idol crashed the crease. They opened up a lead, and seemed poised to run away with the game, literally.

"When you've got the two big shooters, and you've got some speed from Kid and the two young guys, Doo and Scrappy, we just tried to split it up evenly," said Billy Idol.

But their opponents refused to turtle. Cowboy Bill crashed the boards, winning battles in the corners time and again. Smith and Elvis wreaked havoc in the slot, and Scooby was a dervish all over the court. And while their efforts didn't always pay off on the scoreboard, they forced their foes to be full measure for each of theirs.

"We worked really hard," said Gump.

In fact, for one remarkable 40 minute stretch, they kept their high-powered opponents off the scoreboard completely. But they also couldn't score themselves.

"Shooting against PFG, there's no sniper hear who can just beat him at will," said Gump of his side's achille's heel.

"It was tight for a long time, both teams were playing very well," said Pig Farming Goalie. "Once we got a little bit of momentume we played pretty well. I just had to keep it calm at the back, keep the rebounds down."

And make sure he didn't score on himself too often.

Sunday's game was played in ideal, dry conditions, a far cry from a year ago, when the roadsters were snowed out for the first time in the season, the first of three times that would happen.

Bird was a surprise visitor midway through Sunday's game. The diminutive scorer has been out of the lineup for more than a month after being diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat.

Posted by jaysuburb at November 25, 2007 07:22 PM