This Week in SCOHA – January 11th, 2023

Well folks, the holiday season has come and gone. Thumbs down to those players who failed to air out their gear for the past 3 weeks hoping it would air out naturally if left alone. Rumblings from the arena staff are that it smelled like hot sick in the dressing room corridor on Sunday night. Could’ve been United’s Marc Poulin throwing up for the 18th time this season but was most likely awful smelling gear. I have a deeply engrained belief that the games will have more intensity from now on as we start what we like to call the 2nd half of the season. United Division standings are tighter than a snare drum as we kick off the post-Christmas rush to the playoffs. Meanwhile, Masters Flames are hotter than a grass snake in a wagon rut, still waiting for their first loss of the season.

 

 

FRI. JAN. 6 MASTERS DIVISION:

 

STARS 5 PENGUINS 4: Captain Chris “beans” Barratto has his Stars playing exceptional hockey this year. Bruno DiGiovanni scored the eventual game winner as they edged the Penguins 5-4. My proline ticket got ripped up after this one, I had under 6 goals for a cool $600.00, thanks a lot guys. Stick tap to Stars Andy Rossit who chipped in with a pair of goals for the winning side. Penguins got 2 goals from Steve Kivell who now has a respectable 10 goals on the year, not bad for an ex-Norway 3rd tier division forward looking to carve his niche in SCOHA.

 

 

REDWINGS 4 BLACKHAWKS 4: The Hawks filled the tub with penalties but still managed to escape with a 4-4 tie against a stingy redwing squad. Total of 8 goals scored in this one and 8 different players lit the lamp, pretty impressive, fellas. Hawks Ron Ferracuti scored a beauty (say that fast 3 times). For the redwings, Eddie Walton scored his 5th of the year with a power move that should be shown on a vhs instructional video for the kids. Thanks to dale Brons for subbing in for the Wings thinking he was actually getting free Wings if he played for them. Nice try pal.

 

 

FLAMES 6 SHARKS 0: This Flames team is all gas, no breaks as they continued to tear through the league. Let’s put an all-star team together with the rest of the teams and see if they can beat them. 8 bucks say they don’t. Ghislain Piche dropped a deuce for the winners while Tymen Edelkoort got his 38th shutout of the season. Good grief, his positioning is tighter than a hotel bedsheet for crying out loud. I spoke to some fans after this one and one guy said if he found out the Flames gameplan, he would make millions. Player/coach marc Verrier isn’t about to give up any secrets, just one game at a time is all he keeps saying.

 

 

SUN. JAN. 8 UNITED DIVISION:

 

BRUINS 5 BLACKHAWKS 3: This Chris Conroy kid can spin around faster than Clark Griswold racing down the snow hill on his super saucer. 2 more goals for the star rookie as the Bruins continued their Cinderella season with a big 5-3 win over rival Blackhawks. Kyle “pull over quick, I think I am about to” Relf scored a goal of the year candidate for the winners while Ryan Bili scored a pair for the Hawks. His game had more back and forths than the 1987 Wimbledon final between Ivan Lendl and Pat Cash. Hawks Paul McGraw actually broke a sweat during this game, something rarely seen. Bruins Devon “gimme some gloves, I am” Friessen did his part, setting up a key goal to get the boys fired up.

 

 

OILERS 5 SHARKS 4: Oilers had 6 guys missing but key spares Dino LaPorta and Carlo Greco filled in admirably as the Oilers came back to defeat the Sharks 5-4 at Jason Hoffman bobble head night at the rink. John Carvalho scored his 10th goal of the season while Hoffman tallied 3 assists for the winning side. Sharks Braden Lapointe scored a pair for the Sharks who is playing well according to our Sharks cub reporter Fudge Cromwell.

 

CANADIENS 2 FLYERS 2: This defensive battle was one for the ages. Despite getting whistled for 4 penalties, the Canadiens seemed to find a way to scrape together a solid point, tying the Flyers 2-2. Let’s pause for a sec and thank newcomer spare goalies Sam Menicanin and Sam Dummer a stick tap for helping out for this one. They both played great and even stuck around for photos and autographs after the game. Habs got goals from Bill Foley (no relation to Matt Foley, motivational speaker) and Andrew Baker (no relation to famous singer Anita Baker). For the Flyers, the Haslams scored again, Mike and Ryan tallied for the orange guys.

 

 

MASTERS DIVISION:

 

SHARKS 3 PENGUINS 1: I actually had this game on my other Proline ticket and won $38,000 so I am off to Acapulco for 10 days if you are looking for me. Dale Brons scored the game winner as the Sharks took a bite out of the Penguins 3-1 in front of a sold out crowd of 4. Fill-in Brad Ballman made 43 saves for the win and at the other end, this could’ve ben a lot worse if it wasn’t for Brian Deanes heroics in the Penguin crease. I missed watching this one but recorded it for later on tonight when I get home. Downtown Lenny Brown and Dan “Mr. Serious” McLaughlin also scored for the Sharks while Paul Opie had the lone goal for the Pens who ran out of ink by the time this was over.

 

 

FLAMES 4 BRUINS 1: Oh my god, Tymen let in a damn goal, let the trade winds circulate lol. Flames Henri Marfisi scored the game winner as his Flames torched the Bruins 4-1. Per Darren Dreger from TSN, Bruins held a closed-door meeting after this loss as coach/gm Gord Bryce set up a film projector to go over some defensive plays against the white dressing room wall. He then apologized after and enjoyed the pizza and nachos to help forget about the loss.

 

 

BLACKHAWKS 6 FLYERS 3: Hawks Bruce Gumby’s reach is like elastic out there. He scored 2 big goals as his Hawks doubled up the Flyers 6-3 on a dark cloudy night. Flyers had Scott Johnson between the wickets for this one but he can only stop what he can see. Guy Romeo had the game winning goal with a cannon off his stick. We think it went right through the net, off the back boards then back into the net. Replays proved nothing. Flyers Dave Armstrong scored a goal and added a helper but couldn’t quite score 12 goals like he does any other given night.

 

STARS 5 REDWINGS 3: 5 different Stars lit up the sky with some crazy goals as they cruised to  5-3 win over the Redwings. An all-round great effort from the whole roster as 7 players got a point. This is why Chris Barratto drafted this team this way. He was looking for balanced scoring and a good locker room, he got both. Redwings coach Terry Gudgeon told reporters after the game that they aren’t gonna win if they continue to take needless penalties. This Rob DiGiovanni kid is putting up rec league slo-pich numbers this season. He in an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year so teams will be lining up with their pocket books ready to snag him from the Wings.

 

Well that was a busy weekend, we are back in full swing as we look forward to tomorrow night’s action. Hope everyone is getting through this cloudy, miserable 29 days in a row we’ve had. See you at the rink this weekend.

 

Chris Marttila

 

SCOHA Blogger Guy