Blue Fin’s Bistro Hockey

Ahhh, the long awaited meeting between the Blue Fins and the Crunch - including Mike and Ryan Twiss.  So now the dilemma - how to capture it in print?  Should the report exaggerate how the Blue Fins played while criticizing Twiss?  Or should this text douse the controversy by not even making mention of it?  (It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?)

There was a wide range of expectations on the Blue Fins side of the puck.  Some expected a physical game, some expected some trash talking, some expected physical play, others didn’t expect much.  One thing was sure - on the other team, the Twiss’s were serious.

Regardless, there were no surprises.  Mike Twiss played strong on the puck, Ryan still skates fast.  Both of them took some ’special time’ to congratulate John ‘Afternoon Delight’ Probasco on his high skill level.  Mike’s wit was as sharp as ever and sent him to the bin for unsportsmanlike comments that had the referee grinning.  Was there reason to be surprised by any of this?  No. 

New man on the sub list - Bob Cwikla - proved his worth right out of the blocks.  He got the scoring going with a breakaway and quick shot.  ‘Afternoon Delight’ followed this up with an unassisted and shorthanded goal.  After this, Captain Mike McGee opened the gun turrets and sent his team out firing.  Cwikla scored another goal late in the 2nd period and was really a great asset to the team.

Probasco haberdashed his way to a 3 goal game.  On his last breakaway, the puck stuck to his blade like glue.  He dipsy-do’d the defender and a quick shot between the legs beat the goaltender cold. 

The third goal, and eventual GWG, was scored by Mike ‘The Body’ Hofmeister.  Hof bullied his way up the center, kept the puck moving, and made a diving shot just before he hit the ice.  Somebody cue the ESPN music, this one’s for the highlight reel.

Keith ‘White Shadow’ Locker had two goals for the game.  On the first, he fought off two Crunch defenders and then sent an impossible shot towards the goalie.  The goalie fumbled as the shot deflected in.  Locker’s second goal was a result of a picture-perfect pass by Adam ‘Van Dam’ Hoover.  Hoover skated the puck behind the net, and sliced it up the gut to Locker who one-timed it deep into the twines.

Stephen ‘The Show’ Tsotsoros out raced the rest of the Crunch and scored a sweet breakaway goal.  Tsotsoros played a great game both offensively and defensively.

‘Easy E’ E.J. Darisse played a nearly flawless game in goal.  E.J. seems to improve every game, and his coolness on the ice is settling to the Fins defense.  The Crunch spoiled his shut out opportunity by scoring early in the third period.

A bit of sweet revenge was had by the Twiss’s - when Mike assisted Ryan and scored the 2nd goal for the Crunch. 

Matt ‘Wheels’ Pusateri excited the crowd (well, the Blue Fins part) by charging the puck up the left side and firing a laser into the far side of the cage. 

In a surprising move, the Crunch pulled their goalie - apparently to add more physical presence at the end.  Pusateri took advantage, skated the puck up, and passed to Hoover.  Hoover got the freebie to finish off the game.  The Blue Fins win 11-2 and bounce back after their previous loss.

Overall, the game wasn’t the cleanest - but it could have been much worse.  The Crunch, and the Twiss’s, played good hockey.  Mike had some sour, yet warranted, comments for the Blue Fins, but in the end there were ’no hard feelings’. 

Either way, the game wasn’t about one or two guys.  It was about playing hockey and having fun.  Both the Fins and the Crunch did both.

Next up for the Blue Fin’s - The Nailers.  June 30th, 7:00 pm.

Well, apparently we have some readers who aren’t Blue Fin’s, or related….

So to dispell the question about ‘Why are you guys in C2?’  I’ll summarize some of the facts.  Mike, Matt, Mike - please chime in as necessary.

The Factory let many teams move down a league.  Is it just for the summer?   That remains to be seen.

Regardless - there is no longer a B/C.  Teams from B dropped to C1.  Teams from C1 dropped to C2.  The integrity of each division, with respect to skill level, was completely disrupted.

When it came time for the Blue Fins - we requested to play in C1 - but E.J. Stern, the hockey director, forced us to play in C2.  A few reasons were given, but our only choice was to go to C2.

Captain Mike lobbied hard to go to C1, as did Matt, but E.J. Stern would not hear of it.  We told him we were not going to break up the team just to fit into his plans.  Plain and simple - John was staying put.  E.J. agreed.

So yes, John is good - ringer good.  But in C1, we were a .500 team and wanted to stay.

Are we dominating C2?  No way.  We aren’t undefeated, we aren’t winning every game by a lopsided margin.  Maybe we can go back to C1 - but we weren’t given a choice the first time.

So………we’re sure to get continued jabs about John; we’re likely in for a chippy game or too.  But the bottom line - E.J. Stern forced us to play here.  Don’t believe us?  Ask him.

We’ll keep trying to win.  We’ll keep trying to boost morale with these mostly fact based reports.  At the end of the day, we’re just playing to have fun.

Additional clarification - mpusateri:

I’ll try to clarify some things as I was at the captains meeting:

Initially we were in C1(at the start of the Captain’s meeting)  There was a lot of back and forth of the competitiveness of the league.  If you include this season 6 B teams have dropped to C1 because they felt they were not competitive in B. (Don’t get me started on how 6 teams cannot play competively in B, but can in C1 especially with only 8 teams in C1)  So a discussion among several teams ensued about moving divisions, in an effort to even out the playing field for all.  Blue Fins had concerns(which I expressed) that so many B  teams were dropping, and maybe we needed to look at C2.  I stepped out to make a phone call to try to discuss dropping to C2 with our captain and upon my return we had already been moved to C2.  We had a scheduing conflict with the C2 nights and I said that I would go back to my team and see if they wanted to play in C2 or in C1.  Again, I did not fully commit the Blue Fins to C2, and the only reason we even slightly considered it was because we knew whewe were loosing some C1 talent. One of the statements EJ made, was that he expected the Captains to evaluate the calibur of talent on their teams and place them in the appropriate division.   So in the midst of figuring out what division, we recruited some C2 players and C1 players, but felt overall that we were a C1 team and wanted to play C1.   EJ at this point said that he had an even amount of teams in C1 and C2 and would not let us play C1, that it was a scheduling issue(Mike McGee correct me if I’m wrong.  Mike had more discussions with EJ about this as he is our captain) Turns out we ended up with 7 teams in C2 anyways, and have the scheduling issues anyhow.  In fairness to EJ, hindsight is 20/20, and all teams owe it to EJ, to give him the opportunity to fix things come the fall.  This is EJ’s first season, and he walked into a league plagued with problems.  Blue Fins hold no grudges and are not worried.  Also keep in mind there is no A league this summer, so B is probably more competitive for the summer, but it should be expected by ALL that there are some C1 teams that should move back to B  in the fall just as Blue Fins should move back to C1 in the fall.

Mainly we as a team wanted to point out, we don’t enjoy winning 10-2, we didn’t want to be in this position.  Also it was just two seasons ago that we went 1-13, and were getting creamed in C1.  What I can say is 1 or 2 players do make you competitive whether that’s in B  or C1 or C2.  One problem is that the time between seasons is so short that it is incredibly difficult to recruit in such a short time.   Also this blog was created for the Blue Fins enjoyment, we really struggled with posting this type of content as we never envisioned it to be for outside our team, but since others in the league are following it, and since some are upset that we don’t belong in C2, we thought we should publically acknowledge the facts as we see them.  I’m sure there will always be two sides of every story

Bottom line is it’s a “recreation league”  sure it everyone wants to win, wants to be competitve, but lets leave it on the ice, and all go have a beer afterwards!

Matt P.

For the Blue Fins, it was their first real test in the C2 league.  Labatt’s had been putting up some big wins and notching a lot of goals as of late.

Captain Mike McGee’s strategy was to put his best (present company’s literary prowess excluded) on defense.  It was a sound strategy, but relied on the defense to finish with goals as well.  Taking nothing away from the offense - all six forwards work furiously hard - but are more grind than glamour.

After Labatt’s scored the first goal, Keith ‘THE WHITE SHADOW’ Locker - scored his most spectacular goal as a Blue Fin.  He took the puck over the blue line, took 3 hard strides and buried the puck in the back of the net.  As THE WHITE SHADOW deservingly shook his fist, the Labatt’s goalie appeared to take a swipe as he went by…and such started the Blue Fins woes.

In terms of physical play, the Blue Fins give as good as they get - but only react - rather than provoke.  In this case, the provocation was handled solely by the inept officiating crew.  In this game the Fins visited the ‘Sin Bin’ twice as often as Labatt’s - and it hurt.  Although they only gave up 1 power play goal, playing a man down emptied the Fins tanks too soon.

The game see-sawed back and forth, but with each Blue Fins goal - Labatt’s topped it with one more of their own.

John ‘Afternoon Delight’ Probasco tallied a hat trick thanks to a blistering slap shot and two break aways.  On each breakaway, Probasco had the puck on a string and he had at least a move or two more than the goalie could handle.

Not helping matters for the Blue Fins - the refs and Shrek Jr. allowed Labatt’s star (Barney) Fyfe score 4 goals.  This was only noticed by Captain Mike McGee well after the game had ended.  E.J. ‘Insert Expletive’ Stern promised to ‘Look into It’.  Thanks for the attention to detail, E.J.

McGee, with his back-up stick, and Steve ‘Choo-Choo’ Tsotsoros worked hard to score a hard working goal.  McGee fought off 2 defenders and the Labatt’s goalie and Tsotsoros slammed the puck home - and cut the lead to 2 goals.  (McGee, with his back-up stick, gets the assist - no thanks to Poinstreak!)

Once again Labatt’s increased their lead to 3 and that’s how the game ended.  Other hard working Blue Fins included Joe ‘More is More’ Moreschi - made a key diving poke check and cleared the puck while face first on the ice; Matt ‘Speed Racer’ Pusateri carried the puck well - despite being mugged over and over by the Labatt’s defenders; and finally - Dan ‘The Man’ Fahey returned to the Blue Fins without missing a step.

Next up for the Blue Fins is ‘The Crunch’ - Monday June 16, at 7:00 pm.

Be sure to tune in, as this episode is bound to have a Twiss(t)….or two!

It has been said - that a goal is a goal, and a win is a win, no matter how pretty……..or not.

The Blue Fins Bistro Hockey team played their toughest competition so far - the Weevils.  Player to player, the Fins are, or should be, better than the Weevils.  But - the Fins played poorly.  This game was practically 60 full minutes of bad passing and bad shots by the Blue Fins. 

The exception to this rule was Fins keeper “Daring” E.J. Darisse.  After one soft goal, E.J. melted down shot after shot from the Weevils. 

The Weevils jumped out to a 2-0 lead which held for most of the first period.  It took over 19 minutes, but John “I’m In” Probasco finally scored thanks to a good pass from Adam Hoover (or whoever else passed it - I certainly can’t remember).  This halved the Weevils lead, and after the first period the score was 2-1. 

For most of the next two periods, the ugliness continued - and the game got more physical.  The Weevils may as well have had a pack of dogs - as they were on a fox hunt.  Their target was Probasco.  Verbally and physically, they were successful in baiting him into several discretions which took him off the ice and into the bin. 

Captain Mike McGee intervened and tried to corral Probasco and the Fins.  Although they weatered the storm of penalties, they still could not generate the offense needed to tie the score. 

Then, with time waning in the 3rd period - the Fins had less than 2 minutes to light the lamp.  Taking the face-off in their own zone, Rusin won the drop and sent the puck to Dave ‘Push the Grouper’ Berent.  Berent held the puck, giving Probasco time to break up the ice.  Berent rifled a perfect pass up the center to Probasco.  Probasco out raced the Weevils and faked the goalie with two moves, and a quick flip of the puck. 

The Fins tied the game and pushed the ever exciting conclusion to a shootout. 

Steve ‘Loco’ Tsotsoros was first to go.  He skated directly up the center, got the goalie sliding to his right, and then scored five-hole.  Probasco was second, and despite a post-shot collision, he scored to tally his third goal for the game.

On the other side of the shootout, ‘Daring’ E.J. Darisse shut down the Weevils.  After a stellar performance in regulation, he made the shootout look easy and stopped both Weevils attempts. 

With their 3rd win in a row, the UNDEFEATED Blue Fins lead the league.  Their next game is Monday, June 9 at 8:30 pm against Labatt’s.