Boozin Bruins beat Justice 4-3 in a last minute thriller last night.
The night started out in disappointment when Stu failed to deliver the 200 free t-shirts at the door as promised on Facebook. He also enrolled in the local learn-to-skate program after taking an embarrassing tumble over his own feet in-front of the the same disappointed crowd. So maybe justice was served?
Canadian Taylor lead the team in scoring with two tallies last night. But the most impressive goal of the night came while down 4-2 in the last two minutes of the game. Coach Greene pinched from the point and drove a in a sick goal mounting a powerful rally for the last minutes.
However, after pulling Goalie Brian, who had another solid night, Justice couldn't deliver a point to tie while on the 6 on 4. Elbows were thrown and refs blew calls, but justice had one the most solid games of the year.
Injuries:
Chris Genrich: Out indefinitely with an undisclosed upper-body injury. Will be reevaluated early next week. In lieu of flowers please send donations to Ryan White who couldn't buy a goal last night.
Two weeks until the next episode of Justice League Hockey
As Ryan said before the game, "lets have fun tonight, who cares if we win."
Well both happened as Justice lit up Free Agents with goal-after-goal tonight, the other team didn't have sick matching jerseys, so it was pretty obvious that we were going to come home with the W.
Goalie Brian held strong for Justice and raised the Bar a little bit higher for the next game, only allowing two goals all night. There were some pretty late whistles by the Refs, and Free Agents kept poking, but he held strong all night. Definitely an early favorite for the Veznia.
Coach Dan, one of the three self-proclaimed Captains dangled all over the ice tonight, forgetting he plays D, but still set up some pretty sick plays per usual.
But tonight was not without a few (purposeful?) mess-ups;
While Taylor was on a sick break-away which probably would have ended with a goal, Maddalone decided it would be funny to go off-sides on purpose to teach him a lesson about passing, its funny because Maddalone is on like a three game goal drought.
Then, Sanderson decided to take a point-blank shot from the point and nailed a girl two feet away, which such force, it had to be on purpose - she was lighting him up all night. However, it is impressive he stayed on his feet.
**Well, the score should have been 8-2 but Wes took the puck out of the net for some reason, you would think Canadians know how to play hockey
In the first round of the SUIHL playoffs, Law School Justice took an early lead and didn't look back. A complete team performance starting in net led Justice to a 5-1 victory of Free Agents. The intensity level was high for this encounter, with some heated words exchanged between the two sides. Some of those emotions had carried over from last week's regular season finale.
The scoring was initiated by Captain Ka$h early as the team took a 3-0 lead into the half. After a goal by Free Agents with Justice a man down, the captain got back on the scoresheet with a strong defensive zone play (no, that is not a misprint) and finished top cheddar. He then needed an oxygen mask immediately after the play was over.
The nail in the coffin came from 2L power forward Lochness Pronster with 7 minutes left in the contest. After slew footing two Free Agent players in a seven second span, Pronster buried a rebound to put Justice up 5-1. On the way back to the bench, he taunted the entire opposing team by giving them the middle finger. Shockingly, he was not assessed a penalty for that celly.
Other notables from the game:
Will Doerr had a season high 4 passes last night, 3 more than his previous record.
Dan Neer had a 7-1 chewing tobacco spits on the ice to shots faced. Another season best.
Mikey B extended his "monahaning" streak to 6 games. The feat was in jeopardy until 2 minutes left in the second half. Mikey B rifled a puck out of play for close to no apparent reason whatsoever.
Justice resumes their playoff run on Monday at 8pm against the Easton Fections. If victorious, the championship game will be at 9pm.
The most important part of the regular season is the time leading up to the playoffs. This is the time where teams need to play their best and have some luck as well. Fortunately for Justice, both have occurred over the past three games. Everyone on the roster has stepped up down the stretch, which has definitely caught the attention of the opposition. One team didn't even show up and another team's goalie was too afraid to get in between the pipes.
But, this doesn't mean that the past few weeks has been easy. The team has overcome adversity due to a rash of injuries suffered to numerous student-athletes. 2L's Mikey Bryant and Joey Ameilia have played through shoulder injuries, 3L Reid Kashmanian played after suffering a groin injury during his half-marathon (but seriously, can we all just note how shocking it is that Reid ran a half-marathon... like, I definitely lost a bet there), and 3L goaltenders Justin Koifman and Danny Neer were also injured at the same time. Koifman sat out due to a toothache, while Neer sat out due to just pure laziness.
It seemed like the injuries were going to catch-up to Justice in their game against Phi Psi two weeks ago. Prior to the game, 1L David Fleishman stated, "Champions are defined by how they overcome adversity... This is our moment." And this is exactly what happened when 3L Sue Upward stepped up to the plate, strapped up the pads, and got in between the pipes for a huge game against the frattiest team in the league. "All I ask is that people backcheck," Upward said looking directly at Reid. "That's ALL I ask for." And believe it or not, Reid actually backchecked. The rest of the team built off of this and put in one of the best overall efforts of the year. 1L Andrew Stewart controlled the defense, while Corey/Lochness Pronster/Nessie/PronStar laid the hammer up front. The biggest plays of the game came from Bryant's game-winning bar-down goal and Upward's huge save in the closing seconds, which you can see here:
Other highlights from the past few games and other notes:
- 1L's Joe Gattuso and Nate Leftko each scored in front of their girlfriends during the 1-0 forfeit. Both ladies said they were really proud. I just hope they didn't realize it was against a shooter tutor. The 1L's also added tallies in the 15-4 win against the Free Agent team that played without a goalie the entire time.
- 1L Wes Gerrie is currently riding a three-game goal scoring streak. Yes, that includes a goal against an ACTUAL goalie.
- 3L Pete Pappy scored a goal from his own blueline in the win over the Free Agents.
- 1L Will Doerr set a team record with 55 shots on goal in the game against the Free Agents.
- 3L Caleb Merrill has not played a game this semester in order to keep his eligibility, so he will be returning next Fall.
- 2L Dan Greene will be traveling to Boston next week for the Frozen Four to recruit goaltenders for next season. We hear BU's third string goalie is pretty decent.
The team is back in action on Monday at 7pm in a rematch with the Free Agents for the SUIHL quarterfinals.
After a demoralizing loss that included an injury to Justice's leading scorer, Joey Amelia, the team was able to pick up the pieces with their best all-around game in a long time with a 7-2 win over the CNY Crammoths. 2L Dan Greene scored four times with with shots that were a combined 25mph, while 3L Pete Pappy and 1L David Fleischman, also known as the King of Danglestad, chipped in with a tally as well. But, the biggest goal of the night came from 1L sensation Wes Gerrie. He seemed pretty confident about snapping his scoreless draught, stating prior to the game, "I'm a golfer, but I'm here to play hockey." Gerrie's tally got the fans into a frenzy, which started the famous "Wes" chant:
(They're yelling "Wes" at the end)
Besides Wes' first goal against an actual goaltender, the game was highlighted by the great defensive play by the trio of 1L Andrew Stewart, 2L Mikey Bryant, and Pappy. All three played excellent in their own zone and moved the puck beautifully. Mikey B. also brought some physicality late in the game standing up for Danny G. after he was cheap-shotted late in the game. We're not really sure what Bryant said to the kid, but it was reported that the kid crapped his pants and announced his retirement on Twitter to his seven followers. Mikey B. was tossed from the game, becoming the first Justice player in history to do so (congrats?).
But, Mikey B. wasn't the only one who brought the hammer out tonight, as the Loch Ness Pronster also got into a scuffle with a Crammoth. The Pronster took a whack at the kid after he gave him a high hit, and then talked some crap in French and made fun of his Corsi and Fenwick numbers. This is how it went down:
Also, 3L Danny Neer played a solid game between the pipes. When he wasn't day-dreaming about dangling kids and whatever else he thinks about (I really don't want to know), he was able to make some solid stops, including a stellar two-pad stack, which you can see here:
All in all, it was a great team effort from everyone on the ice tonight. Captain Ka$h did an excellent job centering the top line, while newcomer Nate "Big Hoss" Leftko showed excellent improvement while playing Top-6 minutes tonight. Hopefully the team can pick this back up when they return from Spring Break in a few weeks.
We know that everyone was getting hot and bothered by the donut in the 'W' column for Justice. That was corrected on Monday when Justice defeated the Easton Fections in a wild game by the score of 6-5. The ref let a lot of calls go for both teams, allowing for some heated exchanges between sides. Justice was missing half of their enforcing pair in Wes Gerrie, so it was up to The Lochness PronSTAR to carry the load of physical play and set the tempo.
As for the game itself, 2L Canadian #JoeyEh lead the way with three orgasmic goals. All on breakaways. All with the same move. We were sure it was his atrocious bag that threw off the opposition, but the new equipment made Joey look like a completely different player out there. Seriously, it took it 10 minutes to realize that it was actually Joey and not somebody else. A townie caught his goals on video below.
When the first half ended, the game was knotted at 2. We found a clip of the halftime pep talk from Captain Reid Ka$hmanian. Our emergency goalie Susan Upward told us after the game that the pep talk was masterful. "I don't understand how such a selfish player on the ice could have such a way with words to get everyone fired up. His reminder to use active sticks and communicate might revolutionize the way those talks are given."
We asked the Captain about his overall performance. He said the lack of a warmup of any sort was probably not the greatest idea, but that wasn't going to stop him from getting a couple apples out there. He proceeded to rattle off the lines from Spiderman and referred to himself as "Bonesaw" on numerous occasions. It got a little weird.
Justice will be back on the ice Monday for the late-night special starting at 10pm when the team battles arch rival Ghosts of Goldberg.
However, after pulling Goalie Brian, who had another solid night, Justice couldn't deliver a point to tie while on the 6 on 4. Elbows were thrown and refs blew calls, but justice had one the most solid games of the year.
