Thursday, March 10, 2005

Game #5: Team Scissors 6 vs. Team Rocks 4... A classic tilt and the best of the series as crowned by many players on this night as a low scoring affair ensued in a tight, clean game... a true rarity to be 0-0 for the first while as it appeared both goalies were equal to the task, including alumni sub Samson Chow in goal for Team Scissors and Michal Thibaudeau in for Team Rocks after a one week absence... both teams had chances but it was rookie Tommy Wong scoring a rare goal on an own-rebound situation and getting a 1-0 lead... a turning point may have been a too-many-men penalty by sub Aaron Oye for Team Rocks as he jumped on a puck a little too soon off the bench for the captains' liking... in any case, a long standing 3-3 tie was finally broken and Team Rocks followed up with a win after a good choice by Captain Kenny Chiu to mix wingers midway through the game... solid D efforts put forth by Lawrence Lau and Jason Chiu (split players appearing in the same game for a change), as well as a welcome return and a two-goal effort by sub Chris Archibald for the losing side... stay tuned for possible trades and jersey color switch to kick start the latter half of this series! P.S. View the pre-game photo op for our 02/03 skills award winners.

Game #4: Team Rocks (White) 10 vs. Team Scissors (Dark) 8... And just like that the series is evened up... a game of firsts featuring Travis Wong in goal for Team Scissors after many a year layaway... and an admirable effort at that, backstopping his team to a shutout... in the first 15 minutes that is... even with the other side featuring an all-star lineup (if there ever was one) of Oye-Leung-An.Chang, Team Scissors rang up a 4-0 lead shocking the crowd of two with a fast paced game featuring super subs including Oye, Nixon Lee and Tyson Carvell... but it was not to be as the super line finally found their groove and led a charge back with 5 unanswered goals... the momentum never stopped and just two late goals by Team Scissors made the score respectable... other highlights including the rookie debut of Eric Lun as well as a sweet goals by Sherman Woo and Gord Chan for their respective teams... Norm Chan gets the win and shakes off the psychological warfare of losing to a player-turned-goalie.

Game #3: Team Scissors (Dark) 10 vs. Team Rocks (White) 5... The first win streak of the series goes to Kenny Chiu's Team Scissors as they win their second in a row and in convincing fashion... the captain's line of Nguyen-Chiu-Wong found its offense (from the previous week's blanking) and lit the lamp o so many times with o so many sweet plays... Simon Wong leads all scorers with more than a few sweet one-timer tap-ins while Rocks' goalie Michel Thibaudeau seemed to struggle and take his first loss in many-a-game... Jason Chu scores his second in as many games with another sweet laser beam top shelf wrister... the only sub of the evening was a stellar D effort by Tyson Carvell for the victorious team while the other side's A line of Leung-Lowe-An.Chang struggled to keep pace and pay dividends... in any event, Scissors' goalie Norm Chan was up to the task and performed well in getting the win... in other off-ice news, this series' frequent sub-out Dom Kwong anxiously waits in full alert for the arrival of his first child sometime this month...

Game #2: Team Scissors (Dark) 11 vs. Team Rocks (White) 4... And so the series is evened up just as quickly as captain Kenny Chiu starts his first game of the series... but more in spirit than action as his line oddly was blanked on offense while the alternate line of Kwong-A.Oye-Lai did most of the damage... sparked by a solid defense including the series debut of split player Lawrence Lau (although taking the rap on a too-many-men penalty to boot)... on the other side it appeared to be a different story to start as Albert Chang scored in the opening moments on a sweet on-the-fly-nearly-point-blank slapper after Team White hit the post on the game's first shot on goal... but it was downhill for Team Dark after that as the offense could not keep up to the seven unanswered goals poured in by the other side... the game featured only one sub and what a super sub it was as Aaron Oye provided his second appearance of the series and making a solid difference in the game... goalie Michel Thibaudeau opens the series with two straight wins while Norm Chan vows revenge in game #3!

Game #1: Team White 9 vs. Team Dark 7... Happy new year and welcome back to both teams for another great series... most of the same faces with no rookies, just old retournees in the mix... all four past series' captains fail re-election as new leadership blood in Anthony Chang, Stan Quan, Kenny Chiu and Rich Chang get the nod this time around... most of the game saw winter hangover and the pace and timing were off on both counts... Team Dark jumped out to the early lead even with captain Chiu subbed out on the first game, but the pace didn't hold as Team White mixed up the lines midway to find new life and capture a lead... meanwhile newly voted A Stan Quan disappears from the bench midway to blow chow in the bathroom (sink no less!) due to undisclosed illness... didn't matter as super subs Sean Oye and Tyson Carvell couldn't save Team Dark from the onslaught including the great finishing touches by sniper (sub) Aaron Oye... to add excitement in the late stages Team Dark pulled goalie Norm Chan but to no avail as an empty netter was given up in the process.