Blades Storm Long Island 5-2

Empty Netter Sweetens the Trip in Blades Win Over the Lipstix
By D. Glazer

The rain may have stopped but that meant nothing as the “Wild Blade Cats” brought a torrent of offense to Long Island last night.

With visiting players from both the Wildcats and the Quarry Cats, our mashed-up team came out ready to play, even if we couldn’t get the names quite right. It wasn’t really our fault: we had QC Karen (not to be confused with our Karyn), wearing Laurie’s old jerseys, so we had Woods and Woods on the opening face-up. On D, we had Glazer (me) with Glazer (Cassidy) and Duffy (Clare) playing with Duffy (Laura A.) Take into account that we had brought Lora D, Laura A. and Laurie with us, and really it was amazing we could figure out who anyone was! Plus they had us playing three 15 minute, mostly running-time periods and we were pretty lost before we started.

But that didn’t matter once the puck dropped, as Clare found QC Karen on a nifty outlet pass and Karen put us up 1-0. The Lipstix Ms. Dizzy came right back, out-racing all into our zone and feeding one of her wingers to put the score back even at 1-1. As the first period wound down, we played hard and skated fast, and Lora D. skated her pretty little circles in their end, feeding Cassidy for some nice on- timers, with Nina poised for the rebounds but their goalie stood up to all.

In the 2nd period, we caught a break as WC Aveline got the loose puck to QC Karen once more, and she put in her 2nd of the night – and we had taken the lead once more. We held tight to that lead going into the third, confident that a little defensive play would hold us. However, at the opening face-off, Ms. Dizzy, moved from D to center, “lost” the face-off, scooped up the puck from behind our center, split the D and headed in 1-on-1 on Steph. Steph got a good piece of it but it just squipped through, and they had tied it, 2-2.

Their celebration was short-lived, however, because they hadn’t counted on Lora D, who wasn’t about to let some Quarry Cat do all the scoring. Paired with QC Claudia at center, she moved the puck smoothly up the ice, and got one of her quick shots off – and we had the lead 3-2. We played tough after that, with both our Karyn and Laurie holding down the center positions, and keeping the puck in the other zone (hey, the best defense? a good offense…), while Cassidy skated up, down, sideways, longways, back ways until the other team really was “Dizzy.” Finally, Lora intercepted a pass, took off on got a break-a-way and beat the goalie cleanly to give us the two goal cushion we needed!

With two minutes left, they pulled the goalie and put Ms. Dizzy out front on wing. It was a good strategy and they held the puck in our end for a bit but we were tough in our end and Steph was perfect in net. In the end, QC Karen caught a bouncing puck, raced away with it down the ice – and put her third of the night into the empty net for a lovely hat-trick.

With the win firmly in our pocket, we lined up for the post-game photo and headed off to the lodge for some champagne, sushi and chatting. All in all, a perfect night of hockey!

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About the Blades

The Brooklyn Blades Ice Hockey Club is a volunteer-run program that has been running community ice hockey programs in the NYC area since 1992.The Women’s program consists of a National D Level Travel Team. We play approximately 16 games against local women’s teams located in Long Island, Westchester County and northern New Jersey, with our home ice located at the Richard L. Korpi rink at the Bayonne High School, in Bayonne NJ.