Blades Blow Through Long Island
By D. Glazer
In a game where we were only 8 skaters, the Blades took the Hurricanes by surprise and took the game in hand early.
We had only 4 Blades (Meredith, Clare, Liz and myself) and 4 subs (former Blade Niamh, plus Lisa, Wendy and Melissa) but it didn’t matter because Lisa came out hard and skated fast and gave us the early lead, 1-0, in the first couple of minutes.
The ‘Canes came back with spirit, and managed to get two goals before we got ourselves collected and Wendy got a shot off to make it 2-2.
After that, we had some scrappy moments in both ends. They got a bouncing goal past Steph and took the lead back to make it 3-2. Then the ref called a tripping penalty – which was of course, on me – but the team stepped up and killed it beautifully. Steph stood on her head and made save after save, including a really amazing sliding stop – and one with her glove that was so unbelievable that the Hurricanes were actually celebrating it as a goal until she stood up and it was clear that it was in her mitt!
In the third, Lisa and Niamh pressured up front, while Wendy skated out of our end and tied it up with her second of the night to make it 3-3. Then it was their turn to play short-handed as they took a tripping penalty and we went on the best power play we’ve had this year. Liz and Meredith had a terrific give and go down low, which ended up as a shot on net that flipped up off the goalie and Liz popped it in to give us the lead, 4-3.
We sat on that lead, skating hard for every loose puck, until Melissa, swooping out of our end, brought that puck down and roofed it over their goalie for a decisive 5-3 lead.
With two minutes to go, the ‘Canes tried to pull their goalie. But our forwards were relentless and both Clare and Wendy on D stepped it up, and they couldn’t control the puck to bring it into our zone. Their goalie was caught out, halfway to the bench, and forced to freeze the puck – and thereby took a costly penalty as she was out of her crease. We forced them back into their end for the rest of the game, and came away with an exhausting, exciting and exhilarating win!