With a bench full of injured reserves, upper management tapped into the Red Liners farm teams to fill in gaps in the line up. Members of Centro have been playing hockey and together for quite some time. Rumors are that their top player has more years of hockey experience than 1/2 of the Red Liners team. With such a lop sided matchup, things got ugly early in the game.
Centro was able to easily puck handle around the Liners and could even make tape-to-tape blind backward passes. In the end, they popped in 8 goals in the first period to the Liners single goal by Twank. Leaders in the team kept spirits up on the bench and tried to dampen frustrations. They pushed their players to just get out on the ice, try their best, and have fun. They did not want them too concerned about the score.
The second period continued the scoring barrage by Centro but not as strong as in the first period. There were rumors that they were letting up but some of their physical play did not seem to back up that statement. Centro would pop in 4 more goals. But the Liners did come back two goals of their own. However, the Liners also tried to play more physical. Rocket could have made it three off a point blank one timer in front of the Centro goalie but his shot was blocked.
The third period expectations were the same. Again, rumors swirled that Centro was letting up. Evidence of this was the Centro’s lack of defensive play on Queen Anne’s breakaway. She easily skated through the Centro D and actually let up and skated away from the Centro net, not shooting, as a kind of protest for Centro’s lack of effort. The Red Liners did manage to pop in 5 more goals. Twank scored 3 goals. Andy popped in a rebound off Lightning Liz’s breakaway. Queen Anne did manage a slapshot through traffic and into the back of the Centro net. Centro did get 2 more goals though one goal should have been disallowed as it bounced off the post and never went into the net. For this period’s almost goal, Marooney almost had his second goal of the season off a slapshot near the goal crease, but his shot was also blocked.
While things looked very glum in the first period, the Red Liners made the best of the game. They tried hard to make the game competitive. In essence, the Liners did outscore Centro 7 to 6 with possibly some help from Centro slowing down their game. Upper management will take the loss in stride but are happy with the players’ positive attitudes coming out of the game. These Red Liners will meet up with High Rollers at 9:50pm, Tuesday, July 22.