January 22, 2006

Up to friendly Maine for a weekend of hockey and it was great hockey

Bowdoin Fri nite - 1st period - the pace is up and down but mostly in our end for the first part of the period - Kalec holds the fort until 13:06 when Bowdoin goes up 1-0 - there is no let up in pace and we finally get a few chances as the period draws down - hustle pays off with a score with 20 seconds left, Bailey from Cleary and Gimbel - we get outshot 17-9 so 1-1 looks good

The second period is more of the same, pacewise, but now we are both getting chances and both goalies are playing well - Bowdoin goes up 2-1 at 14:48 and that is how the 3rd starts - we now seem to be getting the better chances but don't score until we go on a PP and tie it up at 2-2 Greg McCarthy from Murphy and O'Connell at 8:48

It seemed to me like overtime started at that point - whoever scored was going to win, but nobody scored in spite of many great chances both ways and into OT we went and here we really dominated play - unfortunately we couldn't bury it and had to settle for the tie - it was a great effort by the team - the game really was all Bowdoin for most of the first period, even for the second and third and all us in OT - penalties were 9-8, PP Tu 1/5, Bo 0/6 shots T33, B40

On to Colby Sat afternoon - once again we play hard in the first period but give up a goal in the first minute and another goal (PP) at 5:48 for a dreadful start - things then get interesting, Matt McCarthy gets 2 goals, one at 9:13 (Dalton, O'Connell) and a shorthanded at 13:28 from Cleary - Colby comes right back with another PP goal to go ahead only to have us go on the PP and score at 18:36 Milo (Cleary, Bailey) to tie it up and we are very happy to escape at 3-3 after one

The second period we start to play much better, pretty much control the game flow and go up 5-3 on goals from G McCarthy (Cappellano) at 12:51 and O'Connell (Murphy) at 14:14 - a very good period for us and as Coach Murphy said a period where it is easy for the visiting team to start to wear down on the second game on the road

The third period does not start the way we planned - Colby notches a SH goal at 1:37 and score on the PP at 7:41 to tie it up again and immediately lose that momentum with a penalty that puts us on the PP and a score from Milo assisted by Cleary at 9:07 - that gives us the mo to hold that lead for the next 10 minutes, Colby yanks the goalie, M McCarthy puts one in the open net (from a bit too far away) "it was in all the way" says he and we shock Colby for the W

I don't care who goes to Maine for this overnite but 3 points is a big deal for anyone - from here on in it is anyone's ballgame playoff wise - the schedule here on in is filled with great games so lets get out any see few

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