Yeah, yeah, I'm late. Like you care. We headed into our first round playoff game with a slice of optimism. We got carved up in the final week of the season by a team sporting two guys that should have been at least Division 6 or higher, who took advantage of someone giving D a try and getting lit up to the tune of -6. We'd played a great game against the team we were scheduled against a few weeks earlier, losing 3-1. Even missing one of our best all-around players we figured we had a shot.
We hadn't counted on the ringers.
I know, it sounds like sour grapes. But I knew we were doomed in warm-ups as I watched these two skate around and unload bombs from the blue line. This was confirmed after the game - although the way they stated circles around us was proof enough of their ringer-dom - when I happened to be walking out behind them and heard this conversation:
Ringer 1: Hey, did you hear about the email the league sent about the top teams being kicked up a division or two?
Ringer 2: Well, some of those teams have guys that shouldn't be playing in this division.
Ringer 1: (long pause) Like us. ::sees me, laughs sheepishly::
So, yeah. I had a lousy game - made mistakes, got my pocket picked for a goal, and so on - but still managed to be a -3 in a game we lost by 8. We finished out perfect season - 0-17 - and now we move on to the Scurvy Dogs. No idea how we're going to be. We have a solid goalie in Charlie and five of us making the trip over from the Raiders: Jeff, Sheq, Chris D, Steph, and myself. All of us have improved over the course of the season. Our new guys are an unknown quantity - some who played in high school but not since; a couple of pond hockey players; and so on. We'll have our growing pains, like any expansion team does, but hopefully we'll be competitive. At the very least we'll have snazzy jerseys.
writing: 4 chapters rewritten/edited on my stupid book. It's been 4 years since I've seen these chapters and ye gods I've gotten better at writing. Or at least and deceiving myself to believe so. But these are rough.
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