Space Oddity

Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong, can you hear me Major Tom?

tUMD 1, UAA's Football Team 1

So, we fell to earth a little bit here this weekend. Or a lot. Whatever. That's not the point. The point is... well there's only one of them. And we should have had more. We really should have had at least a split out of this weekend but instead we came up against a defensive line to rival the Minnesota Vikings. Literally. I don't know if the Seawolves heard something about a "quarterback on the power play" and got a little confused, but there were only a few of them that were interested in playing hockey, and even then only sometimes.

The Seawolves played their game and didn't allow us to play ours. That's to their credit. Now, I would be pretty embarrassed if the Bulldogs considered that to be our game plan, but if that's what Shyiak wants to do then whatever. tDogs came out flying and controlled the puck for at least the first five minutes of the game, although nothing became of that. We had possession of the puck but didn't have sustained pressure. If we hadn't scored on a 5 on 3 opportunity we might have been scoreless. And if we hadn't failed on a stupid clearing attempt we would have won the game. There wasn't a whole lot of room for us to bring on last year's strategy of not scoring ever.

Obviously we aren't allowed to have anyone even *near* the poor little goalie as evidenced by last night's tomfoolery with the replay, but we need some goals to come on 2nd and 3rd efforts, and the types of plays we are executing and the types of shots we are taking just aren't giving us that many opportunities.

Our PK didn't let in any goals tonight, which is a moral victory, but I wouldn't say it was "good." It is definitely good to get in their passing lanes and break up the play, but if we don't clear the puck it is bad news.

Sooner or later UAA will fall to earth, too. With the amount of ice time certain guys are seeing and their short bench due to injury and non-smart people leaving, it'll take its toll. They're not going to have a PP at 26% in the league forever. I do hope they're able to become more competitive in this league, and there are definitely some historically good teams that are vulnerable, so this league is wide open.

This is not the post I wanted to be writing tonight. I really wanted to be exuberant about a win and use lots of exclamation points and be a lot more positive than I am. It's not the end of the world and it's just one series of many, but we are going to be facing some tough teams in the coming weeks and I just wanted a little more confidence going into November.

I'll probably have something more to write tomorrow that will be more fun; I've had something in the works for a few days here that I laughed and laughed over (but no one will find it as funny as I did). MEg will probably drunk dial me again if I stay up too much later so I need to avoid that. I can't even remember what I've written here so it's probably a sign to end transmission.

The Numbers
Wins until we equal last season's total: 9
Points until we equal last season's total: 22! (I hardly even want to put an exclamation point, but it's a start.)

My Guys
MacGregor Sharp: 8 (Ok, even MacGyver can have a night off. At least he didn't play like MacGruber.)
Jack Connolly: 5! (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Michael Gergen: 2 (Good chances tonight though on the PP)
Rob Bordson: 0 (Let's go, honey. I want to see you get things going!)

Freshmen
Mike Connolly: 7
Jack Connolly: 5!
Scott Kishel: 0
Brady Lamb: 0
Travis Oleksuk: 0
David Grun: 0

On Notice:
Rob Bordson
Jay Cascalenda
Mike Montgomery
Trent Palm
Kyle Schmidt
Alex Stalock

Goals Only
Drew Akins
Cody Danberg
Michael Gergen