ICEMEN REGAIN 1ST PLACE WITH WIN OVER BLUE CRABS

 

The Baltimore Icemen won a hard fought battle last night against the Fighting Blue Crabs with a 4-3 OT performance.  The win puts the Icemen in a tie for 1st place with the Stripers in the Lower C division.  Pat Morin, the Icemen's token Canadian, continued his rant about how well the team performs in the absence of its illustrious captain, Sal Crupi, "We're now 2-0 this year with that asshole out of the lineup and 6-0-2 total..."

 

The scoring was kicked off at 9:34 into the 1st period when Morin fired a perfect bank pass of the right side boards to a streaking (and I use that term lightly) McElwain.  The Blue Crabs goalie came out of the net to make a play on the puck, but got there a step too late as McElwain pulled the puck out of poke check reach and shot the puck into the empty net.

 

The 2nd period started quick for the Crabs as they evened the score 28 seconds in with a wrist shot past Dr. Bob.  The Icemen regained the lead just over 10 minutes later when Brad Cover swatted a loose puck in the crease past the Crabs netminder.  Cover's goal was recorded as unassisted.  Said the ever talkative Paul Sampson on the lack of detail recorded by the "official score keeper" (Fluffy), "That son-of-a-bitch Fluffy half asses score keeping as bad as he is lazy when playing out on the ice for whatever sucker of a team asks him to play.  Slusher should be ashamed at the piss poor score sheet turned in by the man called Fluffy.  I mean, who doesn't count shots when keeping score for a game?!"  That's alright Old Guy, Paul, we'll make sure your assists are counted from here on out.

 

The Crabs again scored first in the 3rd period to even the score until Bill Polinsky took yet another crisp Morin pass into the high slot & went 5-hole for the go-ahead goal with 6:49 left in the game - or so they thought.  Cover got the second assist on the goal.  The lead was short lived, however, as the Crabs tied the game with just 1:28 left in the period when an exhausted, nevermind old, Brian Hayes couldn't catch a breaking Crab who beat Dr. Bob on the glove side.  Though the score sheet wouldn't show it, the Icemen put some pressure on the Crabs' goaltender during the final minute of play in the period to no avail, so on to overtime they went.

 

Luckily  for the Icemen, star newcomer Steve Billmeier had a hot date to get to after the game, so he took matters into his own hands by winning the faceoff, taking a pass from Sampson, and firing a shot past the Crabs goalie for the win just 8 seconds into overtime.  "Thank God he scored, I was praying like hell on the bench that Steve would score on that shift.  I was out of gas and couldn't hold back the tears anymore - I was falling apart," said a relieved Tim Polanowski. 

 

The game was a well played, hard fought battle by both teams who have a lot to play for with just three games left (two of which are against eachother).  The refs did a great job of letting the teams play and a great game was the result.  Next game is Monday 3/8 with a rematch of tonight's game.