A Cluckwork Orange

Captain Ryan Karns’ Flint Blue and Captain Chad Goins’ Red navigated the regular season with a combined 11-5-2 record, leaving them positioned as the two and three seeds, respectively, coming into playoff action. While the SDFHL playoffs certainly don’t always play out ‘by the numbers’ in the first round, it is very rare indeed to see three upsets (nearly a clean sweep for the lower seeds, actually), and it is that rare occurrence that found these two top contenders in a fight for their playoff lives in Week Two. The regular season meeting between these two teams served as the last Sunday of Red’s ‘Losing Era’, with Flint Blue prevailing 6-3 to drop Goins’ Group to 1-3-0. An inspired 4-0-1 dash to the regular season finish line locked up the bronze position for Red, but after an opening round playoff loss to Pink, they found themselves faced with a familiar and formidable Flint foe once again…this time with elimination at stake. Karns’ & Kompany suffered perhaps the most shocking loss of the opening round, with an all-accounted-for Flint contingent falling 2-1 in overtime to a Lime side bereft of key cogs Chris Malki and Jordan Pynn. The playoffs are the honey badger of the sports world…they DGAF how and why your team is where they are…all that matters is where they go from here. John Boddy made clear where he wanted Flint Blue to go from their unexpected Losers’ Bracket lie, ripping home the game’s first goal at 9:12 in the first. Both teams racked up fifteen shots through the first two periods of a tight, hotly-contested contest, but it was Luke Wolmer converting on the power play at 7:21 in the second (Ramsey Ksar) to provide padding for Flint Blue and apply that much more pressure to a pressing Red. The Wolmer strike was his first since returning from a lengthy absence – an encouraging sign for a team whose offensive output was nearly all-Boddy for the past three or four Sundays. Brennen Abel was not in the lineup for Red’s regular season loss to Flint Blue, and he made his presence felt in the playoff rematch, bringing Red back to within one at 6:12 in the third (Steph Palomo Schmidt & William Teglia). Red continued to press, but Matt Henderson (21/22) was superb in a sub stint for Nick Meglich, and he would keep Flint Blue up 2-1 to the final buzzer. Jon Cima (17/19) absorbed the tough loss for Red, who started the season ice cold, warmed to Red hot, then froze out of the playoff picture in two and out fashion. Karns’ Krew move on to face Captain Rob Gaudio’s Blue (‘The Other Blue’™) in another elimination bout this Sunday. If the playoff encore of this match is anything like the regular season sizzler (in which Flint Blue rallied to a 4-3 win with four goals in the third), then spectators will be in for a true treat.

The flipside of the Week One wreckage that saw a Week Two match between top three seeds with death on the line is a Winners’ Bracket clash between sixth and seventh seeds. Enter Captain Bryan Ossa’s fully-feeling-it ‘FlamingOssas’, and Captain Joel Gattey’s living-their-best-life Lime. The Week Six first go-round for these two denizens of the lower bracket saw Lime hand Pink their second of three straight losses, with four different scorers making good in a big second period to carry Gattey’s Group to a 4-2 win. The axiom that ‘the playoffs are a different world’ was clear enough from the crazy opening week orgy of overtime, and amplified by the fact that three seeds Red had already left the chat, so both teams should have wrapped warmups bracing for just about anything. Pink was technically the higher seed, but had lost to Lime in the regular season, and Lime was technically the lower seed, but had proven they could prevail over Pink. The common denominator between the two games…the absence of super stud blueliner, Jordan Pynn. The differences…the return of Carl Vankoughnett and Will Heinl to a nearly all-accounted-for Pink (less captain Ossa), and a change in nets, with Jon Cima serving in place of the departed Michael Haine. Vankoughnett made his triumphant return from tropical touring, putting Pink on the board first at 7:21 on the powerplay in the first (Josh Wirt), and Pink were clearly charged up with a 10-4 edge in shots going into the first break. Pink’s shot edge was even more pronounced in the second (9-2), but Matt Henderson stayed stout, allowing just a Sadie Hellstrom rebound strike at 1:36 (Wirt & Vankoughnett) to keep Lime close-as-could-be-hoped going into the final third. Vance Morra proved that Lime could hope (and realize) closer, tucking home the first response for his team at 6:31 in the third (Hima Joshi & Sean Bathgate), and when super sub, Janet Goins, slid the equalizer home at 3:41 (Morra & Jerry Gonzales), the ‘anything can happen’ nature of the playoffs birthed a brand new game going into the final minutes of regulation. It was Vankoughnett again, back form vacationing on volcanic islands in time to provide a second goal for Pink, completing a wild, bouncing ball sequence to put Pink back in front 3-2 with 1:34 to play (Sadie Hellstrom). Josh Wirt would seal the deal with an empty-netter at 0:21, and Jon Cima (8/10) would come away with some sense of consolation from his own team’s elimination, helping Pink to a 4-2 win over Lime. Matt Henderson (21/24) was outstanding in a second straight start (which, funny enough, was a head-to-head rematch with Cima), but a Pynn-free Lime and a Carl-ful Pink likely proved perhaps the biggest factors in this revenge result for Ossa’s Outfit. Pink press on in the Winners’ Bracket to face the omnipotent overlords of Orange in Week Three, while Lime will look to keep on the playoff path as the higher seed in a clash with Captain Hamon’s Brown.

Captain Shawna Hamon’s ‘Turds Of A Feather’ backed into the playoff picture with two straight losses to wrap a 3-5-1 campaign, and relied on a head-to-head tie breaker with Black to put them in as the bottom seed/first round fodder for Jeremy’s Juggernaut Orange. Brown proved anything put ‘fodder’ in that first Sunday of play, putting more than a slight scare into the top seeds with a gritty, but ultimately gutting shootout loss. As the only lower seeds to fail their Week One coup attempt, the Turds could either come away with a sense of FOMO, or a sense of pride and confidence for having come so close to finally drawing blood from the Wing League 2025 Goliaths. Losing the opening round middle pairing battle to Blue was not nearly as provocative a twist for Captain Zach Siemer’s ‘Siegulls’, but the 1-0 loss was no less tough to swallow, given the outstanding (as ever) efforts of Silas Perks, and the fact that the imposing piece that is Jason Remple was not part of the Week One winning puzzle for Blue. White came into the playoffs tied with Lime for the second lowest goal output of the playoff field (twenty-two), but may have taken some pregame solace in the fact that Brown was dead last in that category with just fourteen. Alas, that solace was mostly dissolved by the absence of both Jon Zygelman and Scott Wieland, who had combined for nearly half of that regular season goal total. One player in White’s ranks who, for privacy’s sake, let’s call him Steve L…no, that’s too obvious…let’s say S Linke, assessed his team’s situation quite simply in a candid post warmup quip with ‘we’re done’. You’re not done until you’re done, and Vinny Santora had the faithless wonders on top first at 5:12 (Andrew Hoff). It should be noted that this was Hoff’s first ever SDFHL point…CONGRATULATIONS! Glenn Pinto answered for his new team at 1:24 in the first (Kalen Hunter & Jim LaGrossa), leaving both teams on equal footing going into the second. ‘Equal footing’ might not be the most accurate term, given that Brown outshot White 13-8 in the first, then 15-1 (!) in the second, but this was a goalie duel for the ages, and The Silencer™ was up to the task of keeping White in this one to the bitter end. Pinto struck paydirt again at 5:01 in the second (Andy Strathman & Kalen Hunter), making it 2-1 and still technically ‘anyone’s game’ heading into the second break. It was more dominance from Brown in the third, as they racked up a 12-2 edge in shots, but more importantly found a third goal (Hunter on the powerplay from Captain Shawna Hamon at 3:54), and with the final shot count recorded as 40-11 in Brown’s favor, it is no wonder they went on to win 3-1. Silas Perks (37/40) was the real wonder, as this would have been a been a blood bath with just about any other goalie in his stead. So, our anonymous source in the White ranks was right…they were/are ‘done’, exiting the playoffs in two-and-out fashion after finding just one goal to support a superb Perks (59/63) in six periods of playoff play. Sean Kelly (10/11), POTW Glenn Pinto, and the rest of Brown live on in the Losers’ Bracket to face fellow low seeds, Lime. The two tied 1-1 back in Week Nine, and the reprise has all the makings of a thrilling do or die death match…

Orange’s regular season saw them blowing away five opponents with scores of 6-1, 6-2, 7-1, 5-2, and 4-0, slipping past another trio with scores of 7-6, 4-3, and 4-2, and conceding just ONE point in the entire regular season in a 3-3 tie with Red. We have established by now that things are different in the playoffs, and Captain Copp & Company proved prone to this playoff power balance perversion in a VERY narrow escape from bottom-seeded Brown in their second season opener. Captain Rob Gaudio’s Blue staged the smallest of three low seed coups in Week One, slipping past White 1-0, but two sobering realities swirled coming into their second shot at THE team to beat. First, Orange were the team to beat not only because of their top seed status, but because they had NEVER been beaten, and second, Blue was one of Orange’s freshest kills, having been dispatched 5-2 just three weeks prior (in a game with the ‘key pieces’ in place for both sides, no less). I would add a third point…that Blue was once again without the services of Jason Remple, but that bit of bad Blue news was countered by the absence of Aaron Cooney and Chris Fiore on the Orange side. So…Orange still holding that magic mojo, and certainly still the favorites in this rematch, but with every playoff game to this point being decided by two or fewer goals, and upsets landing at an alarming rate, this game was still very much up for grabs. A scoreless first saw Orange enjoying a heavy edge in shots (11-4), and while that edge dulled significantly in the second (6-4), Silas Perks finally found the back of the net at 4:31 (Owen Perks & Justin Stege) to put Orange in front. As vaunted as Orange’s offense is/has rightfully been, it was the defense that really bottled up Blue in this one, holding the challengers to just three shots in the final ten minutes to preserve YET ANOTHER win, this time by the slimmest of margins in regulation, 1-0. Mason Holcomb (11/11) was decidedly less busy than Don Tran (22/23), but ‘Da New Kid In Town’™ still knows no loss this season, and neither do Orange, who march on to the Winners’ Bracket Final to face Pink. Having lived by the 1-0 sword and died by the 0-1 sword, Captain Gaudio’s Group must now rally back from the Losers’ Bracket, starting with a blue-on-blue showdown with Captain Karns’ Flint Folks this Sunday. Neither shade of blue is doing much scoring of late, so it will be interesting to see how this elimination battle plays out…I’ve got 2-1 in OT.