‘We need to talk’, ‘do we have flood insurance’, ‘has your neck always had that weird bulge in it’…just a few of the things you really don’t want to hear in your life. If you’re Captain Ryan Karns’ White, you can add ‘Wirt is out with food poisoning’ to the list, and you can underline and highlight that if that rest of the sentence is ‘…and we’re facing Silas Perks and Olive in an elimination game tonight’. You REALLY need all of your shields at the ready, and your swords at their sharpest when you play Olive, because if you allow two goals…you’re done, and if you don’t manage to somehow beat them 1-0 or 2-1 in regulation or overtime…you’re done. With Wirt out of the lineup, White’s hopes at avoiding ‘being done’ were heavily eroded, but playoff hockey is certainly not a vacuum in which flukes, freakish feats, and unreal upsets cannot silence the echoes of expectation (holy hell, this reads like I am so high…I’m actually not). Olive was certainly encouraged by the absence of White’s leading scorer, and knowing from Week Ten experience that they could but this team even with Wirt in the lineup (albeit in a 1-0 escape pod with 2:14 to play) had to have them feeling like the rematch was theirs to lose. A scoreless first featured a shocking role reversal for the one seed, as they outshot White 9-3! Dan Soar (the pilot of the aforementioned Week Ten escape pod), broke through at last for Olive with an unassisted effort at 8:14 in the second, and Aaron Cooney notched the dreaded second goal with 2:56 to play in that middle third (Hima Joshi and Brandon Olsen). The only thing worse than finding yourself down two goals going into the third period of a game against a Silas-Perks-backed team is finding yourself down three with less than half a period to play. Christopher Fiore, now universally whispered to be the most underrated player in the league, made that horrifying hypothetical a horrifying reality for White, making it 3-0 Olive with 4:31 to play (Cooney). Carl Vankoughnett, White’s second best weapon, and best non-poisoned one, finally solved Perks to give White late hope at 3:32 (Kevin Dinino & Arnold Gonzales), but as we have established…you’re lucky to get one on Perks, and two is almost always ‘two much to ask’. Perks (13/14) would indeed hold on, washing out a valiant Matt Henderson (15/18) bid at that other end, and washing White out of the playoff picture, 3-1. Olive would not have long to savor the win, grabbing a seat and some fluids before trotting back out to take on Brown in the Losers Bracket Final…

Revenge may be a dish ‘best served cold’, but it’s definitely not a dish that Brown wanted served to them at any temperature. Captain Kyle Prior’s Brown had delivered the LONE loss on the season to Olive two weeks prior, and had (cautiously optimistic) hopes of repeating the feat against (what they hoped would be) a tired side, and beginning preparations of their own revenge ragout for Red. You might have noticed a mention or two of Olive’s goalie in the recaps each week (if you look closely). ‘The Silencer™’ had allowed more than ONE goal just TWICE in twelve games coming in…the first in a 4-2 win over Brown in Week Four of the regular season, and again in a 2-1 loss to Brown in Week Two of the playoffs. So…Brown had the rare air of confidence of not just having scored two goals on Perks, but having AVERAGED two goals against a goalie with a 0.63 GAA. They knew that they COULD beat Olive if they could just play their game, and count on the numbers to bear out. The numbers did not bear out, and Olive washed Brown’s ‘but we can score TWO’ confidence right off the court with a three goal first period blitz that made this one feel over early. Chris Fiore (aforementioned most underrated player in the league) struck first just 1:01 in (Jon Zygelman & Aaron Cooney), Cooney doubled the lead at 5:26 (Zygelman & Fiore), and Zygelman made it 3-0 at 1:14 (Dan Soar). It’s worth nothing that all three of these goals were somewhere between ‘soft’ and ‘suspect’, but Olive is no stranger to the generosity of the hockey gods, it would seem. Divine intervention or not, a three goal hole against The Silencer™ might as well be the Grand Canyon…with the walls of said canyon well and truly greased, and Brown had A LOT of work to do in the final twenty minutes of play. Zach Salt gave Brown an immediate jolt in the second, scoring at 9:35 (Tony Thinh) to put his team back in ‘we can do this!’ mode. Zygelman’s second of the night at 5:51 in the second (Cooney & Captain Copp) downshifted that dream drive back to reality. Brown would continue to pour on the pressure, ultimately outshooting Olive 32-12 (!), but it seems that the more shots he faces, the stronger Perks grows, and a late token second goal for Andy Strathman (Shawna Hamon) would be all Brown would manage in their attempt to claw their way back. Perks (30/32) advanced to yet another Final, serving Cory Brin (8/12) and Brown a 4-2 revenge a la mode, and dragging his Olive mates along to take on two-seeded Red for all the marbles. If you’re not familiar with the SDFHL playoff format, Olive will need to beat Red twice to win it all. It will be a battle of two titans of the twine (Perks v Kelly), and a fitting match of top two playoff seeds that would surely break ratings records, were it not for those pesky Olympic Games gumming up the works.

The big Winners Bracket showdown was first up on the Week Three playoff docket, and I’ll just pretend you missed the box score that was posted on Monday, and the headline above, and keep you in rapt suspense while I regale you with the details of the battle between Captain Joel Gattey’s Red and Captain Kyle Prior’s Brown. The spoils of regular season success rendered Red’s playoff resume rather pedestrian coming in, with ho-hum wins over #7 Purple and #6 White, while Brown was still swelling with confidence after escaping with an overtime win over #5 Grey, then handing #1 Olive their very first loss…ever. Brown had a more empirical reason to believe they could beat Red, having bested them 3-1 in Week Nine of the regular season, while Red hoped that two key missing players in that first meeting (Alexis DaCosta and Tim Vick) would be difference makers in the rematch. It was Red on the front foot first, with a strange medium range Jackson Tomaszewski wrister somehow finding a path through sticks and legs and into the back of the net behind Cory Brin at 7:12 in the first. Alexis DaCosta, one of the aforementioned ‘key missing players’ when these teams first met, indeed made his ‘key’ presence felt, accounting for Red’s second goal at 8:56 in the second (Craig Russell), then padding the lead to three with his second of the game at 7:48 in the third (Joel Gattey). A goal is a goal is a goal, but with two of the three Red tallies rating VERY far from ‘museum quality’, Brown felt the convergence of tough luck frustration in their end, and the flummoxing futility that comes with trying to solve Sean Kelly at the other. Mark DeGraffenreid finally did just that just sixteen seconds after the second DaCosta conversion (Chuck Russell & Maureen Ruchhoeft), but that would be the only blemish on another sparkling Kelly slate (27/28), as Red held back Brown’s desperate late push to lock down the 3-1 win and punch their ticket to the promised land. Brin (16/19) suffered the loss in his return from an unplanned kitten rescue mission the week prior, and Brown now find themselves down with the rest of the riffraff in the Losers Bracket. They will take on the winner of Olive v White, while Red enjoy a bye week and await the lone survivor…

The first knockout match of the night came next, with the two lowest remaining seeds squaring off in the form of Captain Ryan Karns’ White, and Captain Leah Gonzales’ Teal. You read that correctly…Teal’s OG ‘Lady Tealsdale’ was finally back in action after missing all but ONE of her team’s games to date. While it seemed unlikely that her return itself would be enough to inspire the bottom seeds to victory over a tough and determined White side, fans were hopeful that they would be treated to a the kind of thriller that the first meeting produced. I’m certain it’s a repressed memory by now for those in the Teal ranks, but White rallied from 0-2 down in the third period to stun Teal back in Week Ten, with the game-winner coming with just 0:42 remaining. That…is…brutal. It was White who found themselves up 2-0 in this one, with Carl Vankoughnett doing the honors on both counts (the first from Kevin Dinino at 3:45, and the second from Kerri Sevenbergen and Arnold Gonzales at 2:57). Teal would fashion their own two goal rebound this time around, with Justin Ker converting a Chris Malki helper at 2:29, and…yes, folks…Captain Leah Gonzales making her return triumphant, indeed, with a very pretty equalizer (from Joe Malki) to knot the score at twos going into the second. Vankoughnett was sent off at 2:26 in the second for a rather vicious slash, but Teal proved powerless on the powerplay, surrendering a (rather spectacular) short-handed end-to-end gut punch from Josh Wirt (Captain Karns). Joe Malki drew Teal back level with a solo effort early in the third, and the scene was set for another tense, thrilling sprint to the tape for these two rivals. Nope…it was actually extremely anticlimactic. Three goals in LESS THAN A MINUTE…Dinino from Wirt and Mark Nagy, Vankoughnett’s hat trick capper from Nagy and Dinino, and a solo second of the game from Josh Wirt broke the game wide open for White, and a rocking and reeling Teal would never recover. Perhaps my most loyal front page reader, Matt Henderson (20/23), secured the must-win win for White, while Chuck Bender (16/21) and Teal backed out the playoff door they backed in with the 6-3 loss. White now boast the heaviest playoff scoring hammer with ten goals over three games, but their next opponent, Olive, happens to feature a hammer-proof pipesmith in the form of Silas ‘The Silencer™’ Perks. It’s an intriguing matchup, and whoever survives will face a rested and ready Brown for the right to throw down with Red in the Final.

Captain John Boddy was not in the lineup when his Black band took on Olive in Week Five of the regular season, but an early Geoff Downes Silencer Shocker™ had his team well in line for what (in hindsight) would have been one of the most courageous coups of the season. Instead, Shelby Shattuck tied that game with 3:31 to play, and the teams would shake hands after a 1-1 draw. At season’s end, Black would count themselves among the ‘lucky few’ to nick even a point from Olive, finding themselves in the cozy company of just three teams to manage the feat. Captain Boddy was back for the big rematch, but Dan Jurgens, Marc Lapointe, and Ryan Loughran were out, and while Shattuck was not available to reprise her heroine role, Olive’s leading scorer, Aaron Cooney, was set to make his debut in the second game of this season series. Momentum can be a powerful force, and Black was banking on it paying dividends for them in their second straight do-or-die match. Their 4-0 elimination of Purple restored their spunk and spirit after a disappointing opening loss to White, and the emotional return of Bao Nguyen to the lineup had oddsmakers leaning towards an inspired upset. Perhaps no team was more upset coming into the week than Olive, having suffered their one and only loss to date to Brown the Sunday prior. No one knew how Olive would rebound from a loss, but we were all about to find out. Black came out firing, racking up nine first period shots to Olive’s two, but the top seeds are no strangers to being grossly outshot, and Jason Lee found fortune in one of those two shots to put the favorites in front 1-0 at the 1:20 mark (from Jon Zygelman). The lopsided shot totals hit laughable levels in the second, with Black blasting EIGHTEEN at Perks and Olive mustering just another pair in response. A 27-4 shot advantage in the first two periods of a game would normally translate to at least a three or four goal lead, but Perks is just on another planet. Sean Bathgate did manage to solve the Silencer™ at 4:48 (Brendan Jew & Geoff Downes), with what I was not remotely surprised to hear was a very quick and very precise snipe. So, one goal a piece going into the final fray, with Black swarming and mounting pressure, but Perks putting the ‘live’ in Olive, as always. I can hear the echo of Black hearts breaking as I type, but after dominating Olive for two full periods, Jon Zygelman scored at 9:20 to put the top seeds back on top (Chris Fiore). With any other goalie, a 2-1 deficit is not a death sentence, but the knowledge that two goals past Perks had happened just TWICE to that point in the season (both courtesy of Brown), and knowing that a tie game would only extend the match to an unwinnable shootout…this goal was devastating for Black. The shot totals were relatively even in the third, as Olive entered into protect mode to preserve their slender but sturdy lead. The clock wound down to crunch time, and Black’s final push produced nothing but two empty net goals for their opponent (Zygelman and Lee), drawing the shroud over Black’s playoff corpse, 4-1. Olive move on to face White, with the hopes (nay, expectation) that they will then have a chance to avenge their only loss in thirteen games in the Losers Bracket finale against Brown. It’s VERY hard to bet against Perks, but anything can happen in playoff hockey…