Captain Chris Malki celebrated every period with a goal, and provided the primary assist on Mark Scelfo’s first of the season, leading his team to a 5-0 breezer over Brown. Justin Stege rounded out the scoring for Black, who remain undefeated, and un-scored-upon through the first two weeks of play. Alex Theis filled in flawlessly for Sean Kelly, stopping 10/10, while Don Tran fell prey to the Malki mayhem at the other end, dropping to 0-1-1 with a 22/27 line. Black will face the only other 2-0-0 side, Navy, in Week Three. The season is very young, but this matchup does have the makings of a Cup Final preview…

I’ve been waiting to type ‘Dick came up big’ for a while now, and Green’s Jason Dick has finally given me that opportunity…thank you, brother! Dick came up big for Green, breaking a scoreless tie in the second with the first goal of his SDFHL career. The 1-0 edge would hold until midway through the final frame, when Steve Goncalo struck back for Silver on the power play. This one looked to close out as a deadlock dandy, but super sub Julie Ott came up big (inspired by Dick) with the game-winning strike in the final minute of play to lift Green to a 2-1 win. It was another quiet night for superstar sniper, Steve Jones, whose assist on the Ott winner serves as his only point through the first two games. Nick Vacchio earned his first career win in nets, stopping 14/15, while Chuck Bender (15/17) dropped to 0-2-0 with another tough, one goal loss.

Yellow bounced back nicely from a 5-0 no lube Navy pounding in Week One to squeeze Orange 5-2. Harsh Wanigaratne was a man possessed, racking up assists on all three Yellow goals in the first (Josh Wirt/Jack Traughber/Philip Burke). Orange made a game of it from there, with Carl Vankoughnett immediately cashing in on a Burke Delay Of Game penalty late in the first, then cutting the lead to one in the second (both from Kris Tosczak). Yellow had the last laughs, with Mara Bernd’s first of the season, and Philip Burke’s second of the game putting the game out of reach for good in the third. Nick Adkins (20/22) evened his record in nets at 1-1-0, while Steve Deppensmith remained winless at the other end with a 15/20 effort.

Captain Salt’s Navy picked up where they left off in Week One, cruising to a 5-0 lead through two periods against a frantic and futile Teal team. Rob LaVigne got his team on the board in the first, scoring just the second non-Salt goal for Navy. The brothers got back to work in the second period with two goals apiece (Deborah Finucane collected her customary three assists, of course). A pair of late third period goals from Captain Mark DeGraffenreid provided a shred of pride for the long-defeated Teal side, yet was the proverbial ‘too little, too late’ in the 5-2 thrashing. Chris Tran suffered his first GA blemishes, but kept his win-loss record perfect with a 25/27 outing, while Nick Meglich was strong, but over-Salted in his first losing outing with Teal (21/26). Something has to give when Navy faces Black this Sunday…set your DVR for that one, folks!

The nightcap brought the Week Two slate back to parity town, following lopsided results in three of the first four games. It was the season opener for Captain Kevin Dinino’s White, and they found twine first late in the first, with Tim Helmbrecht converting (from Dinino, himself). Helmbrecht had a helper of his own on Chris Tran’s first of the season in the second, which would ultimately serve as decider in a 2-1 White win. Patrick Walker’s first career SDFHL goal (from Hima Joshi) on the heels of Tran’s tally did keep things interesting to the end, but Cory Brin (30/31) was the story in this one…a story with another sad ending for Pink. I’ll spare you the box score attendance check…Andrew Jacobsen was in the lineup again for the losing side. The living legend has now been held scoreless in back to back games. We have our league historians and statisticians working around the clock to find out if that has ever happened before…I sincerely doubt it has.

Well, it was 462 days in the making, but the SDFHL finally got back to action on Sunday. The slate kicked off with Captain Gattey’s Red taking on Captain Karn’s Silver. Dan Jurgens proved his true draft value, scoring first and last for Red, and assisting on Steve Linke’s middle marker for good measure. Newcomer Jen Caringal chalked up primary assists on both Jurgens goals, and Sarah (‘AJ’) Higginbotham got into the assist column for Red, as well…the first point of their respective SDFHL careers. Nadia Saidi joined in the newbie reindeer games, notching her first career goal for Silver in the final tick of the second period. Alas, Nadia’s effort, and the late Andy Strathman tally were not enough to save Silver from an opening 3-2 loss. Yet another newcomer, goaltender Chuck Russell, shone brightly in his debut for Red, stopping 21/23 to record his first SDFHL career ‘W’. He outdueled Chuck ‘The Original Chuck’ Bender, who suffered the loss with a 7/10 line.

Black and Pink squared off next, with Captain Chris Malki leading the way for his squad with tallies in the first and second (assists to Joe Malki and Tom Darlington). That was twice the offense that Sean Kelly would need, as he posted a rather ho hum shutout to start the season (11/11), and account for the zero in Black’s 2-0 win. Jimm Reifnsyder’s return to SDFHL action was spoiled by Malki’s spoils, but he kept Pink in the game with a 20/22 effort, in spite of his side being outshot two to one. Andrew Jacobsen was held off the board entirely, which is a rare feat, indeed. He either has COVID rust to work off, or he just needs London Peters back in the line up to stir the pot in the attack zone.

It was a quiet first period in game three…too quiet. Nick Adkins and Chris Tran kept the balls at bay early, but the latter would face only a light peppering the rest of the way, while the former drown in Salt. Captain Jon and ‘little brother’ Zach took turns scoring goals, and assisting on said goals to the tune of four and four, while Deborah Finucane collected three assists, and Patrick Fusco rounded out the scoring in the 5-0 face smash. Tran’s 15/15 frustrated a Yellow lineup that was missing two of its key players (Josh Wirt and Shawna Hamon), while Adkins held as well as he could (21/26), but the Salts showed no mercy. Needless to say, the fact that J & Z touched one of the best goalies in the league up for four goals is a major warning shot to their next nine opponents. Who will be the first (if any) of the teams to shut these two down?

Jim LaGrossa and Kris Tosczak eached racked up one and one in the first, pacing Orange out to an early lead in what looked to be an easy win. Teal adjusted their lineup, kept their collective chin up, and retaliated midway through the second (Min-Soo Smith) and early in the third (newcomer, Tyler Lyne). Jet Javelet put Captain Wirth’s side back on top with Orange’s second powerplay goal of the evening, but Captain Mark DeGraffenreid shoveled home a rebound with just over a minute to play to knot the game for good, 3-3. It was another game, another rookie getting in the scoring books, as Sally Jackson earned her first and second career assists on Teal’s third period goals. Nick Meglich was very sharp, arguably stealing the game for Teal with a 25/28 outing in his much-awaited return. Steve Deppensmith was challenged much less, but registered the same result in the records books with a 10/13 effort.

In spite of the relatively low shot count, and the 1-1 final score, the Week One nightcap was a definite thriller. Don Tran (13/14) and Nick Vacchio (9/10) kept watch over two scoreless periods of play before rookie sensation, Kevin Wilkinson, finally broke through for Green on an unassisted wrap around early in the third. Captain Nagy himself evened the score for Brown a few minutes later, with assists from Jordan Pynn, and super sub, Dorothy Kline. Pynn was great, as always, but I am afraid his one assist is not going to keep him on the POTW podium that he has lived on for something like a year and a half. In other news, Steve Jones was held off the score sheet for the first time in…maybe ever. Both AJ and Jones…no points through Week One…brace yourself if you are facing either of these perennial terrors this Sunday!