End Game

While the ‘murder’ investigation was winding to a close, the ‘surviving’ captains rallied their respective troops to battle in the first round of the ‘Closing Games’. This was to be the final piece of (smokescreen) pomp and circumstance in President Pope’s plan to steal The Cup, but with the ulterior artifice stripped away, the participants agreed to just play it out and see what happens. The Games opened with Captain Jeremy Copp’s Olive looking to extend their ten game unbeaten streak into July against Captain Zach Siemer’s scrappy bottom-seeded Teal. The two teams met less than a month prior, with Olive outlasting Teal 2-0, in spite of being outshot by a margin of TWENTY-ONE to FIVE (!). Revenge is a dish best served in the playoffs, and with the ‘safety net’ of a draw no longer an option for Olive, they would need to proceed with caution against a talent-riddled Teal roster. Chris Malki is a big part of that ‘riddle’, and he stunned the favorites with a first period strike (from Joe Malki) to put Teal on top. A scoreless second had the odds-on Cup lock in limbo going into the third, but Hima Joshi brought Copp & Company level with 7:21 to play in regulation (Dan Soar & Aaron Cooney), making it ‘anybody’s game’ as the clock wound toward overtime. Unless you have been under a rock all season, you know that ‘anybody’s game’ really means ‘Silas Perks’ game’. True to form, The Silencer™ not only pushed his team through regulation and overtime without conceding a second (22/23), but drove home the winning dagger for Olive with a 3/4 showing in the shootout. It was Papa Malki again putting Teal in front in the first round, but three straight conversions from Olive’s Jon Zygelman, Dan Soar, and Christopher Fiore meant that the one seed would go on to win this one, 2-1. Chuck Bender (13/14) and Teal can be encouraged by a very solid showing against THE team to beat, but they are now just one beat away from being cast aside with the rest of the playoff dross. If ‘revenge is a dish…’, Captain Chad Goins and Grey are hoping to serve it to Teal in round two, avenging a shocking 6-3 Week Six loss and knocking Teal out of the playoffs in the process. Olive move on to face Captain Kyle Prior’s Brown, whom they bested 4-2 back in Week Four. It’s the late game on a school night, but watching the league’s top offense take on The Silencer™ should be worth the impact to your beauty sleep.

The regular season rumble between Captain Joel Gattey’s Red and Captain Sev Brown’s Purple resulted in a Salt-free 1-0 sneak past the latter by the former. Neither team generated a lot of offensive push (12-10 shots, in Purple’s favor), but you don’t need much offense when you have a living legend in nets in Sean ‘Da Kid’ Kelly. Kelly was (of course…math…duh) perfect in the first meeting, but the rematch would see the return of Jon Salt, and that (of course…math…duh) is an important wrinkle. It was another living legend in the personage of Jordan Pynn who got the party started for Red at 7:43 in the first (from Trevor and Tim Vick), but Salt would answer and equalize just twenty seconds into the second. The tie score didn’t last long at all, as Tim Vick snatched the lead back from Red at 8:05 in the middle stanza (Nick Vacchio & Captain Gattey). Alexis DaCosta, who scored that lone goal in the regular season match, added some (unneeded) insurance later in the second (Pynn), and that would prove to be more than enough for Da Kid (17/18) who stymied Salt & Company the rest of the way to preserve the 3-1 win for Red. Don Tran (14/17) suffered the loss, and suffered from some crazy bad luck, seeing as how Alexis DaCosta actually made it to BOTH the regular season loss and the second season encore (the odds are staggering!). Captain Brown and Purple may have backed their way into a win in the season theme Clue game, but they’ll need to have their game on ‘drive’ against a tough Black side with elimination on the line. Red held serve as the number two seed, and will hope to do the same against sixth-seeded White on the winners’ bracket side.

Black and White…a classic clash of opposites (I think…the whole color spectrum thing confuses me a bit). Opposites or not, the Spring 2024 wearers of said colors comprise two very strong, fun to watch teams, and I for one was looking forward to witnessing it (I wore black and white stripes, so as to remain impartial). Even though Black shellacked White 6-1 in the regular season, and were favorites by all measures, I expected a tight, back and forth contest…and I definitely got it. Black wasted no time getting the guns blazing in the first, with a Dan Jurgens solo effort at 8:43 followed by a Brendan Jew strike at 7:47 (Captain John Boddy & Pat Gladstone). Just when I was beginning to doubt my senses on such things, White staged a late period rally to draw things level. Kevin ‘The Deputy’ Dinino (from Josh Wirt) put White on the board at 1:24, and Wirt knotted the score just 0:38 later (Mark Nagy & Carl Vankoughnett) to clean the slate and restore my faith in my perception of parity. White had the momentum, and were REALLY on the front foot to start the second, as Wirt struck again at 9:44 to give White their first lead. Vankoughnett added an insurance marker (Dinino), and it was insurance that they would indeed need, with Captain Boddy leading a late (but futile) charge with a spectacular solo effort with 1:28 to go. Matt Henderson (17/20), who was out of the lineup for the first meeting, was clearly the missing ingredient for White, who avenged their regular season loss to Black with a courageous 4-3 coup. It should be noted that Black were missing some key players (Bao Nguyen, Geoff Downes, Sadie Hellstom, and Marc ‘Mister Hat Trick’ Lapointe), but Ryan Loughran (13/17) and his mates gave it their all in a short-benched fall. They will look to rebound and stay alive against #7 Purple, while White go from facing #3 to #2 as they take on Red this Sunday.

Captain Kyle Prior and Brown were looking for some redemption against Captain Chad Goins’ Grey in the nightcap. Goins’ group handed Brown a 6-3 loss back on June 30th, with Kyle Snyder carving through a fully-staffed Brown side with sickening ease to the tune of 3 and 1. That result kept the standings race between the two tight to the final week, and while Brown held on to the four seed by a point, this was clearly destined to be a close, hotly contested battle in the middle. The fear of Snyder was that much more profound with defensive anchors Andy Strathman and Tony Thinh out of the lineup, but Grey was without Janet Goins, Captain Chad Goins, Jeff Henderson, Justin Stege, and Tom Darlington. So, Brown had to hope that more game time for Snyder would eventually produce diminishing returns as fatigue set in (if he is capable of fatiguing), and Grey would have to contain the top two scorers on the season (Mark DeGraffenreid and Zach Salt) coming the other way. It was Snyder with the first laugh in the first (from Rob LaVigne and Vance Morra), and the second in the second (LaVigne), leaving Brown feeling like it was ‘déjà vu vu all over again’. Vu part deux it was not to be, as Salt filed Brown’s first response (from Rob Pietropaula), and Chuck Russell (DeGraffenreid and Salt) brought Brown level to close the second. Vance Morra put Grey back in front with 5:53 to play, and time quickly became Brown’s enemy as the final minutes of play ticked away. Pietropaula would save the day for Brown with 1:24 remaining, making his first SDFHL playoff goal one to remember, and giving rise to the second overtime in the opening night slate. Rob LaVigne was sent off at 3:49 after a collision with Salt along the boards, and it took just sixteen ticks on the ensuing powerplay for Salt to make Grey pay. There are weird, fluky goals, and then there is the museum-quality weird, fluky goal that ended this one. An innocent shot from high in the zone just…sort of…found its way into the net though a sea of legs and sticks…just sort of nestled into the twine like a sparrow alighting on its nest. Thankfully for Brown, a ‘nestling sparrow’ is no different than a ‘swooping eagle’ when it comes to overtime goals, and the silly, squeaky Salt shot was the game-winner in the wacky, wild, Kool-Aid style 4-3 Brown win. Cory Brin (16/19) made several acrobatic saves to keep his team close throughout, and Jon Cima (21/25) was solid, but ultimately undone by the OT stunner. Brown now must face the only undefeated team in the tournament in top-seeded Olive, while Grey will look to stay alive on the losers’ bracket side against the team at the other end of the seed spectrum, Teal.