Hush Hush

‘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.