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Captain Ryan Karns’ Purple found themselves at 2-1-0 after three weeks of Fall League play, having lost their season opener in blowout fashion to White, then sliding past both Teal and Gold to establish themselves as a strong side with plenty of playoff potential. The ensuing four games stripped nearly all of the ‘potent’ from that ‘potential’, as Karn’s Krew went L-T-L-L to limp into the first of two make-up weeks at 2-4-1, sharing space below the cut line with their scheduled regular season finale opponent, Red, and the latest team to hand them a loss, Lime. At 3-3-1, Captain John Boddy’s Blue was very close to booking playoff passage, needing just a win, a tie, or even a loss, coupled with losses for both Red and Lime to seal the deal. A win for Purple would push them into a tie with Blue in the standings, but also grant them the head to head breaker and allay most (if not all) fear of a November elimination. Darin Cerasuolo pushed Purple in front first, notching his fifth of the season at 7:35 (Brendan Jew & Geoff Downes), but Blue produced a trio of responses to assume full control going into the first break…Sean Kelly from Weston Oakley and Captain Boddy at 6:00, Kelly again from Ramsey Ksar and Captain Boddy at 2:42, and Boddy from Tony Thinh at 0:39. Enter our POTW, Pat Gladstone, whose second of the season at 8:38 cut the lead to one, before Carl Vankoughnett brought Purple level on the powerplay at 5:31 (Gladstone & Captain Karns). Old Man Steve Linke snatched the lead back from Blue on the powerplay at 2:11 (Boddy), but Downes answered at 0:44 (Darin Cerasuolo & Vankoughnett) to leave the ledger knotted at 4-4 going into the second break. Gladstone was at it again in the third, with her second of the game at 7:28 putting Purple back in pole position (Darin Cerasuolo & Jew), but a late gut-punch-point-saving-hat-trick-capping-power-play strike from Kelly with just 0:30 to play took all of the wind out of Purple’s would-be-winning sails, and ran them aground on the shores of a 5-5 tie island. The lone point makes Blue playoff official in Captain Boddy’s final Cup run, while the non-win leaves Purple in cut line peril going into the final week of play. Karns & Company do control their own destiny, with a win over Red sealing their second season seed. A loss to Red would spell Purple’s end, while a tie coupled with anything but a Lime win would also put them in. Blue will face Gold in a continuation of the infamous ‘fire game’, which was suspended after one period of play with Gold leading 1-0. A win for Blue could push them as high as the two seed, while a loss could drop them as low as the seven slot.

Were it not for a crucial 4-3 Week Nine win over Purple, the already slim wedge of playoff hopes for Captain Joel Gattey’s Lime might have been squeezed dry before their meeting with color cousins, Green. Captain Bao Nguyen’s deeper-shaded side came in a cozy 3-3-1 in spite of a stunning 6-3 loss at the hands of a down and desperate Red in Week Nine. A bounce back win would give Nguyen & Kin a playoff in, and also paint Lime into a must-win-and-get-help season finale. With Brennen Abel, Zach Siemer, Chris Tran, Nick Vacchio, and Joe Nguyen all out of the lineup for Lime, a Green win seemed like a foregone conclusion, but a god mode performance from Don Tran made a VERY lopsided game look like a standard issue 3-0 affair. If you weren’t on hand, or didn’t check the box score closely, the shot count closed with Green holding a FIFTY-SIX TO SIX ‘edge’. I am confident that no team in league history has ever posted a +50 shot differential in a game…very few have ever even managed forty shots, let alone fifty…crazy! Crazier still was the fact the Tran kept this close throughout. Chris Malki finally solved the subLime netminder with (what I presume was) the last of twenty-one first period shots at 0:18 (Jon Zygelman). Our POTW, Pat Gladstone, kept her mojo moving as a fill-in for Janet Goins, doubling the Green lead at 4:47 in the second (Chris Malki), and Bryan Ossa added insurance at 3:27 in the third (Joe Malki & Dan Farrell) to cap a 3-0 win that could have been 30-0 if Tran (53/56) were a mere mortal. Unfortunately for Lime, moral victories are still literal losses, and at 2-5-1, Gattey & Company will need a win over Orange and (specifically) a tie in the Red v Purple match to survive to December play. John Kushneryk (6/6) recorded his first career shutout in cruise control fashion as Green improve to 4-3-1, punch their playoff ticket, and remain in striking distance of the second seed going into their ‘measuring stick’ regular season wrap against Black.

The middle game on the Week Two Make-Up slate saw the last of three cut line teams clambering to clear the cellar as the the playoff door atop the rickety stairs creaks closer to closed. Captain Motafa Azab’s Red rode the high from a huge second win of the season over their basement buddies (Lime) into battle with Captain Rob Gaudio’s White, and with Purple securing just one point and Lime losing, a third Red win would finally find them above the scrap heap and primed to stamp their playoff passport. Both teams were dealing with critical people-insisting-on-double-booking-themselves-in-other-hockey-leagues-and-tournaments absences in the form of an MIA Josh Wirt and Sadie Hellstrom for Red and Captain Rob Gaudio and Dorothy Kline for White (and also Ty Pereira…unrelated). Gary Peters put White in front first, tucking home his second of the season at 8:07 in the first (Mark Scelfo & Jackson Tomaszewski), and Tomaszewski made it 2-0 with an unassisted strike at 6:05 in the second. Steve Pugliese made his debut for Red as a permanent replacement for newcomer, Ali Nabipour, and he recorded the primary assist on Red’s first response…Captain Azab from Pugliese and Eric Caligiuri. Alas for Azab & Friends, that would be the only Red response. Craig Russell restored White’s two goal lead at 3:07 in the second (Tomaszewski), and Dan Jurgens made up for two minor penalties with his seventh of the season at 2:25 in the third (Russell & Rob LaVigne). Jon Cima (7/8) held on for a rather ho-hum 4-1 win to push his personal season mark to 3-1-2 and White’s second place standings stake to 4-2-2. Captain Gaudio’s Group can snatch the top playoff seed this Sunday with a win over Teal and a Black loss to Green. The stakes are far steeper for Gabe Davenport (13/17) and Red, who need a win over Purple (and, amazingly enough, no ‘help’) to finally find their way to playoff safety. In fact, unless there is a tie, the Red v Purple result will settle all remaining playoff mystery…clearly THE game to watch this Sunday.

Lime, Purple, and Red have all had fairly consistent struggles finding their footing this season, but no team had a more ‘left for dead’ slog to the midseason marker than Captain Jeremy Copp’s Teal. Four straight losses to start the season, with one of those four losses coming at the hands of the now-in-playoff-peril Purple…it was clearly ‘must’ win time for Copp & Company coming into their Week Seven match with Lime. Copp’s Crew did win that game by a 3-1 score, then dealt Red a matching 3-1 loss to make it two in a row, then boat raced a barely-there Gold 10-2 (bonus for a certain individual later bragging about running up the score, as if it were an actual accomplishment/something to be proud of…but I digress)…three straight wins, and a sudden and near-complete resurrection from probably-paste to playoff-probable. The momentum alone that comes from a three game win streak through this stretch of the season can be enough to carry a team to greater heights, and Captain Luke Wolmer’s Black has been enjoying said greater heights since Week One. A Week Nine 4-0 loss to White was their first taste of defeat all season…indeed their first non-win. Factor in that Captain Wolmer, Riley Mann, and Wasif Hussain were all out of action in the loss, and it would be easy to dismiss the bump in the road and look to get back on the winning track the following Sunday. Trevor Vick started that journey back, giving Black the first lead at 6:46 (Riley Mann), but Alex Giummo would answer unassisted on the powerplay to draw Teal level through ten. Giummo struck again at 9:48 in the second to push Teal to their first lead (Kerri Sevenbergen), but Mann had a prompt response at 8:14 (Tim Vick). Josh Tran was next to act, with what I can honestly say is the most badass goal of the season/recent memory…swooping through his own zone…weaving through the neutral zone…down along the right boards, then hooking in and touching home a sensational end to end gem to wrest the lead back for Teal. Giummo would complete his hat trick just over a minute later, leaving Black in need of a third period comeback for the second straight week. Giummo’s fourth of the game on the powerplay at 8:10 in the final frame (Andy Strathman) sucked most of the energy out of any such plans, and while Janice ‘The Better’ Darlington would finally put Black back on the board at 3:22 (Andrew Wong & Captain Wolmer), it was too little, too late to avoid two losses in a row, this time 5-3 at the hands of the now white hot Teal. Jon Cima (8/13) ate the loss in Will Heinl’s stead, while Matt Henderson (9/12) and Teal continued/concluded their climb to playoff safety with their fourth straight win to improve to 4-4-0. The two game tumble has left open the possibility of Black (FINALLY) falling out of first place, but a tie or better against Green this Sunday, or a loss and anything but a win for White will lock them in as the top playoff seed. Teal are not only a playoff lock, but can lock in the TWO seed with a win over White and losses for both Blue and Green.

If you haven’t spoken with me directly in the past few weeks, or if the parenthetical jag in the previous recap didn’t clue you in, Gold (this member of Gold, in particular) was…none-too-pleased about the way things went down the week prior. Losing is one thing, but…yeah…none-too-pleased. Frustration and anger can either derail you or make you more determined, and Captain Hima Joshi’s team was beyond pumped and primed to put themselves back in the win column after a three game slide had left them too close for comfort with the cut line. Captain Mark Nagy’s Orange rolled in as perhaps the ‘most lukewarm’ team in the league, with a 1-1-2 runup to their make-up week rendezvous with Gold, and while the Red and Lime losses earlier in the evening already had them pushed into playoff position, a fourth win would establish them in the top half of the bracket and provide some swagger and stability going into the final week of play. Late period goals are almost always a killer, but early game goals often set a tone, and Eric Willard’s 9:31 delivery (Kalen Hunter & Captain Nagy) dealt a definite dent to Gold’s determination. Captain Joshi steadied her mates with her (very timely) first of the season at 6:42 (Mark DeGraffenreid & Christopher H. Fiore), and DeGraffenreid drove one of those late period daggers home at 0:33 (Shelby Shattuck) to give Gold their first lead* since Week Five (!) (*not including The Fire Game™). Kalen Hunter drew Orange level with an unassisted snipe at 8:54 in the second, but that’s when the real hero emerged from the phone booth for Gold…Greg Francisco. Francisco found and deposited a back door loose ball to give Gold back the lead at 5:46 in the second (Steve Goncalo & Owen Perks), then finished a dazzling rush/backhand feed from Perks to pad that lead at 7:20 in the third (Shattuck with the second). A DeGraffenreid empty-netter with 0:13 to play sealed the 5-2 win for Mason Holcomb (12/14) and Gold, who punch their playoff ticket in snapping their losing streak and evening their record at 4-4-0. Nick Meglich (25/29) continued his string of magical performances with mixed bag results, now topping the goalie charts with a .900/2.88/0 SO line, having faced TWO HUNDRED THIRTY ONE shots..ONE HUNDRED more than any other goalie in the league! Nagy & Company can only ride poor Nick so far…they will need to find more Joshi/Francisco-esque ‘secondary scoring’, and stop the bleeding on the shot differential if they hope to do damage in December. Orange will have one final tune-up in the form of last-legs-Lime, while Gold (weirdly) have just two periods of hockey left to play before turkey day…the continuation of The Fire Game™. Gold hold a 1-0 lead in that game, which will serve as the final flourish in the Fall League 2025 regular season.