Puck Preaching

Happy Sunday Morning!

As I sit at Cup O Kryptonite drinking my weekly Mate Latte, waiting for my religious hockey buddies, I figured I'd preach from the hockey pulpit and shed light on the current hockey news.

Speaking of Cup O Kryptonite, they became the first ever ABC League Gabe Fleming Cup Champions. In a convincing win over Red Alert, they ended the season as regular season champs and took home the hardware on May 19, 2010. Congrats to all the Cup players and to all teams. The season could not have turned out better if I scripted it in advance. With terrific competition & very few issues, the inaugural season was a huge success. Have a great summer and hope to see all back in the fall!

There are some that just couldn't end with the ABC League and wanted to continue their hockey fix. For this, the Summer Scramble was created. A short 5 week season that will play twice per week begins today. We chose 4 new captains and through a well scouted draft, they picked their teams one by one. This session combines players from both the C & D leagues in hopes of scrambling up the talent and teams. Playing twice per week should provide the fix we need before the ice comes up in Mid-June. Good luck to all and hope the league turns out "sunny-side up"!
A previous blog entry confirmed my confidence with the Blackhawks as I showed my support by putting my mortgage on the line by betting on the Hawks to win the cup (well maybe it was only $10). As I watched Friday's game with 2 other fans (Mikey is a die-hard while Adam has his doubts at times), we saw a young fiery Hawks team show that nobody can contain them. Niemi proving he can hang with the other big names that aren't even in the playoffs (ala Brodeur, Luongo, etc.). So in religious fashion, today the die-hards (and yes probably Lowell too) will be watching the game at the Ridgemont and Mikey is even bringing a broom.....now that's confidence!

Have a great Sunday and make sure you don't shave your playoff beards yet!

The Season Finale

After 32 weeks of hockey, we end our inaugural season this Wednesday. This season ends with some great memories and on this Wednesday night, the final match ups are played.

In the 5th place game, the much improved Irwin's team will play the talented Puck Hawgs. Both these teams did not have a game last week and should be fired up and ready to play. "We hated not playing last week", said captain Beede of Hawgs. "You should have seen how angry Lisa got at Joe when he said we don't get to play." The picture below of Lisa & Beede was taken by a fan right after the team was informed they were not going to play last week.

Although I understand the player's frustration, we still need to remember to keep out emotions in check. Even newcomers to our league like Adam Krultz (of Hawgs) was in shock. "I know they're my teammates, but a trade to another team may be the right move for me", stated Krultz. "I know I'm the best player out there and I'm sure someone wants me."

The Irwins team also comes into the game having missed last week. Several players traveled to Europe to play in an International event. This was a charity event to raise money for goalie Daniels in an effort to upgrade his gear. "He doesn't have much padding and I'm sure it hurts when he gets hit", observed teammate Wheeler. "He doesn't even wear pads in the 'you know where' region". Here we see a team photo of the Irwins players making the trip to Germany.

Left to right: Dave Lasnek, Gary Halloway, Ryan LePera, Bill Goodman, Michael Johnson, Jim Goeke, Rob Wheeler & Todd Daniels.

The match up for 3rd place pits Voodoo versus Alien. Here we have 2 teams that actually felt like they had a shot to get to the championship game and were quickly shut down by the #1 & #2 seeds. The Voodoo game was relatively calm since Matt Whitaker decided to keep his hands to himself. The Alien game last week was as close as can be, and even went into a shootout. An incident did occur between 3 players, but over this past weekend they settled their differences in a friendly game of underwater hockey.

Pictured: Brook Current (#11 in Red) fights for the loose puck as Dan Bishop (dark suit bottom of pile) attempts the steal, while Ben Paoli (#8 in Red) comes to his teammate's defense.

The final game has none other than Cup o Kryptonite playing Red Alert for the Fleming Cup Championship. 2 of the finest captains take their teams to the ice at 9:45 to determine the best of the best. At the beginning of the season, there was debate on what to call this championship and the idea of the "Barista Cup sponsored by Starbucks" was quickly nixed by Johnson of Cup. The name was too close to Battista and although Matt hopes to one day open a Starbucks franchise, he wasn't prepared to have them sponsor the event.

Red Alert has prepared for this game their entire season. Although this is their first season in the ABC League, it is not their first year of playing hockey together. This is actually their 3rd year as a group and they have previously played in the Sioux Falls Competitive National Development League and the Minneapolis Elite Semi-Pro League. This Wednesday, they also debut their 3rd edition Red Alert video game. "I think we are proud of the game this year. I'm sure all the kids will love it" proclaimed Curran of Red Alert. "I'm happy that they used Dave Swift on the cover as he's deserving of that honor."

So, no prediction, no humorous comments, no surprises on this, the final blog entry for the 2009-2010 season. Just a professional writing trying to shed some informative light on what we refer to as adult hockey. Good night & good luck.

The Trainer's Trophy Gets Dusted Off.

Stanley Cup?.....Phooey! The Trophy pictured above is what it's all about. This beautiful hand-sculpted trophy made of fine hockey stick wood & Huffy training wheels mounted on some plywoodesque material and a can of silver spray paint is what adult hockey is all about.

If you visit a previous blog entry ( http://alienhockey.blogspot.com/2007/09/playing-for-cup-or-keg-or-trainers.html) you will see how they did it in the golden years. There is even a video under my video links to see some of the early members of D League (that's not the song I picked for the video, but stupid copyrights kicked my song out and gave me that one).

This year, we will see the Dynamic teams of All Iowa Vending battle Team Schumacher for the prized trophy. The game is at 2:30 PM this Sunday at Bucs Arena. They have all learned so much over the course of the season and have stuck with it through all the pain, bruises and sore backs. Nice job to everyone this season.

The Consolation game pits Front Row against Tony's Tigers. Although these 2 teams do not get a chance to lift the trophy over their heads, they still play the game just as hard and with as much passion as any team in any league.

The beauty of the Novice league to me has always been a new player's desire to play this great sport. Anyone can grab a tennis racket, running shoes, softball bat or even golf clubs and start those sports as an adult. Although these are all difficult, no other sport is more challenging than hockey. After all, you throw on 30 pounds of gear, grab a long stick with a curve at the end, try to shoot a 3" round rubber disc into a net that is being protected by a goalie with even bigger pads.....oh....and all while standing on a frozen sheet of ice while wearing shoes with 1/8" blades on the bottoms to get around on!

So hats off to all the D League players that don't get frustrated with the game, but rather understand and truly value what this game is all about!

Playoff Analysis

Four teams remain in the battle for C League Supremacy. The Kryptonite players get ready to face Team Alien in the first match up while Red Alert takes on the Voodoo.

Irwins & Hawgs have the week off from games, but decided to still scrimmage each other ...but in a battle of chess. After 14 straight hours of game play, the Hawgs emerge victorious.

Pictured back row from left to right: Mike Beede, Rick Kavan, Dave Gannon, Mike Bartak

Pictured front row left to right: Pat Houlihan, Sergey Kozak, Dustin Gordon, Adam Krultz, Lisa Schumacher

Congrats to the Hawgs for this great accomplishment. The poor losers of the Irwins team were seen throwing bricks through car windows after the match. An angry Ryan LePera can bee seen here after losing a match to Ben Hudson.

With the season coming to an end and the pressure of the playoffs upon us, take a moment to remember that its all still a game...and check mate is not all that bad.