Game 1: BD 3, HT 0

Terry Redmon had an elephantine game in net (thanks, Razor) Thursday night as the underdog Blue Devils defeated Hockey Team 3-0 in Game 1 of the D-League Finals.

The BDs got goals from Chris Price and Mark Johnson, and Eric Hogentogler added an unassisted power play goal at the 3:10 mark in the third period. Redmon was perfect (a "f-in monster," reports one teammate) on 35 HT shots.

HT outshot the BDs 35-21. The scoresheet is here.

Contrary to some of the bad blood on display in this space recently, the game was mostly clean, with good sportsmanship on both sides. Nice job, fellas.

Game 2 in the best-of-3 is Sunday night.


LATE ADDITION:

Some anonymous character sent this cryptic image to Saturday Night Heroes' investigative desk. Are the BDs planning a victory parade? Beware counted chickens, friends.

Practice Times...I league...

Practices this weekend...also preview of the teams...

Patriots: will look to defend their title, however will have to do it without Greg Helenbrook and Nate Hodges. However Pats will still keep their stars in Steve Benefield and Butch Hutchinson as anchors for this season. Offseason acquisitions have kept the team at peak performance, and there are rumors of new coaching staff guiding the patriots. We’re trying to get word on who that may be…

Stickmen: A lackluster performance last season overshadowed some great goaltending from David Bluebaugh. If this team had some young talent that could score, this team could go places. The reliance on Jesse Henderson can only produce a .500 season at best, the rest of the stickmen need to step up, or they are doomed to middle of the pack again.

Leftovers: Can they win 2 games? Find out in December.

Puckers: We see a new team almost every game, not to mention every season. Kevin Luchenhoff, Ryan Rintala and Rob Constantine need some defense behind them, if this happens, Puckers are a top 4 team. If puckers can ditch some of their lesser players and stack up, they’ll be set.

Wet Willies: Coming off their mediocre season in the FB C league, the WW thought it was time to have a season off. Bobby Sirkis, Asian Wonder Chris Luz, SouthLake’s own Ryan Leviz, Jason Neal, Nate Hodges and Jason Islam, should easily win the keg...with a 10-0 record and a record 198 GF and 1 against The 1 goal against coming because bobby was skating drunk and scored on the wrong net.

The wet Willies should own the league....

Snipers: That Rob Mustell guy they have is really good, they should build on that.

Brewzers: These guys, if the goaltending holds up, could be the dark horse to win the keg. Pretty good defense, offense that comes at random, but they’re no match for the wet willies.

Blue Devils: These guys underachieved at the lowest level last season, some blame the lack of Todd Smith participation, others blame Ray Workman and his lack of leadership. Very possible it could be a little of both. If mike drago came back, this team may win a couple games.

Komets: No Chris Gallagher means this team will suck this season. We heard on the back of their new jerseys, it says, “In C. Gallagher we trust”.

Spiders: Were also beneficiaries of Chris Gallagher leadership, well that’s gone now, so they’ll finish .500. Not to mention when they play the wet willies, they are going to lose 20-1.

Ice Holes: If any team was going to give the Patriots or Wet Willies a little bit of a challenge, it would be the Ice Holes. Made up of many of the C league team Ice Dragons, the Ice Holes should finish in the top 4, and if the right ringers show up, possibly win it all.

Warriors: Aka the Leftovers, aka the Puckers, will hope to have a better season than this past one. They are the most consistent team in the league and are competitive in every game they play. The bad part is that they just are lacking that one guy to lift this team from a 2-1 loss to a 2-1 win.

Practice Times for this weekend...

It's HT, BDs in D-League Finals

Hockey Team and Blue Devils will meet in a best-of-3 title series after both prevailed Tuesday night.

The hated (by all but their wives) HTs prevailed in a penalty-marred (more than 20) 6-3 victory over the Misfits. Eric Mask (attempt to injure match penalty) and Scott Skurdalsvold (fighting game misconduct) will miss the finals for their transgressions. Misfits led this one 3-2 near the end of the second period.

The BDs hung three second-period goals on the Yokels in their 4-2 win. Greg Sargent had a goal and an assist. Terry Redmon stopped 29 of 31 shots, not including one from a teammate that almost caught the corner. Yikes.

Game 1 of the finals is Thursday night.

Good luck to both sides.

Patriots win!

Patriots 2 Komets 1
Patriots defeat their demons win their first championship in franchise history. It wasn’t the Patriots best performance of the season, by far, but it was certainly enough to beat the komets. It was the final I league appearance for both Chris Gallagher and Nate Hodges who both had their retirement press conferences following the game, a tearful moment for both guys. This game was blessed by the presence of several of the Mayhem squad who made it their point to boo Hodges whenever he touched the puck. For the Komets, Chris Gallagher was the force that he always is, as he briefly stunned the patriots by getting the first score of the game. However the patriots roared back, only problem was they hit post after post and missed open net after open net. Many of the patriots believed the hockey gods were again, against them. However the patriots finally struck on a Greg Helenbrook goal on a Butch Hutchinson assist. A glorious goal in which shredded Komet defenders and humbled Komets goalie Brent Bryant. The patriots continued to dominate play but could not seem to get the goals to fall. In the third period, the game was still tied at 1-1, when Butch Hutchinson scores off the draw for the go ahead marker. Patriots then for the rest of the period dominated play but couldn’t get any more insurance markers. Komets then threw everything they had in Gallagher, Nation and Baldree, but not even that solid line could crack the solid Patriots defense. As the clock hit 0.00, all of America rejoiced as the Patriots lifted the keg, and silenced the haters. Jeff Vaughan smiled, a crippled Dallas Lehr laughed, and Tom Yockey was pissed as he had to hug Hodges at the presentation ceremony. The MVP of this game was by far Butch Hutchinson whose play was near perfect on the night and was a force on the bench. Right next to him was Steve Benefield who was a backchecking warrior and was hungry like the wolf whenever the puck was near him. Truly, a glorious season for the Pats. Amen.

Btw…we were inspired by the Patriots shutout win over Mayhem…
(all pictures taken from EulessHockeystop's unofficial photographer Brian Bergman)

Chris DeBaene leads the crown in a terrible version of the national anthiem Dallas Lehr with his third Championship

Patriots swarm the Komets Zone.





Ryan "Screaming like a demon from hell" Smith hoped to bring the spirit of mayhem to the game.

Philip Talley standing tall in net.

Nate Hodges flys away from the Komets aka the Phantoms

Greg Helenbrook's game tieing goal.

Surgio Castillo crashes the zone. (Get better soon dude)

Ice Holes 1 Black Widows 0
This would have made an excellent keg game as well, not to mention the fact many thought one of these teams should have played the Pats for the keg…but that’s another story for another time. Ice Holes get their winning goal from “Graves” (we can’t wait for friggin pointstreak)…and that was all they needed for the win. Goalie Doug Taylor shut down the team of hot spiders chick, while the hottest one, Melissa Munn, could not score…some say her being mentioned on this blog has cursed her…we beg to differ. Both teams, if they keep the same people, should be EXCELLENT contenders next season. From the way the black widows were partying upstairs...you would have thought they won the keg...

Puckers 7 Leftovers 2
This wasn’t much of a game, puckers were in control of this one since the beginning of time, and just freaking obliterated the leftovers. From coach bobby sirkis, “Damn, this team sucks.” Puckers had goals from their stars as Rob Constantine nets the hat trick, Ryan Rintala scores twice, while Kevin Luchenhoff and “Ward” scored in the route. Leftovers did get a couple just to be competitive from Chris Gallagher (who randomly was playing in this one) and the great Junior Lindamood who finished the season leading the team in scoring. Rumor has it the leftovers may be dissolved next season.

Spiders 7 Blue Devils 3
Blue Devils end what was the worst season in their existence by not only having almost no one show up for their game, but getting obliterated at the same time. The Spiders showed they were for real and hopefully will be a contender next season as they showed excellent offensive prowess and skills in defeating the shorthanded BD. Chris Gallagher had two goals and two assists, Brian Conture has two goals, while Andrew Patti, Pete Clark and a mysterious spider also score in the route. While the collapse of the blue devils this season has been expected, no one thought it would really happen. The answer is clear…the Blue Devils need Mike Drago to resurrect the empire…

Stickmen 2 Brewzers 1
We are basing this entire recap off one Jesse Henderson’s recap via text messages…
“I was the hero of this game for the most part. David Blubaugh played excellent in net, but needed his offense to score some to bail him out at the end. We won 2-1 baby, Steve Daniels missed being a hero for the Brewzers by about one second as he scored right after time had expired. This can only be explained by the fact that Steve is still the second best player from Granbury (behind me of course). Glory is mine!”

Nice.



Snipers 3 Warriors 1 (or so we hear) no score sheets on the books….all we know is that bobby sirkis is pissed.

FINAL STANDINGS....

Look for an email from yockey concerning next season

D-League Playoffs

The schedule is out for playoffs this week. The big question was whether Hockey Team was in or out. Well, they're in, and as the No. 1 seed. Think about that what you will.

Anyway, our friends over at the Euless Sr Stars blog (Who are doing a nice job, if only because they mention me.) are predicting Hockey Team won't survive the first round. Hmmm. We predict HT won't send out quite the same short-bench team we've seen since the aborted move to C league.

Here's the schedule:

Single-elimination round
Tuesday
8:30 p.m. -- Hockey Team vs Misfits
10 p.m. -- Blue Devils vs Yokels

Best of 3 Finals
Thursday
9 p.m. -- Game 1
Sunday
10:30 p.m. -- Game 2
Monday (Oct. 8)
9 p.m. -- Game 3 (if necessary)

BC