Nov 18, 2013 | Joe Heinisch | 280 views
Lightning Extend Win Streak to Three
Sunday November 17, 2013
Game Reporter: Jay Nijhuis
As a coach, the hardest thing about those early 7:30am games is not the pre game speech or the line combinations….it's getting a room full of 10 year old kids to WAKE UP!
With no practice this weekend, the Lightning were asked by Coach Joe to try and do all the things today that they have been doing during this mini win streak. Mainly the defence needs to keep the puck out of the "house" and clear the zone, the forwards need to come back in our end and get into the opposition end zone and create turnovers through immense pressure and the Goalies…..well they need to keep stopping the puck. The plan sounds simple enough, but seeing all the yawns around the room made us think it might not be.
So to wake the boys up a bit and gave them something to think about, Coach Joe decided to shake up the roster a bit today. Some D-Men moved up to play forward and some forwards got to play defence. As you can imagine, the forwards were incredibly enthusiastic about this decision (lol)
The AtoMc Lightning started the game the way they looked in the dressing room….sleepy. Add to that, several players trying to wrap their heads around the new position they were playing, and needless to say it was pretty sloppy out there. It showed as we gave up the first goal and were down 1-0 after the first period.
Coach Joe stuck to his guns and kept the lineup the same heading into the second period and it paid off, mostly because it looked like the boys finally woke up. Logan N, usually patrolling the Blue Line, found himself playing centre and it worked as he picked up a loose puck in the slot and rifled a wrist shot that squeaked through the goalies arm to make it 1-1 after the 2nd period.
The Lightning could smell the blood in the water and came out flying in the 3rd with Grady S making a spectacular rush from our end zone and potting a break away goal to make it 2-1. Shortly after that, another defence man playing forward, Jonah V picked up the puck at the opposition blue line and broke in to score, glancing a shot off the goalies pad into the top corner. Final score was 3-1 to improve our record to 4-1 on the year.
The McDonald's Golden Jersey was awarded to a player who we felt NEVER stopped working, especially in the corner digging for loose pucks and he made a glorious pass late in the game that almost made it 4-1. The jersey goes to Ty C…way to go Ty on a great game.
Finally, the players cast secret ballots after the game to vote for Captain and Assistant Captains. Congratulations to Grady S our team Captain and to Logan N and Cory S who are the Assistants. These lads will be sporting the letters proudly on their jerseys for the next game.
Remember, it's picture day on November 24th BEFORE our game at 10:30am. The boys need to be in the locker room at 9:30am so that they are fully dressed and looking fine for the pictures at 10:00am. We'll see you then.
Keep your stick on the ice!