Rockford 3 Mona Shores 1

In analyzing the MS vs. Rockford game last night, I can only come up with this explanation as to why the Sailors lost to the Rams on Saturday night:

- Poor ice condition combined with biased officiating, bad equipment, improper rink lighting, and questionable music selection. Where were the Village People when the Sailors really needed motivation? It truly is fun to stay at the YMCA.

Actually, this theory was espoused on MLive last week about Sailor fans, and you can’t help but get a kick out of it. Poor lighting? Has a High School Hockey (HHH) team ever really blamed a loss on poor lighting? MLive is a guilty pleasure, like watching Coyote Ugly. You feel many times like your IQ has taken a hit of 10 or more points after having read comments, but you can’t help yourself. It’s mostly kids pretending to be coaches, kids and dads pretending to be irate moms, haters pretending to be fans, Chris Matthews pretending to be a 13 year old girl....A veil of secrecy is very emboldening.

Saturday’s game against Rockford was the third in three league games for the Sailors starting Wednesday night, and it showed. But the bottom line for being on the wrong end of the scoreboard was the Sailors were outplayed and out hustled, and Rockford earned the victory. Winning the races to the puck, making hockey stops rather than public skating circles, and flying to the net with reckless abandon win hockey games, and the Rams confirmed it Saturday night. In what should have been a tribute game to the Sailors’ seniors, it ended up instead Senior Andrew Beeg Night of the Rockford Rams, who accounted for all of Rockford’s three goals in the game at the Lakeshore Sports Centre.

After a nifty version of the Star Spangled Banner sung by the trio of Larry Grevious, Craig Skocelas, and Paul “Velvet Fog” Tiefenthal, along with pomp and circumstance surrounding the Shores senior tribute, the ice quickly slanted in favor of the Rams. Shores looked deflated, as if the warmups and ceremonies had drained them of their strength. Rockford looked rested, like they had just returned from a fabulous all-inclusive resort vacation. Both teams traded penalties, with the Sailors mostly shooting high or wide and sometimes high and wide of the goal net, which seemed much smaller than regulation to MS on this night. Even two consecutive Rockford infractions beginning at 7:50 in the first resulted in only loud, booming shots off the glass from the Sailor points, which make a lot of noise and are enjoyed by the student section, but are otherwise inconsequential in terms of the scoreboard. With 3:42 remaining, “Classic Brock” Carlston gripped and ripped the puck from point blank range on Junior goalie Andrus Forrest of the Rams, who like most everything else sent his way this night, absorbed it like a black hole where not even light escapes.

Fortunately, like Vegas, what happens in the lockeroom, stays in the lockeroom during intermission. Otherwise, I would offer up my left eyebrow to figure out what goes on between the first and second periods at the Sailors games. It’s almost like the Sailors give up their uniforms to the moms and they take the ice, but only for the second. The Andrew Beeg Show, in its fourth year for the Rams, started promptly at 1:44 in the second. Beeg scored then, then again :49 later, and then on the PP to end the calamitous period with 1:02 left. He was twice assisted by both Tyler Glass and Jacob Chaffee. Not even a five on three advantage with 8:56 remaining in the second could yield a goal for the frustrated Sailors, who exhibited the upper body strength of Orville Redenbacher repeatedly in trying to clear the puck from their own zone.

Desperation was evident in the third period on the part of the Sailors. Numerous scoring opportunities were squandered or rejected by restaurant quality goaltending. At :44, JC “Oh Boyd” left a drop pass for Adam “Melochie Crunch” Meloche, who dropped it. 1:16, Kyle “Mini Hicks” flipped a harmless puck on Forrest. 8:18 in, Taylor “Scores Moore” to Boyd in front of Forrest; no shot. And on it went, with the Sailors shooting and Forrest stopping rubber bullets with everything but his teeth, until the man-child Moore finally put an arrow into the achilles of Andrus Forrest with 3:36 remaining, with support from Boyd.

Shots for the game were 25 - 22 Sailors with Scottie “Tootie?” (cute nickname courtesy of his mother) Tiefenthal turning away 19 shots. The hit of the game for MS came from JC Boyd at 2:08 of the second, who hit a Ram so hard at the Sailor blue line that his siblings in the stands began to fight over his worldly possessions before he came to and headed for the bench.

Congratulations and thanks are in order to the MS seniors who despite what you might read on Mlive from the team they just beat, are not only excellent players, but fine young men. All year, they were relied upon to lead and shoulder the workload for a young Sailor team and they didn’t disappoint. I am also impressed with the way they represented themselves on ice in terms of sportsmanship, particularly when contrasted against some of the things you see as an off-ice official by what is fortunately a small minority of players. Congrats and thanks to Ryan Ellis, JC Boyd, Ryan Burmeister, Jake Stevens, Adam Meloche, Dan Harwood, and Chris Barrett!