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When we last left our fearless Black Icers, we’d just played one of the sadder games in the team’s history. We all knew we needed to go home, get a good night’s sleep, and come back for an early morning game ready to play.

And we did! The team we played was a lot tougher than the team last night, and as is our usual, we stepped up and played a lot better. Final score: 3-2.

Personally, I played a ton better last night. As in: I did not suck (and trust me, last night I sucked.) I only caught one edge at mid-ice and took a backwards tumble onto my butt. Much nicer than having that happen 10-12 times….

Our three goals were all really fun. The first one, in the first period, was almost a repeat of last night’s goal: STP and I were playing D, Libby had a bunch of players on her in a corner, Alaina had the puck behind the net, and Amy found herself mostly open. Alaina threw the puck to her and two defenders whiffed as it went through their feet. Amy caught it and BINK the score was 1-0. We did get one set of matching penalties with 1:30 left in the first - one of them threw Holly to the ground and held her down. As Holly was getting up she bonked the girl on the helmet… and the ref was right there. Whoops! Thank goodness those were matching.

The second period was tougher - the Riviera knew they needed to step up if they wanted to win, and we knew we needed to keep them shut down. So at one point, Holly, Mich, and Amy were playing with STP and me. We got the puck into their zone, and then all of a sudden there was this big scrum in front of the net, and then Amy was IN the net, and then the ref whistled and indicated a score! Amy can comment when she gets the time about what exactly happened, but suffice to say that I’ve never seen anyone try to score from within the net before! No one at brunch knew if Holly or Mich was credited with the goal, but it was for sure one of them. (Photo is of the scrum.) Later in the period, they ended up getting a goal - grumble. But we answered it, breaking out of our defensive zone - Mich threw the puck up the boards and Amy grabbed it and had a 1-on-0 breakaway. As she got closer to the goalie, she pulled the puck wide to the left, then quickly brought it back to the right and threw in the backhand on the shell-shocked goalie. It was fun to see from behind her on the ice - so very pretty!

In the third period we realized that a 3-1 lead wasn’t as safe as we wanted it to be. We played tough, and other than one 3-on-2 breakaway where STP and I could only cover the first two girls in - one of them passed to the third, who had a beautiful wrister that went high on Lynn- we played tough and smart. It was nice to walk away from the game with our heads held high, and with the win.

Later this afternoon we take on the Miacomets, the women’s team from Nantucket. They looked tough as we were walking out today - hopefully they’ll be tired by the time our game rolls around!

What can I say about last night’s game - at 5:20 on a Friday? The good part was that we tied and didn’t lose. The rest of it was pretty much bad.

Our one goal was really beautiful - Amy, Marcia, and Alaina were playing C/F positions, STP and I were on D. Alaina had the puck in the corner and most of them were on her. She dumped it to Marcia who was behind the net. Amy, in the meantime, found herself wide open in the slot, and when Marcia passed to her, she put it in a nearly empty net (the goalie was trying to see where Marcia was and misjudged it.)

The rest of the game was pretty unforgiving. We skated slow, I had something going on where all I could do is fall down (note: I normally don’t fall down when there is no one near me on the ice.) Seriously - I kept catching edges and wiping out. Must have fallen 10-12 times. At one point I was chasing a girl into the corner in our defensive zone and caught an edge. I ended up on my back, legs and arms in the air, circling around like a breakdancer. Or Gregor Samsa.

The other bummer things about the night were Jonesy breaking her pinky finger, us giving up a crap goal, the fact that we couldn’t break anything out to save our lives, and our general lack of ability in the passing department. It was ugly, and when Coach reamed us between periods (something she NEVER does) we all knew we deserved it. (Photo at left is said reaming…)

But we got out of there with a tie, and a point. So that’s good. We could only hope that things might get better on Saturday.