Playoff Beard

Every hockey player knows that when the playoffs start, you stop shaving.  By the end of a long playoff run the beard can get pretty scruffy looking.  Even though I missed the first couple of playoff games, I stopped shaving when the Renegades ended the regular season, and moved on to the post season.

We defeated the Mighty Ducks in the semi-final, two games to one.  Then we moved on to the final round against the Chiefs.  The biggest issue that our team has had this year, was getting enough guys out to the games.  We played one game during the regular season with only six skaters.  The first playoff game wasn't much better as we only had nine skaters.  One of our guys got ejected relatively early in the game, leaving us with just eight.  Unfortunately the Chiefs had about sixteen skaters out to the game, and just wore us down.  We stayed in it, and were only down by a score of 2-1 midway through the third period.  But in the end we just ran out of gas and they scored three late goals to coast to a 5-1 victory.

Monday night at Clareview Arena was do or die.  We had a little better turnout, with about a dozen skaters, but the Chiefs once again had a full bench.  We scored first, but it was a very close game and the score went back in forth.  Late in the game we were down by a score of 3-2 and pulled our goaltender.  They got an empty net goal, but even after that we still scored one more.  But it was not enough and we lost by a score of 4-3, putting an end to our summer season and our playoff run.  Somehow there is not much honor in finishing in second place in a division that only had four teams.

As soon as I got home after the game I shaved off the itchy playoff beard that had been driving me crazy in recent days.  Hopefully in the spring I can grow one again for the winter season playoffs.