The winter hockey season has come to an end for my Renegades team. We won the Division and Conference Championship, so its been our best season ever...!!!
We started out the regular season last September in Division 9. We were winning most of our games so at the halfway point the league moved us up to Division 8. Our record for the regular season was 21 wins, 8 losses and 1 overtime loss. The portion of those stats that counted in the year end standings was our record against teams in Division 8. There we had 9 wins, 5 losses and 1 overtime loss. That was good enough for a second place finish.
We went into the first round of the playoffs in a best of three series against the 7th place team called the Wet Bandits. They won the first game in an 11 round shootout but then we won the next two games to advance to the second round.
In the second round we faced a team called the Padres, who finished in fourth place. These guys beat us in a conference championship a couple years ago. This time around we swept them in two games straight and advanced to the division final.
In the best of three final round we faced the first place team called the Itchy Beavers. We only played these guys once during the regular season, and they beat us. Then they beat us again in the first game of playoff round. But we dug in and won the next two, to win the division. This was our biggest challenge of the playoffs I think.
After winning the division we moved on to the best of five conference championship. The set up of the divisions and conferences within our league is a little confusing. We played in the North Conference of Division 8 and won that with a victory over the Itchy Beavers. But there was also a South Conference Division 8. During the regular season we played the majority of our games against the other seven teams in the North Conference. But, there were a few inter conference games against some of the teams in the South Conference. While we were busy winning the north, the same playoff structure was in place in the south. The conference championship was between us and a team called the Beavers HC who won the south division championship.
We never did play these guys through the regular season but on paper they looked like a dominant team. During the regular season they had a record of 23 wins, 4 losses and 1 overtime loss. Through the south division playoffs they went undefeated. They are a good team but as it turned out they were not as good as some of the teams that we defeated to get to the championship round. We handed them their first two losses of the playoffs in the first two games. We probably should have swept them and won the third game but found ourselves with some whistle happy referees who dictated the outcome of the game with some really one sided penalty calls. Reeling from that loss in game three we came to the rink with a focused determination. I made a point of making sure that our roster was full, that all of our best players were out to play, and that we were well organized with set lines and defense pairs. From the first drop of the puck we dominated the game and within the first five minutes or so we had jumped out to a 3-0 lead. We didn't let up for the entire game and totally dominated the Beavers. We hoped to see our goaltender Travis get a shutout but they got a couple of late goals to spoil that. Travis was actually our backup goalie, as our regular guy got hurt late in the regular season. Travis played the last few games of the regular season as well as all the playoff games for us. He did a super job and was a big part of the success we had. The game ended in a blowout with a 13-2 victory for the Renegades.
This one was for Vince. Vince is a long term member of the team that has played with me from the very beginning. He was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and was unable to play with the team for the past couple of months. We are hopeful that he can recover and someday rejoin the team. We were determined to win the championship in his honor... and we succeeded....!!
These are some snapshots taken at the end of the game last night...
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