Despite being moved up from Division 9 to Division 8... after the halfway point of the regular season, we still managed to finish in Second Place. This saw us matched up against the seventh place Wet Bandits in the first round of the playoffs. All the early rounds of the playoffs are best of three matchups. Our first game was on Thursday March 21 and we were doing alright... leading 2-0 with only a couple of minutes left to play. The officials got a little whistle happy near the end and called a whole bunch of penalties. That in itself would have been OK, but they mixed up the score sheet and we ended up playing short handed longer than we were supposed to. There was confusion over double minors being served by two players, coincidental penalties, and on top of it all our opponents pulled their goalie. The Wet Bandits ended up with a two man advantage and scored twice in the last minute and a half to tie the game. Then it went to a shootout, which continued for 11 rounds before we finally lost....
The second game of the series was played on Saturday March 30th. We came out a little more focused but once again the officials swayed the game, and with a number of soft penalties called against us, we found ourselves down 3-1 going into the third period. As captain, I spoke to the officials between the second and third period and told them that our team felt that the penalties calls were a little soft, but mostly one sided. That conversation seemed to help as they let us play in the third period. We rallied and got a couple of goals in the third to tie the game. Then, in the dying minutes one of our top players was sent in alone on a breakaway and we took the lead 4-3. We added an empty netter in the dying seconds to go on to a 5-3 victory.
On Sunday we played the third and deciding game of our series. This was a Renegades victory... one like many we have had this season. We scored on the first shift and never looked back. At one point it got close when we were ahead by a score of 3-1. But then we shut them down and coasted to a 10-2 victory, out-shooting them 39-11.
This one was for Vinny.... the only other original Renegade from when the team was started about 15 years ago. Lots of players have come and gone over the years, but Vince and I are the only two originals left. He was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and is going through a very difficult time. The team is out to win the championship this year in his honor.... Hopefully we can come through for him.
The next round of the playoffs starts on Tuesday against a team called the Padres. We only played these guys once after getting moved up... but we managed to defeat them. I'm hoping we can continue with our winning streak in honor of Vinny...!
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