Monday Night at The Cage

Well, who needs the NHL playoffs when you've got "sockey" in The Cage? There was as much hitting and tripping on our game tonight as you'll see in just about any hockey game! But that physical play becomes more prominent as you get older, so as long as no one got hurt we can chalk it up to experience.

So in the end we lost 4-3. Ho hum. I'm sure everyone wanted the win or tie, but we have to remember that when playing in the cage it's not always the team who plays best who wins. Sometimes it's the team that's bigger and more aggressive that wins.

So it was tonight. Their game plan was to kick the ball up front as quickly as possible to their forwards and then pressure our defence. As a result most of their goals came from rebounds after they "crashed" our goal. This will work on a small field where the ball never goes out of play, but on a larger field (especially one without a chain-lick fence surrounding) most of their big boots would have been easily dealt with by our defenders or even gone straight-off the field of play. That's why I was really pleased you tried to do all the things we talked about before the game. We did have to rely on some big kicks late on in the game, but for the most part we tried to pass and move. The only thing I could have wished for was a ref who knew what his whistle was for!

Goalscorers were Leanne (1st of the season), Marissa (1st of the season) and Paige (3rd and team leader).

Picking the Player of the Game is tricky because everyone contributed. But if I'm to pick one player I'll go with Marissa. Marissa (I'm told only her bestest friends get to call her "Mar") scored, ran hard, tackled hard and showed some real grit and intensity. She pretty much played every position on the field.

Honourable mentions go to Leanne and Lily. I don't recall seeing a bigger smile on a player's face than Leanne after she scored her goal tonight. Leanne's worked hard every game this year so to see her score her first goal was well worth the wait! Lily had some great 1 v 1 battles with some very aggressive players (what did that blonde-haired girl say to you?). Not surprisingly, Lily didn't back down. All of that extra strength work your doing with Sean and John came in handy tonight didn't it!

Not much of a turnaround time before Thursday's match vs Peninsula Maroons. Rumour has it they're one of the teams to beat so let's make sure we bring the same intensity and desire we had tonight.