Well it's been two weeks and plenty has happened since the last post. We continued our winning ways and posted 4 wins in the past two 2 weekends, including a win over our rival GBL. We beat the Dual State Huskies 7-4 last Saturday on the road setting up the game of the season against GBL last Sunday. It was highly anticipated by everyone in the area. Scouts came from close to 15 NHL teams to see the talent on the ice. The boys were fired up and we came out flying taking a 4-1 lead into the first intermission. We took a 5-2 lead into the 2nd intermission and things looked great when we went up 6-2 within the first minute of the 3rd. But GBL was ranked #1 in the country and we knew we couldn't take a shift off. Unfortunately we took some penalties and GBL came storming back to make it 6-5, but time ran out on them and we walked away with a huge win.
Going into this weekend we were on an 8 game winning streak in the league and needed to win both games to clinch the regular season title and #1 seed going into the playoffs. We almost threw it all away with a short bench and weak performance Saturday night, but Jack Riley scored his 4th of the game with just seconds remaining to give us a 4-3 win. Going into Sunday's game we only had 6 forwards and 3 defensemen because I gave two players today off to heal some nagging injuries. Confident in what we had in the locker room I told the boys to finish one of our team goals from the beginning of the year and win the regular season. We came out and disposed of Western Mass Blades 8-0 to cruise to our 10th straight league win.
Most people around the league will say winning the regular season title doesn't mean anything because our playoffs are a round robin format. I however wanted it for a couple reasons...One being that we knew in our minds and on paper that we're the best team in the state going into the playoffs. The other reason and the biggest reason in my mind is that we will be the home team in every playoff game, giving us last change and a chance to match lines when need be.
So there's the big update for now. The team and myself cannot wait for the playoffs to start on Friday night. The first half of the season is over and now the real season begins. Nothing better than playoff hockey in our home rink to be crowned the State Champions next Sunday afternoon!
Welcome...some of you may know that I wrote a blog in my last year of playing hockey. Now I have moved on to a head coach and full time advisor. In this space I'll be talking about my team, my clients, and hockey in general. Hope you enjoy. Jon Hutcheon
yessssssssssssssssss hutch
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