Not Our Best Game Today

One of the teams that we had earlier this season defeated by a very wide margin ended our long running winning streak today. Although I was not pleased with any of the officiating, the way we played in the first period of the game was flat. Our opponent wasn’t beating us; we were doing it to ourselves. The team that normally out-skates their opponents looked like two teams; one team working hard, and one team watching. The first period was much like the first game we lost this season. The second period saw us rally back only to have the game heavily weighted to one side with questionable calls. The third had us struggling to come back within one goal. This period was worth the loss. I saw players step up and push themselves and their teammates to give these last few minutes all they had. With only two lines, little rest and playing a man down much of the time, I was pleased to see the team work so hard in such a bad situation. Today the players found out that they were not invincible. This was a lesson that I hope to see move us forward. I had a feeling we would have a bad game right from the start. A few things I wanted to see on the ice did not happen; some of the stuff we worked on at practice fell apart and seemed to find us repeating the same mistakes. The officiating was not spectacular, but it all boiled down to the way we played. A game like this can either mess you up and get you down, or it can wake you up and inspire you to play harder, smarter, and faster. The third period was much better in the fact that we pushed on and worked more like a team, not two teams. I have players on this team that continue to improve and that I know I can rely on to give 100% effort. That is a victory in itself. Winning isn’t everything – playing the best hockey you can is what I ask. I don’t like to lose, nobody does, but I don’t mind it so much if it makes us better in the long run. I don’t think the rest of the season will get any easier, and I know we need to keep improving. I like what I saw in the third period, and we need to expand upon it. It’s easy to say the officiating was the deciding factor, but we still should have played better for the first half of the game. We out-shot and out-checked the other team by a mile. It was if we couldn’t hit anything other than the goalie. We shall meet this team again. It should be a very interesting game. Every game should have some positives. At the end of this game we knew everyone on the team had played all out for one solid period...................Of Course maybe we only lost because I forgot to wear my Orange cap!