Phew...

The game against the Blu Bombers didn't start the way we wanted it to. People at work kept asking me how we did against these guys in the regular season. I said we won all of our games against them, including the first round. But it didn't matter, one bad game & we were out of the playoffs. So it sucked when a minute into the game we give up the first goal. The rest of the first period was uneventful, just a hard fought hockey game.
Second period was looking to be the same. The word on the bench was that we were only down 1 goal, we can do this. That is... until we gave up the second goal.
Start the third period, down 2-0, we were running out of time. Aaron was fighting hard in front of their net with a Blu Bomber & both got called for penalties. Then Steve & Bill both took penalties to give them a 5 on 3 advantage. Not looking good!!
We worked hard to kill that 5 on 3 & the momentum swung our way. Less than a minute later we were on the board with our first goal from Ian. Moments later the game tying goal was scored by Scott on a nice screen shot from the point. Then Darryl made a great play while laying on the ice to deliver a pass to Ian for his 2nd goal that gave us a 3-2 lead. Then it was hang on time. With less than 40 seconds left, the Bombers took a time out & pulled their goalie. We put our 5 top players on the ice & managed to ice the puck twice, but that gave the Bombers face-offs in our zone. The next face off managed to get to Ian & he made a pass up to me, I crossed center ice & chucked the puck in their zone. Because I had crossed center ice, it would not be a icing & time would just run out. I wanted the empty net goal, but a win is more important & I shot it wide left. Ian didn't give up on the play & put the puck in with 2 seconds left to ice the game. I didn't realize it at the time, but that goal gave Ian his first ever hat-trick. That explained his drive to get that puck. The Monkeys survived a 4-2 win. It was a great game, the team really showed their colors last night & I'm proud that we fought to the end. Next game tonight!! GO MONKEYS!!