Flyers v Red Wings

Flyers v. Red Wings – Matthew’s Hat Trick

Thanksgiving weekend is tough for hockey.  A lot of kids go away and we are often left with a skeleton team.  This weekend we had 7 players.  A mixture of A and B lines.  The Red Wings had 12 players.  Ironically, this was actually advantageous to us.  It meant that some of our better players had to play against the Red Wings B line.  On the A line, the Red Wings had one very big player.  Matthew came skating to me at the beginning of the game and yelled “He’s a third grader.”  I guess compared to a first grader, he looked Goliath-like.  He scored three goals the first minute of the game.  But on the B line, most of the Red Wings could barely skate.  This gave us the opportunity to get those goals back, plus some.  At one point they had three players in the goal at the same time.  The best part of the game was that Matthew scored his first goal of the season.  In fact, he scored a hat trick.  Frankie scored five goals and Jack scored at least five.  Before thoughts about “sportsmanship” come to mind, it should be noted that coaches do a lot of things to keep the game friendly.  First, we shift better players to defense.  Then we shift them to goal.  Then we tell them to pass and not shoot.  Then we get them off the ice for a break.   Most of all, we don’t keep official score.  But, as always, the kids all seem to know the “un-official” score:  14-4.