The Devil Dogs played two round-robin games on Day 1 . . .
Game 1 – Mission Black Ice 93
Black Ice is from New York. They’re a great team. Best 16-and-under team I’ve ever seen. In fact, they’re better than any 18-and-under team I’ve ever seen. What a juggernaut!
The Devil Dog kids looked nervous. They looked tight. They didn’t handle the puck cleanly.
Black Ice was ahead 3-0 after the first period. The Dogs tightened things up and played a scoreless second period.
I wanted to say something encouraging to my boy after the game. “You played them even the second period,” I said.
“No we didn’t,” he replied.
“Well . . . on the scoreboard you did.”
Final Score: Black Ice 3, Devil Dogs 0
Game 2 – Colorado Kodiaks
The Dogs matched up better physically with the Kodiaks than with Black Ice although the Kodiaks also had some incredibly fast players.
The Kodiaks went ahead 2-1 with about three minutes left in the game when a player tipped in a shot in front of the net.
The shot was high. Sean, the Devil Dog goalie, thought it was too high — you’re not allowed to tip a shot that’s above the crossbar — but the referee disagreed.
Sean was mad. He took a swing at the puck like he wanted to fling it into outer space, whiffed it, and smacked the referee in the foot.
Normally when you smack a referee with your stick, you’re going to get a penalty. The ref stared at him for a long time, told him to calm down, but didn’t call the penalty.
Thanks, ref!
A couple of minutes later, with less than a minute left in the game, the Dogs scored a late goal to tie the game.
Final Score: Devil Dogs 2, Kodiaks 2
Day 1 Wrapup
Black Ice played their second game against The Gong Show, the best team in Northern California. Black Ice won 10-2.
The Kodiaks played their second game against another California team, Mission Axiom, winning 6-1.
The Devil Dogs are playing Platinum for the first time and didn’t get a lot of respect in the draw.
Based on Day 1 results, it looks like the best teams in the division are Black Ice, Kodiaks and Mississauga Mission Rattlers. The Dogs played two of those teams already and their next game is against the Rattlers.
I think the Dogs are pretty obviously better than The Gong Show and Mission Axiom, but they’re not going to play either of those teams.
They should make the playoff round if they win their final two round robin games but that is not going to be easy . . .
