Week of October 27, (Game 1) – Even though the Portuguese Pumpkins have been in every game they have played this season, they continue to struggle in finding ways to score consistently, while being mired in a 500 win-loss pattern of winning a game then losing the next week. So, the brain trust of this team decided to shake things up and re-arrange the lines. The change brought instant results as the Portuguese Pumpkins shutout Midas Touch by a 5 – 0 score. Congratulations goalie Bill Gardynski Sr. on the shutout.
The team’s hottest player, Tony “the Portuguese Power” Medeiros got them rolling, scoring the game’s first goal with just over thirty seconds to play in the first period. Early in the second period, rookie Mike Pereira and Dominic DeFrancisco scored goals fifty seven seconds apart to break this game open. Mike scored his first-ever goal in the Over-30 league, while Dominic scored an unassisted goal. The league apologizes to Mike on not tossing him the game ball after he scored his first goal (our newly appointed assistant league director who is normally in charge of these publicity moments must have been asleep somewhere and could not be disturbed).
In the third period, Tony Medeiros completed his hat trick, scoring two goals in the first three minutes to ice this game away. For Tony, perhaps the sleeping bear has finally awoken as he only scored 1 goal in his first four games played, and now has scored 7 goals in his last three games played. Perhaps all those whispers from his own posse (we won’t mention any names here John and Dominic) about him being “past his prime” and the “King Portuguese Pretender” motivated Tony to step up and prove them all wrong. Not to be overlooked, Dominic had himself an impressive game, scoring 1-goal and adding 3-assists. Hmmmm makes you think was it Scott Young who was holding back these two players?
Week of October 27, (Game 2) – In another game featuring a captain shaking things up on his team, In Shannon We Trust’s Matty Iannello did the unthinkable and broke up the Big 3 or Holy Trinity of himself-Joe Shannon-Ray Nickerson and moved Joe back to defense. After two consecutive blowouts and falling lower into that cellar in the league standings, a change demanded to be made. Unfortunately, the end result was another loss to the red hot Wanna Be’s team, by the score of 4 – 2. However, there were some very positive outcomes for the In Shannon We Trust team as a whole. Does this move signify that the Big 3 is all done?
Speaking of red hot, the Wanna Be’s Nick Romano continued his scoring streak by scoring at least a goal in his last four games, as he scored out front halfway through the first period. In the second period, the game went back and forth and each team scored two goals. Tony Mastrocola scored to tie the game up just over 3 ½ minutes in. However, fourteen seconds later rookie Shawn Wyatt scored his third goal of the season to put his team back into the lead. With just under two minutes to play, Matty Iannello pulled his team back even, only to watch in disbelief as the Wanna Be’s came storming right back to take the lead again on the strength of a John Kelleher goal only forty-six seconds later.
In the wild third period, the tension boiled over and emotions took over as the last two minutes of a one-goal game featured nine total penalties handed out. At one point, one team had four players crowded into the penalty box. On a positive note, In Shannon We Trust gave the Wanna Be’s everything they could handle in this game. The win ran the Wanna Be’s undefeated streak to six games. For In Shannon We Trust, it may not have been a victory in the standings, but, after the past two losses and the team shakeup, it was a moral victory. Look for this team to start turning things around going forward. On a side note, welcome back to the league Colleen Sedille of the Wanna Be’s who managed to show up on time for this game after we learned that she completely forgot she was supposed to play last week and never managed to show up for her team. Some would make the comment “what a loser” but not this reporter!