Week of February 27 (Game 1) – HABitual Complainers suffered their first regulation loss of the season as Consigliere won a big game by scoring two goals in thirty seconds in the middle of the third period to pull out a 4 – 3 win. We won’t mentioned how HABitual Complainers was playing short-handed as they were missing their regular goalie, leading scorer and top two defensemen in this game.
Not fazed by the fact that Dominic Defrancisco was not playing this game, four minutes into the opening period, Brian Kehoe stepped up to score the game’s first goal for HABitual Complainers, as he was set up out front by John Leite and Jim Barber. Five minutes later, answering right back for Consigliere saw Rick Cassano get open on the left wing and buried his shot after some passing by Otak Deluca and Gino Tammaro.
In the second period, HABitual Complainers picked up their running game and offense which paid off as Tony Medeiros scored a power play goal from the high wing, set up by Brian, three minutes into the period. However, just like what happened in the first period, happened again in the second as Consigliere answered back, five minutes later as Otak was set up in front by Gino, tying this game back up.
It was halfway in the third period that this game swung in favor of Consigliere as the Pisano line combination of Gino-Otak-Rick scored two goals in thirty seconds to take momentum and control of this game. HABitual Complainers pressed the offensive attack in generating some quality scoring chances, but, goalie Alby Luise stood his ground and turned these aside. Joe Carlton’s blast from the left wing, set up by Jim and John, made this a game again with five minutes to play. However, the defense and Alby came up big to fend off the efforts of HABitual Complainers. With this win, Consigliere opened up a three game lead for that final playoff spot.
Week of February 27 (Game 2) – With a chance to move into sole possession of first place overall, Labatt Blues (also missing their regular goalie) came out flat and were manhandled by the one-man wrecking crew of Nicky Romano as they got blown out 7 – 3 by Broken Promises. Nicky was the story in this game, scoring 4-goals and adding 1-assist to lead his team’s offense. What also helped was the smothering team defense applied by Broken Promises to shorten the rink and give the offense of Labatt Blues no real estate to work with in the offensive zone.
In the first period, setting the tempo and message for Broken Promises was Umberto Biancardi scoring a power play goal off a setup from John Colucciello and John Kelleher, five minutes in. For Umberto, he has the hot hand lately scoring 1-goal and adding 5-assists in his last two games. Three minutes later, Mauro Colucciello upped the lead to two as he was set up by brother Cooch and Nicky. Just over thirty seconds later, Labatt Blues made this a game as Anthony Lauletta was set up in the slot by Tony Mastrocola.
In the second period, Nicky scored his first goal of many this game just over a minute into the period, set up by Umberto. Four minutes later on an ensuing two minute power play, Labatt Blues again made this a one goal game as Walter Maslak was set up out front by Shawn Miville and Dan Broderick. However, just under a minute later, Broken Promises retook a two goal lead and the momentum of this game as Niko Vramis scored on a setup by Mauro & John Mastrocola.
The third period was simply the Nick Romano one-man show as Nicky capped off his big scoring day with a natural hat trick of goals for his fourth of the game, set up by John Kelleher and Umberto. Rounding out the scoring for Labatt Blues saw Mark Stickney score a late goal as he was set up by Shawn and Ray Dow. With the loss by the top two teams, it sets up a huge showdown game next week between Labatt Blues and HABitual Complainers.
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