That’s right…, Eddie Chin finally took a ball off the chin, and we finally got to use the previous clip that we’ve been saving since Week #2.
Taking the ball off the chin didn’t affect Eddie too much as he went on to record his first assist of his Over-30 Hockey League career with just 12-seconds to play in the 1st to make the game 2-1.
Welcome to the league "Chin-Ball Boy..., Ball-Chin Boy..., or Chin-Balls” - you earned this one.
Smoked
Poor Dave Costa…, the league’s marquee defenseman and the draft-master general was absolutely smoked last week…, and not once but twice.
Definition of smoked: Slow cooking - 250 Degrees for 8-hours or a slow player like Pat Pirone making a move on the potential Team Portugal Defenseman and then going in on a breakaway (missing his first attempt) and then burying his own rebound while sliding on his knees.
Slow Roasted
First, he was smoked…, and then he got slow roasted less than 6-minutes later. It wasn’t a fun week to be Dave Costa as he quickly bailed out of Hockeytown after his game. Dave wasn’t sticking around for Jay Carrien’s “Key chokes of the game.”
Down 2-1 and on a Sandbaggers powerplay…, Gino Tammaro roasted Dave along the penalty boxes and went in one-on-one against his goaltender Dave Giusti and beat him for a short-handed goal.
Come to think of it…, it wasn’t a good week to be Dave Giusti either. He was the goalie of record for Mike Luise’s challenge beating goal…, he let Pat Pirone score on a breakaway rebound from his knees and he gave up a shorthanded goal to Gino Tammaro…, the only Sandbagger to have a good game was Lee Nogler because he stayed home.
Penalty Debate
With the league using “Non-union Player Referees” to officiate the games…, of course calls are going to be missed and not properly penalized. Let’s take Garvin Chan and his penalty call as an example.
Garvin was pressing down the boards when Pat Pirone stepped in front of him and basically mugged him because Pat knew he couldn’t keep up with Garvin’s speed (so he grabbed him).
Garvin (like all mugging victims) did what he’s supposed to do…, “keep the legs moving” but when he didn’t get the call for interference, he did what so many players do…, he hit the boards with his stick in frustration…, which resulted in a 5-minute misconduct.
Here’s the debate part: Garvin barely hit the board (just enough to make a sound) but not enough to warrant a 5-minute misconduct. It was more like a 1-minute unsportsmanlike (if you want to penalize Garvin’s stick work).
Over the last couple of years the league is really clamping down on stick slamming…, and unfortunately there has been no “gray area”…, the Referee’s cannot debate frustration levels or your intent and instead just call a 5-minute misconduct as mandated by the league.
But we would ask that they (the league) consider a 5-minute misconduct vs a 1-minute unsportsmanlike…, but that will never happen and here’s why;
Every time a stick infraction occurs you would have the Pat Pirone’s and Mike Luise’s and other “Non-A or C” player(s) of the league debating with the Referee as to the severity and intent of the stick slam…, and the league has zero time in the schedule to debate.
Moral of the story: Just don’t slam your stick against the boards and you’ll stay out of the box for 5-minutes.
Top Shelf
It was a good start to last week’s Tealsters Union vs Black Magic matchup with Timmy “Tito” Burke putting the Tito’s Vodka up where it belongs… Top Shelf (aka top corner) with a blast over Scotty Rosato’s right shoulder.
“Tito’s” goal was just the appetizer for the real Tito’s Vodka spotlight as Ray Nickerson won the “Give back to the players” award last week.
