This week’s loss was brought to you by Fox Hills Chrysler Jeep. If you haven’t bought a vehicle from Fox Hills Chrysler Jeep at this point you honestly just need to grow up.

Alright so… Okay yeah we lost again. This time it came at the hands of the Whalers, with a final of 2-1. We had 8 forwards, and 4 D. We had to lean on two subs for defense as fuller rostered players had other weekday commitments and could not make the game. Not ideal.

Mental energy was good heading into the game like last week, yuckin’ it up in the locker room and all that, but once again the events leading up to puck drop were not flawless. Last week we entered game one without our new jerseys, and we could not even get the entire team wearing the same color, embarrassing. This week there was no issues with the jerseys, as the fresh new white boi’s came in with matching socks and the Necks looked fresh.

The issue this week was the beer. We were beer-less upon arrival as the concession stand (which serves ice buckets of tall boi Labatts) was closed. Unacceptable. So I had to run a quick two minute drill to the corner store to make sure the fellas had cold ones after the game. Not ideal.

Our warm up was spooky. I don’t even think I took a shot on net. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was slow, awkward, and I think 70% of the guys were gassed before the 3 minute warm up time was done. Personally, I dropped my mouth guard like 6 times. Stupid shit. But I wear a visor on the ice, and back in college I took a slapshot right off the face from about 15 feet away, which resulted in an emergency root canal and a dead tooth which still sits front and center on my below average grill to this day. But the only reason I still have any real teeth at all was because I was wearing a mouth guard, so I always wear one just in case history decides to repeat itself. When the guard is not in my mouth, I stuff it in my glove (sanitary), and some nights I can’t get it to stick in there and it falls out. And yesterday it fell out so many fucking times I spent more time tracking it down and picking it up than I did actually warming up. Pathetic, and- not ideal.

The Whalers opened up scoring in the first on a sloppy drive to the net where they seemed to lose the puck into the back of the net. Goalie played a fantastic game, but this is one he wanted back. The game was pretty back and forth with both teams creating chances, a defensive struggle with both tenders playing very well. Now, we were on an Olympic sheet of ice, which in all honesty should be illegal for our level of skill. There is so much room out there and so much real estate to cover it came become excruciatingly exhaustive, especially for degenerates like myself.

During the second Heist got called for an ILLEGAL WEAPON penalty. How insane is that? He broke his stick and instead of immediately dropping it, he performed another “hockey move” which resembled that of a magician waving his wand in the process of a magic trick. He made contact with the puck and he was put away for 2 minutes. Longnecks killed it off pretty handily. Later in the 2nd, the Whalers scored a garbage rebound scramble goal, putting them up 2-0.

Late second Frank (me) went into the corner to chase after a puck and drew a slashing penalty with under a minute left in the 2nd. The Necks started the 3rd on the powerplay and were able to bury off a beautiful tip from Death Threat on a great shot from one of our substitute defensemen.

Chance after chance, post after post, rush after rush, the Necks could not solve the Whalers goaltender. We out shot them, we out played them, but we did not outscore them. And lost 2-1, with one final rush and shot on goal as time expired with a pulled goalie. The bounces did not seem to go our way. After the game in the parking lot the team discussed how we’re all pathetically out of shape and questioned whether or not even any of us will still be skating in 2-3 years. Also questioned whether or not we are as good as we thought we were. Panic was running rampant. While the 0-2 start is not something any of us wanted, we have played two good teams and showed major improvement from game 1 to game 2. We have yet to play a Thursday night game, which we historically thrive on, and we have yet to have our full roster. I am not making excuses at all, I haven’t made an excuse since the late 90’s. I am simply laying out facts. I am not going to hit the panic button, but I’m definitely in the same zip code as it.

Game Notes:

• Death Threat did not shower with us post game, but did note “I think we need to get our first W before I jump in.”
• Cornerstone had the fantastic suggestion that the Necks should invest in airplane neck pillows and wear them into the rink every game for comfort/intimidation purposes
• Mr. Hustle, who also handles all of the team’s financials, suggested increasing the teams slush fund to pay for said neck pillows
• Our “slush fund” pays for things like beer, shampoo, groupies, tape, water bottles, etc.
• Assassin’s Creed has yet to play in a game
• Frank still does not know Goalie’s real name
• Goalie proclaimed he was refusing to get excited about the Red Wings upcoming season, which was a very unpopular/freezing cold take
• Frank carpooled with Cornerstone & Mr. Hustle which was a new experience for Frank, which he enjoyed

Up next: Firehouse Pub, Thursday, October 4th @ 9:30 (same night as Wings opening night, anticipating a short bench.) #SYNO 🍾