Blue Lose to Arvada 1

Aaron Grosul explains; “If the players look good then they will feel good and play good”. Well, this reporter agrees. The players looked good, felt good and played to their best ability. The coaches knew at first glance they were in for a rough ride. They new they had a ’small’ team but didn’t realize just how small until they set eyes on the Arvada One team (Arvada has 3 Bantam rec. teams).

The Bantam Blue team was short benched, playing with just two lines on offense and defense.  Goalie Tim George (coaches kid) was conscripted to defense as was Braden Stalnaker. Yes, the defense had reasonable size while up front it was pretty much all up to Colin Henry to present any kind of size to the opponents. He did his best, going so far as to spend approximately six minutes in the penalty box (according to PointStreak stats ).

All things considered, Coach Flash thought things were going pretty good through the first period. About halfway through the second one could see the wear and tear starting to show. Brownie was gettin’ bummed, Colin was just plain hot under the collar and Ryan was spending more time lying on the ice than skating. Ethan Bussell was taking more charge of D and proving some offensive moments, still the Blue team couldn’t get a puck to go in the net.

Blue had their chances even though the shots on goal differential was 14 to their 24 on the Blue netminder DJ Johnson. Brian McGhie used his speed and maneuverability to get some decent chances but the bounces just weren’t there; ask Max Alexander as he just couldn’t reach the loose pucks.

How does one survive this  kind of hockey where your team is out sized? Says Coach Flash:

“You have to play more as a team and rely on one another. The break-out has to improve, especially by making the head-man pass or at least using a drop-pass in the zone to give the offensive line a chance to be near the net for second chances. We have some great talent on board, we just have to get them the chance to show what they can do.”

The future looks ominous as one of Blue’s counterparts, the Bantam Yellow team took an even worse beating from the Hyland Hills Bantam One team, losing 1-11 with the same complaint of being out-sized.

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