DHNL Grizzlies 2006-07

Last Name	First Name	Jersey #
Aguiar	Colton	4
Alexander	Zac	16
Barnhart	Preston	18
Bring	Arden	2
Cope	Kevin	9
Keever	J.D.	12
Leigh	Austin	19
Morgan	Christopher	21 or 1
Raine	Jeff	22
Routon	Tyler	5
Swanson	Sam	6
Sysum	Jonathan	14
Taylor	Adam	15
Thai	Quinton	7
Travers	Mark	13
Wagner	Max	1

Games Synopsis

vs. Hyland Hills Jaguars :: final score 0-4

Your DNHL Bantams used their pre-game locker room time to go over game plans to the sound of heavy metal music provided by Adam Taylor. Our boys hit the ice hard knowing that lines would be short with the high number of absent players. For a variety of reasonable reasons JD, Tyler and Kevin found themselves otherwise engaged. Colton was glad for this turn of events as he was able to finally get off defense and play his favored position of center.

From the coaches point of view things seemed to be going well. The jaguars earned one goal off of Arden with some great team play in the zone. However the second goal came on what seemed a bizarre call where Jeff, lying in front of his goalie on the ice, tried to sweep a loose puck back to Arden. The puck became entangled in Jeff’s jersey and the ref called him for covering a puck in the crease. That equals a penalty shot! Wouldn’t you know it, their shooter scored. The referee explained had Jeff covered the puck outside the crease it would have been a two minute delay of game penalty. Well, at least Jeff didn’t have to go in the box.

Later in the game one of our defensemen had a puck deflect off of him and right into the net. Arden had the shot covered but was not prepared for the deflection. It seems sooner or later every player gets a turn at scoring on their own goal.

While we coaches liked how our guys were playing; breaking out, making passes, holding the zone, we were amazed to see the shots on goal differential. We had a scant thirteen shots on their goal while they had a whopping 28 shots on Arden. I had to ask our parents and fans what their take of the game with and across the board they echoed our impression of a great game. Two weird goals and fifteen more shots considered we didn’t do half bad given the short nature of our lines. I also feel stick and puck on Friday, practice on Saturday left a few players flat for Sunday’s game. Moving stick and puck to Wednesday should solve that.

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vs. Breckenridge Bantam B :: Final Score: 0-5Your Grizzly Bantams lose. But this time we have an excuse. My clever wife Jan Baby did some sleuthing and discovered the NCYH has setup both Ice House Bantams and EPIC Bantams as fodder for the developing Breckenridge Competitive Bantam teams who are in training for an upcoming tournament in Calgary. They played and humiliated us in the morning then went East to Greeley where they got themselves into a dog fight with the IH Bantams. Yes, they beat them too but it was a close game with a final score 3-5. Would have been 3-4 except for that empty net goal at the very end.Some parents thought we looked flat. I guess it would look that way seeing as how we were in over our heads. From my vantage point I had concluded that the nature of the program up there in that thin air of Summit County somebody decided to ax the competitive program thereby moving those guys to the in-house program. Wrong of course but a good guess based upon how things turned out.Hey, how about that Chris Morgan?!
He did have some dazzling saves. The pucks he let in were on the, ah er… 3 on 0, then there was the 3 on 0, and of course there was that 3 on 0. Our goalie Arden skated on the first line with Sam and Tyler, those three provided our best scoring chances. They actually had one break-out; Arden to Sam and Sam to Tyler whereupon Tyler got himself into quite a drag race with a Summit speedster. Zac Alexander insisted he would be willing to score a goal if the coaches would give him candy. Well, I brought a big bag of candy and held it out here as a carrot but alas, he didn’t get first pick. We have Chris first dibs from the candy treasure bag, then Sam and Arden. C’est la vie.Game Stats
Shots on goal. Chris saw 31 shots and made 26 saves for a .84 save percentage. Only one penalty on famous #22 Jeff Raine for 2 minutes of sin bin time. Seems a Breckenridge player had a hold of his stick forcing Jeff to get a call for hooking. Jeff tried to explain that but only angered the ref. The other guys earned two penalties for a total of four minutes in the box.

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vs. Arvada 1 :: Final Score: 7-5 Grizzlies hit .500 with win over Arvada 1. What differentiated this game was overall anticipation and commitment. These intangibles translate to speed, puck possession and opportunities. One fact of hockey life I’ve shared with the team was a Wayne Gretzky interview where he likened hockey to playing poker. One does what one can to capture the best odds possible thereby creating more and better chances of a positive outcome. Winning face-off creates puck possession and a better chance. Playing position creates better chances of something good happening, and so on.Our distributed scoring tells a story of balance in the lines and positions being well played. Max Wagner discovered the joy of defense and doubled his value to the team. Mark Travers discovered intensity and doubled his value to the team. Preston Barnhart improved his skating skills by putting in extra practice time mid-week thereby doubling his value to the team. Austin ‘the Quite Riot’ Leigh quietly and consistently contributes. Austin has earned points in every game he has played in while staying out of the mob scene. Improved skills both mental and physical have benefited individual players while making us a better team.Stats unavailable for this game. If I can get them I will post them.

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vs. Big Bear Rangers :: Final Score: 6-1Best game so far. We coaches would like to think it was our new plan. You see, Coach Jim and I attended the NCYH Coaching Seminar in Greeley prior to this game where we were council by Coach Paul. Paul has been around the coaching block; served under notables such as Herb Brooks, Scotty Bowmen and others (If you don’t recognize those names just ask your kid). Paul suggested we get wingers more involved in the game by having them take face-offs in the offensive zone and allowing them to play down around the circles in the defensive zone. To adjust for this we moved our centers around. The end result (besides some confusion here and there) was more puck possession thereby increasing our chances for good things to happen. Considering we put in six goals from five different players with six assists in the offing may be evidence to conclude we are on to something. Either that or the other team just made us look good. Anyway one looks at it winning is still more fun than loosing.Preston earns ‘Most Improved’ for this week. He spent some extra time at open skate last week working on his skating skills. He used those new skills to improve his game. Playing left wing he also won back a good percentage of face-offs, one leading to a goal for our guys. He should have earned an assist for that; what was up with those refs anyway?!I honestly don’t think we earned or deserved those fourteen minutes of penalties. C’mon, Jonathan getting ‘Charging’ and ‘Roughing’?! Sweet little Jonathan?. No way. The penalty I hate the most and see over and over is when the opponent, in their effort to get to the puck, actually trips over the puck carrier; we get called for tripping. In my playbook that is incidental contact. I must tell you I am a big fan of the refs but do exercise my freedom of speech from time to time.

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vs. HHHA Jaguars :: Final Score 1-4 Goal from Tyler.

Arden Bing earns player of the game for outstanding goal tending. With a Goals Average Allowed of .89 he can hold his head up in our loss to the Hyland Hills Hockey Association Jaguars. Poor Sam got stuck on D. A place he made sure everybody on the team knew he didn’t want to be. He did his best and learned an little about ‘Head on a Swivel’. The Jaguars offensive were pretty committed early on to getting behind our defensemen, something they had great success at leading to their first period goal. Their players Grayson Brunner and Ben Walters did a good job of working together to put two out of the four points up on the scoreboard. We are conveniently ignoring that empty net goal late in the third when we pulled Arden in an attempt to have some good old fashioned hockey fun.

Our intention in this game was to win some face-offs thereby controlling the puck early on. We were off to a great start after the first two shifts were able to hold the Jaguars in their own zone. A Grizzly fan mentioned they saw us having more success at winning the face-offs but noticed our Defense need more practice at what to do with the puck once we have it. Cest le vie!

Penalty minutes was a huge improvement. I can’t imagine how we would have fared if we had racked up ten or so minutes the way we have in the past. It was an exciting game and we had a real chance of pulling even; especially given our level of play for all of the second period and most of the third. I’m looking forward to the rematch on our home ice.

vs. AHA-2 :: Final Score 3-1

Goal from Kevin with an assist from Tyler. Goal from JD Unassisted. Gaol from Jeff assists from Kevin and Tyler.

Much quicker to the puck enabling players to keep it in the offensive zone much longer thereby improving scoring chances. Christopher Morgan had an excellent game in net, one shy of a shutout. Sam and Kevin showed great efforts. Quinton took a turn at D with great results.

vs. AHA :: Final Score 0-6 The first thing I said our assistant coaches was a comment on how big the other team look. I have to admit opponents always look bigger from the bench but not so much from the ice. At the drop of the puck it took less than two minutes to observe that they were not only bigger, but more skilled as well. In general they were faster to the puck and better able to control the puck. I have to hand it to our guys for hanging in there. They tried to integrate hat we went over in practice. Our centers were better positioned, which helped improve our breakout to a small degree. Open players could more often be heard calling for the puck. These are the good things. Most of the players had a good time. Isn’t that what it is all about? Chris had a good time. He had no clue as to what was going on in the defensive zone. Us coaches will no longer assume goalies know anything about defense, eh? After three periods he had most of it figured out; culminating in standing up one of AHA’s wingers as he entered our defensive zone. Jeff distinguished himself too. He plays hard and we feel two of his penalties were not for specific infractions but rather for playing with an intensity that Rec. referees are not used to seeing. Then at the very end of the game he showed us something nobody wants to see. I was glad to see that didn’t make it to the stats sheet.Penalties:

Notes: What is it about our guys that has the other team in the box more than us? Subscribe>> to our News & Notices

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vs. Greeley :: Final Score 0-3
Photo: Jeff RainOur guys were off to a shaky start with a plethora of puck fanning, players falling and general chaos. At the end of the first period our guys managed one shot on goal to our opponents four. Unfortunately they scored one of those four. Coming out of the first period break things began to settle down and our guys put up three shots on their goaltender who managed to save all three. They still out-shot us by one and unfortunately scored two of the five. The silver lining to this cloud was in our guys out shooting them in the third period by putting nine shots on goal. The third ended in a stalemate but I’d have to give it to our guys for hanging in there and upping the level of their play while being three goals down.Penalties:

Notes: I noticed two names on the opponents roster from last years PeeWee AA team; Mitchel Coen and Brandon Brewer. They had eighteen players to our fifteen.

Game Photos
Thanks to Jeff Rain we have some game photos to share. See the photos>>

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