Town league season comes to climactic close in tie game

The playoffs are upon us

REG Inc. had the last shot at ruining the Brick Oven’s perfect season Friday night in the final game of the town league hockey regular season. Despite the fact that REG came into the game in fourth place with a record of 4-3 and the Brick Oven in first place with a record of 7-0, I still thought REG had a chance.
The two teams have quite the history. Not quite like the rivalry between USA and Canada. Team USA player Paul Stasny put it this way prior to their semifinal game in the Olympics, “We don’t like them and they don’t like us.”
Rather, the history, albeit one season long, is quite the opposite, almost nauseatingly cordial in fact. And rightfully so, I guess. Several players on REG played with the Brick Oven last year so they drank from the same trophy when they won the title. In addition, several of the Brick Oven and REG players work together at…REG.
Prior to even coming on the ice the two teams were all chummy.
Though, in both teams defense, once the puck dropped, so did the camaraderie and the two teams played one of the fastest, most high-powered games of town league hockey all season long.
An upset win was in the cards for REG that night with the Brick Oven missing one of their key players to their success all season. No, not Deuce Wynes, rather Matt Gutter, GUTTA!
Then again REG was missing a key player as well with Michael Blunck in Sochi, Russia to watch and then soak up the Olympic Games with his Olympic son Aaron Blunck.
REG seized the moment from minute one pushing the pace on the Brick Oven winning loose pucks and continually feeding the slot. John Chandler snuck through for a golden opportunity on net but Cody Taube turned his shot away.
REG got another late opportunity when Colby Deer read a pass from behind the net to pick it off and feed a teammate in slot for a no-brainer only to have the puck slide under the players swinging stick leaving the team locked in a scoreless tie at the end of one period.
REG picked up where they left off but soon fell prey to their aggressive game plan when the puck squirted out of the Brick’s zone to a wide-open Evan Albanese. Albanese turned immediately up ice and carried the puck straight to net to beat Brad Bodell one-on-one and give the Brick a 1-0 lead early in the second period.
The Brick looked to tack on another as they took control of the game midway through the second period and set up a point blank shot but Bodell pulled off an amazing glove save to rob the Brick shooter of the upper 90.
REG turned it around following Bodell’s effort paced by the work of Kris Bruun, Dakota Wiggins and Ashley Brown. REG closed the period back in control of the game and had two more golden opportunities on net but in the end were denied and worse, lost yet another key player to injury. Matt Schmalz provides quality puck handling skill and can weak havoc through neutral ice but when he looked to stuff a shot top shelf, he dislocated his shoulder and was sidelined for the remainder of the game.
Bruun was poised to tie the game early in the third when he had an open look on net but Taub snagged the shot out of mid air preserving the slim one-goal Brick Oven lead. REG’s effort’s all game long finally came to fruition as Deer found Bruun open cross-ice with a pass through traffic and Bruun finished to tie it up 1-1.
The Brick then lost another player as Steve Lawlor went down with an injury and as time drained, the two teams traded last gasp attempts only to be turned away leaving them notched in a 1-1 tie and leaving at least a slight blemish on the Brick Oven’s perfect season.
BUT, it is playoffs now and all bets are off, sort of. The Brick has been dinged by a couple teams during the regular season but never lost and are gunning to repeat as town league champions with at least three other squads in the hunt.
Playoffs kicked off Friday night and will continue Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings until one team is left standing.