REG rolls Altitude Painting in town league

It’s going down… for real?

by Than Acuff

The town league hockey regular season wrapped up this week and once the chicken scratch in the scoring shack is deciphered, town league playoff seedings will be announced and the post-season will begin on Monday, March 9.

But until then, REG made one final statement Monday, March 2 as they cruised to an 8-0 win over Altitude Painting. That day also happened to be the start of Eastern Orthodox Lent. And what is that, you may ask?

Well… the purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving and denial of ego. None of which applies to town league hockey. Though, I guess spending time in the penalty box is doing penance and some sort of repentance of sins. Some players probably pray they score. There is a three-goal limit for players so that’s a “denial of ego” I suppose. Mortifying the flesh is a tricky connection. In Christianity, common forms of mortification that are practiced to this day include fasting, abstinence, as well as pious kneeling. I guess Altitude Painting abstained from scoring. As for almsgiving? Alms a gonna give you some town league hockey coverage.

On paper, and during warm-ups, it looked like the game had a chance at a pretty even match-up but as the game continued, REG’s passing had them on attack for a majority of the first period. Fortunately for Altitude Painting, their positioning was spot-on in the defensive zone so they managed to hold off nearly every push by REG besides one, when Elizabeth Welsh slipped into the high slot to take a pass and pushed it to Billy Watson directly in front of the net and Watson flicked it in for a 1-0 REG lead.

Altitude Painting goaltender Shawn Harrington came up with a couple of saves to open the second period to help hold off REG but the constant pressure soon opened the flood gates. First Watson found Guy Cuilla breaking loose up the wing with a pass and Cuilla finished with a backhand move. One minute later Ben Reaman threaded his way inside the blue line to set up Welsh and then Watson tacked on his second goal of the night and REG’s fourth midway through the second period.

Joe Erickson and Molly Frame both worked to get Altitude Painting back into the game as Erickson worked the puck end-to-end and Frame’s fore-checking opened other chances but nothing was getting by REG goalie Zach Vaughter.

Things then went from bad to worse, and then much worse, for Altitude Painting as REG showed little sign of slowing down. They continued their scoring ways in the opening minute of the third when Welsh spun a no-look pass to Nick Couts and Couts scored. Grant Bremer continued his battles in the corners for REG to help keep the pressure on and Cuilla took advantage of the effort to net his second goal of the game. Gesa “Schwarze Witwe” Michel stepped in to provide some blue line presence for Altitude Painting but their struggles continued on offense. Meanwhile, Watson completed his hat trick and Welsh scored once again, putting the finishing touches on the 8-0 shutout.