Ska Brewing sends REG back to the design phase

Back to being a ski town with a hockey problem

[ by Than Acuff ]

Welcome back to pow town everyone. In the meantime, there’s still hockey, and plenty of it as town league continues to gain momentum as the season progresses with the post season just around the corner and hopefully, barring the recent COVID variant that is sweeping the world, maybe we can finish this season and crown a champion. And stay healthy.

Ska Brewing/Brick Oven squared off against REG last week in town league hockey action and while I mentioned about three sentences ago that town league was gaining momentum, the game Thursday evening was not so momentous. But that’s what happens when it’s snowing and we all try to maintain that balance of powder, productivity and puck. It wears on you.

The first five minutes of the game were more of a slog as both teams were missing some players and trying to figure things out on the fly while not giving up any goals. The seemingly trepidatious brand of hockey being played soon gave way to some excitement as Ska goalie and season-long hockey stokesman Eric DiMarco came up with another heroic save.

Frustrated by DiMarco’s effort, REG stepped it up just a smidge led by the effort of Dylan Curtiss. Curtiss had been quiet during the start of the game but found some hops to slice through neutral ice and feed Brian Carney in the slot for the first goal of the night.

REG then looked to build on their advantage with a powerplay opportunity two minutes later but Ska’s defensive shape and team positioning proved too organized for REG to unlock. That and another series of saves from DiMarco continued to handcuff REG and then opened up an opportunity for Ska late in the penalty kill.

With REG pressed to punch the puck past DiMarco, they left their blue line presence in disarray and Ska speedster Stu Jernigan jumped at the chance to go coast-to-coast and calmly slip the puck to the low corner past Lucas McMullen tying the game 1-1 after one period of play.

The second period continued much like the first period with the two teams in a defensive standstill. REG started finding slots and taking shots but it’s going to take a lot more than that to take down DiMarco. Meanwhile, McMullen provided his own series of highlights in net for REG. Ska found some rhythm on offense during a powerplay and started peppering McMullen with shots. McMullen made so many saves his glove eventually flew off his hand during one frenzy. He made the initial stops but Ska was relentless in their pursuit of the back of the net and finally put it past McMullen for a 2-1 Ska lead with one period left to play.

The hotshots for both teams remained relatively quiet into the third period as well as the game continued to be a war of attrition. Ted Trujillo eventually woke up to break free for a one-on-one and roofed it past McMullen for a 3-1 Ska lead at the start of the third period.

Despite the all-out effort from REG, Ska’s team play was the difference in the game and Trujillo struck once again midway through the third period off an assist from Clayton Jernigan.

REG kept plugging away but there was too much resistance to their apparent power as they had zero farads in their capacitance suffering complete circuit failure falling to Ska 4-1.