The Bridgton Academy Alumni Game

Though this is slightly off the topic of men's league, I feel like I have to write about it as it does at the very least relate to me, and to hockey...

Last weekend I took a drive that I haven't taken in fourteen years, to a place that I thought that I would probably never go to again.  Bridgton Academy, in North Bridgton, Maine.  

The motto of BA is "The year that makes the difference."  And I'll tell you something, for me, it did.  Both academically and athletically.  I know, without question that if it wasn't for my post graduate year there that I would have never been able to play college hockey, let alone get into college...  However, that is not the point of this post, what I want to write about is the Bridgton Academy Alumni game that I played in last Saturday.

The game was held at the Academy, though the closest thing that we had to a rink when I was there was a slab of cracked concrete surrounded by rapidly deteriorating boards and no glass.  About three years after my graduation, the school finally broke down and built a rink on campus, next to the football field and gymnasium.  The rink itself isn't anything special, though it is considerably better than a lot of the private school, and public rinks that I have played in. (Though it was a little dark for my tastes)  Plus, anything is better than having to dive, in a van, with your gear strapped into a plywood box on top of the roof of said van, I mean, fuck, we're talking about Maine, in February (and every other ice cold month of the winter) and the half hour drive to Hebron Academy just north of us made getting dressed for practice an uncomfortable experience.  Driving to somewhere like Vermont Academy was just plain cruel and unusual punishment.  Now the school is equipped with both a rink AND a coach bus...  Those lucky bastards.

Now Bridgton Academy is a different kind of private school...  First, it is the only all post graduate private school in the country.  Second, it is an all boys school in a very, very small town where it was absolutely forbidden of any of the academy students to "fraternize" with any of the local girls...  (Expulsion was the quick and immediate response for that.)  The school has been molding young minds for over two hundred years, so it is safe to say that they are doing something right.

Anyway, the on to the game itself.  Now, because of of the fact that it is school that exists entirely of post graduate students, unless a student from my graduating class '(96) showed up to play, the only people that I would know would be coaches and teachers.  Unfortunately, that was the case.  I was the only player from the Class of 1996 to make it to the game, but that did not in anyway take away from my enjoyment of the game itself.  It was basically like other charity/alumni games that I have played in, basically a glorified pick-up game with a ref and an announcer.  But god, it was fun.  There was a player there from the class of '58, there were a few more from the 70's, a couple from the 80's, but most of us came from a class in the 90's (reliving our glory years I guess).  And yeah, there were even a few whippersnappers that came from a class in this very new millennium.

There were some very solid players, and the game was relatively fast paced, and there were plenty of goals scored (we played twenty minute periods), indicated by the final score of 13-6 (and yes, we won).  I can honestly say that I felt like I was smiling the entire time I was playing.  It might have been the most fun that I have had while playing a "game," though calling it a game might be a bit of an overstatement...  But shit it was fun.  And it seemed like everyone else felt the same way, there were a lot of smiles out there on the ice, a lot of laughing, a lot of joking around.

After the game the Academy put out a nice spread in the student lounge for us, there was a tour of the new, and rather impressive Humanities building followed by a dinner back in the student lounge.  After dinner there was what amounted to a state of the school/hockey program address which took me back to all of those weekly chapel sessions listening to Coach Daily...  It was great to be back there, to see that even though there have been some huge changes (a hockey rink, the Humanities building), that for the most part, Bridgton Academy is exactly how I remember it.  The dinning hall, the dorms, the chapel...  Hell, it even started snowing while I was there...

I'm already looking forward to next years game...

Catching Up

I guess that I have a lot of catching up to do, so let me figure out where I should start here, hmmm...

My last post came after my last shutout out, so that's a gap of five games.  Collectively, we went 2-1-2.  (Jesus, I fucking hate ties, there is nothing worse than leaving points on the table.)  The Dennis team is playing really well, and all the guys have been making it to our games lately, which has given us some much needed consistency in a league that is a step up from the OMHL in terms of speed and skill level.  

Our best player has been playing like our best player, and the supporting cast around him has been equally good.  Some of the goals that the guys have been scoring lately would be highlight reel goals in any league.  In the games that we have won recently, our passing has been crisp and on target.  There is something about a perfect pass that's like a work of art, and when our first line gets the passing going (without sacrificing open shots) it's a nearly impossible line to defend.  Our second line on that DMHL team is a perfect second line, a grind it out, hustle the entire shift line.  That line makes it hard on other teams to really get anything going, they forecheck hard, take away passing lanes, and backcheck equally hard...  

Defensively we're solid, with one standout defenseman (I've said it a million times, and I'll probably say it a million more, I would take an entire team of guys just like D.O.), two very solid younger defenseman, and a slightly aging vet.  The good thing about our D is that they've been playing together since the beginning of last spring, which means as a group, we've all been playing together since last spring.  They know my tendencies, and I know theirs.  It's just like consistency up front for the forwards (who I barely pay attention to), I mean goalies and there defense really are a unit, and it's important to know how we'll play off of each other.

We've won two out of our last three in Dennis, and the loss was an incredibly close game, which was lost on a fluke goal.  We lost a faceoff in our zone on the left side, which was won on a clean draw back to the left wing, who had slid over behind the center, and managed to get a quick shot off, which I made the save on with my blocker...  The puck, somehow, went straight up in the air and we all lost track of its location, and when it came back down, it hit me in the back and went it the net.  It was a back breaker for us, and it really gave a lift to the other team.

In the first win of this five game stretch I got to stop a penalty shot.  God, I love penalty shots.  And I love stopping guys cold who get to take them.  It ended up being an important save, as we won that game by the narrowest of margins, 2-1.  It was a good game, and surprisingly not as chippy as I expected it to be since the last time that we played them there was a huge fight, I got run twice, and there was a ton of stick work going on throughout the game.  Like I said, this most recent game against them was definitely on the tame side.

Our second win came against the team that also gave us our loss in this three game stretch.  We had a short bench that night, and having played them all spring/summer/fall I was a little on the worried side about our chances.  I played well, and the boys buried all of their chances.  The second time around went a little differently, it was a back and forth game, we got up, they got up, we tied, and then the back breaker fluke goal.  Can't win them all right?

Now, in Orleans, things are going a little differently...  Two fucking horribly stupid ties.  I HATE TIES.  

AND

We lost our best player to a nasty foot injury, which occurred in the first tie when he took a shot off the laces on the top of his foot.  From what I understand, was so swollen it looked like he had a baseball under the skin on that foot.  Thankfully, nothing was broken, or even fractured.  However, a particular revelation reared it's ugly head about Jake being out of the line up.  We can't score without him.  At all.  From the point of his departure, which came in the first ten minutes of the first tie (in a game that we were winning 3-0 at the time of the injury) we have only managed two goals.  TWO GOALS.

Things are not shaping up in Orleans like I thought that they would at the start of the season.  We haven't had nearly enough consistency in our line up, and too many of the guys only skate once a week, making us, as a team, susceptible to running out of steam when we need it most, the last five minutes of any game.  Also, in the game that we lost Jake, most of the remaining players were in their forties, while our oppositions core was somewhere in their mid to late twenties.  They managed to tie the game with a minute and a half left.

And last nights game wasn't any better, as it was another game that ended in a tie with a team that didn't resemble the team that took the ice the week before (in terms of the players on the bench).  And you could really see that last night, none of the passes were connecting, the guys looked a little confused out there actually, even running into each other. It didn't help that I played like a donkey myself.  Somehow, it the first period, I managed to kick the puck into the net while I was making every attempt possible to get out of the way of it.  As soon as it hit my skate I knew it was is...  It's one of those deals where you just have to get up, take a drink of water, and act about as nonchalant as you can humanly manage to.  I mean, shit, you don't what to ever let the other team see you get down, because if they do, if they pick up on it, you're dead.  You might as well head right straight into the locker room.  So I had a drink of water, squirted a little on my face, and tried, as manly as I could, to forget all about it.  Overall though, it was a good game, and ended 2-2.

So there you go, all caught up, for the time being.  Here are the numbers, 14-7-5, 2.38 GAA, 3 SO