Efe

Bogazici Patenaj: 3
Istanbul Buz Kartallari: 4
(2-1, 0-3, 1-0)

Please read my previous post if you haven't already, as this one will make more sense that way.

As I'm sitting here tired, hungry, sleepy, and icing my thumb, I have a smirk on my face from the game tonight. Not my best game, and there were no especially spectacular saves either. But the feeling of making the playoffs and getting sweet sweet revenge on my former club allows me to be this happy even though I'm looking at an early morning tomorrow... and lets not forget the thumb.

I had a very bad day before the game, with lots of work at the office and some major problems occurring. At one point I wondered if I really was going to be able to make the game but in the end I did end up leaving the office albeit almost an hour later than planned. But with a little help from the traffic, I was able make the ice only 10 minutes later than my plan, which would have me on the ice 2 hours before the puck dropped.

Anyway, the game started off with both teams getting some quick attacks and it was us that went ahead with just a couple of minutes on the game clock. A little later I let in this ugly goal from the blue line... their blue line. And it wasn't even a challenging shot, on the ice and coming straight at me. However, when I went down in a butterfly (why I did for a puck at that speed I don't know) my right pad caught on my left and that threw me off balance and low and behold, the puck went through my five hole and into the goal. Advantage: the other team spent the best part of the 1st and 2nd periods trying their luck by taking shots from between the blue lines. :D

Their second goal came on a penalty shot when one of our players tripped a guy that was coming in at an angle. This kinda ticks me off, because its both needless (like a couple of penalties this game) and I feel I would have more of a shot on a shot when the guy has just spent his energy and concentration on getting past my defender as opposed to being gifted a puck on center ice and a clean road to the goal. In the end, the guy came at me and I skated out and he feigned shooting and I went down but my speed coming back wasn't enough so I kinda got stuck there and the guy just went around and said thank you very much!

In the second period, they really came out firing and I had multiple saves. One was a pad save on the goal line on a shot from a pass to a opposing player that was left unmanned at the far post. One not-so-proud moment for me was when the other team got a 1v0 breakaway but the puck was just a little too far ahead of the forward so I came out to the right playoff circle to play in and it jumped over my stick and I sat right on it. This was followed by a 15 second chaos where I couldn't see where the puck was but I did my best to cover the angles to goal while trying to get back to mine. After that, the captain came over and took a swing at my pads, screaming for me to just cover the puck up. Then I started screaming back that I'd get a delay of game penalty if I covered the puck that far out, and that would've killed the power play we were on at the time. Anyway, it didn't result in a goal and about 30 seconds later we ended up scoring to get level. The captain skated back to me and gave me a look and then hugged me. We ended up scoring again that period but there isn't much more of interest that I can remember happening.

So we go into the third with a relative cushion of two goals but this is hockey so I'm still nervous about a possible come back from the other team. One of our players came to me before the game asking if I had heard his 'prophecy'. When I told him I hadn't, he told me I would let in 6 goals this game, 2 that were completely my fault and 4 that were because the defenders left me stranded. He said in the third period we would get some players ejected and then he and another sub would come in and that's when we would let in the last two goals but we would go ahead to win by a margin. I told him if he ever had another one, that I didn't want to hear it. Tell the other players if you must, but I'd rather not have something like that as just another thought in my mind when going out on the ice. Anyway, the first minute they really came at us again... multiple attacks, some saves and some that were blocked by my defenders. In fact, after I covered up at the end of their third attack of the period, one of our players looked up at the scoreboard and said 'Only 50 seconds have passed? disbelievingly.

This period was pretty much one sided, our team basically passing and shooting at their end but they did get some attacks in. I think I must have had around 15 saves just this period including a blocker save to the post, the shooter of which admitted after the gane that he didn't understand how I kept that out. They still tried the occasional long shot, more hopeful than anything really. I just kept stopping them and passing to defenders or using my stick to deflect them to the corners. I remarked after the game that I should let in a goal from far away early on in every game, since the two games I've done that the other team has continued wasting attacks by trying to duplicate their earlier luck.

I thing I complained about this period was that my players (especially #26 Bora Unsal) kept standing smack dab in front of goal and making it extremely difficult if not impossible to see the puck. I was afraid that they would get a shot off and I wouldn't be able to react fast enough, and we would let them get back into the game. During one position the guy lined one up just a little beyond the slot and I couldn't see anything so the moment I heard the shot I just squared up and became as big as I could, and it ended up going right between the defenders knees and hitting me right in the chest. At the end of the game, my voice was almost gone from screaming at defenders to move so I could see the puck. They got another from from a very small angle, but the defender was between me and the shooter and by the time I saw it come by my near post leg it was too late. They tried hard but couldn't get that tying goal and we pretty much played at their end with even a shot off the post and into the goalie's lap.

In the end, we won and I think this means playoffs. I asked for and got the game puck, because this game (and win) had a dual meaning for me. Here it is at home now: