And Now The Fun Starts

      Leaving the Upper Valley this evening for the long trek down to the Salem Ice Center, probably few of us were too excited. For one, we were playing a historically tough, well-coached Salem Blue Devils team that has given fits to the Marauders over the years in their barn.  Two, we had other things on our mind like collarbones, and Crimson Tides, and flu-like illnesses.  Then you get down past Manchester in the 1-93 construction zone and wonder why it has taken so long to make a road one lane wider (nice work NH DOT) and by the time you get to the Ice Center, not even the 5 for $15 buckets of beer on sale in the bar make you smile.

      And to top it off, in the first five minutes, you find your team down 1-0 and you wonder if the third loss in NHIAA play is looming.  And as the nervous pacing starts from us dads in the BMI >30 crowd, our boys wake up, put the pedal down, and run the Blue Devils out of their own rink with a complete 6-2 win to go to 10-2 (11-4 overall) in NHIAA play to move into a virtual second place tie with Pinkerton and Concord.

      Said coach Dick Dodds, “This was a complete game from start to finish.  Our depth is impressive.  We ran all four lines the whole game and all six D.”

      It was Toño Correa at 9:49 who tied it up, putting in a rebound in close off of a Sy Oberting shot from Joey Goff.  In addition, in what has become both a positive and negative for the Marauders this year, penalties put them on the kill, but the kill continued to be incredible.  And it was on the very end of a kill that Hans Williams found Will Laycock free in the neutral zone who took it in alone on Salem goalie Cam Smalley to make it 2-1 heading into the intermission.

      Up themselves on the power play coming out in the second, Casey Graham put the locals up 3-1 just 1:20 in on a one-timer on a lateral pass from Cam Woods.  20 seconds later, Goff, on a pass from Charlie Plottner, came streaking up the far side and on a snipe that would have broken the glass had the top left corner of the net not stopped it, made it 4-1.  And then Marauders did what truly separates them from many teams – they killed two 5 on 3s in the period, with goalie Ben Plottner (15 saves) preserving the lead with incredible kick save after incredible kick save.

      Into the third it went and Curtis Rice made it 5-1 when he picked off a pass in the neutral zone and beat Smalley with a long wrister just inside the blue line.  After another Salem score, Charlie Plottner finished the scoring at 3:35 with a cross that went off the back of Smalley and found the net on an assist from Williams.  In addition, just for kicks, Hanover killed off another 5 on 3 to finish the game.

      So now it gets interesting.  Hanover has six games to play in NHIAA competition and five of those six games are against teams in the top 8 in the league standings, including two with Concord and one with Bedford.  The first is Wednesday night, when Concord, who beat Pinkerton today, comes to town.  This ought to be a fun one as all of these top teams jockey for positon heading into early March.  Maybe time to ask Dabo for some advice on how to beat the Tide?  Oops, wrong sport.  See you at the rink.