Lanced

Coming in to tonight’s away game pitting the Hanover Marauders against the Londonderry Lancers, on paper this seemed like an easy one for Hanover.  6-2 league record, a win against Pinkerton who had knocked Concord from the unbeaten ranks, and a four game league winning streak going up against a 2-4-1 Lancer team.  However, those records are somewhat deceptive, as Hanover had squeaked by some lesser hyphenated teams while Londonderry owned a tie against Salem, and had really thus far played only the big boys on the NHIAA Division 1 circuit.  And when it was over, we once again learned that the old hockey mantra of “you can’t mail it in against anyone” is unimpeachable, as the Marauders sputtered to a 2-1 loss to fall to 6-3 in league play and 8-4 overall.

Certainly Hanover owned the better of play throughout this one, but again had trouble on the offensive end despite some line shuffling and parental prayers to the goal gods.  But clearly the Hanover boys and their parents have spent too much time over the years going to hockey games on Friday nights and Sunday mornings and not being where they should be, so all of those prayers to the goal gods were promptly ignored and Hanover found themselves knotted at 0-0 after the first.  We got a little love at the beginning of the second, when John Hill found Patrick Daly behind the net and his nifty pass found a wide open Jack Stadheim in the mid slot for a quick wrist shot score to make it 1-0.  But the gods are cruel, and soon thereafter an excruciating one minute span saw the Lancers stuff one in close, get a penalty on the play, and then score on the ensuing power play to completely upend the game sheet.  Despite heavy pressure throughout, including a 6-4 to end the game being on a man-up and pulling goalie Ben Plottner (who had another stellar performance in the loss) that’s how it ended.

And it doesn’t get any easier because once the dust settles and you’ve taken your third shower to finally clean off the Tri-Town arena stench, the boys face Trinity, Salem and Concord. So for those parents who still monitor their son’s google search history, in addition to “JLo” and “Shakira” on the list, be prepared to see search terms like “death skate”, “what is the world record for number of burpees in one hour”, “Miracle skating scene” and “hockey coach torture”. 

See you at the rink…