Hey Preds Family, last weekend was certainly a stark
contrast from the week before in the amount of time spent at the rink!!
There was only one game for the U13 ladies in Blue this past
weekend and it was a tough one. Saturday
night made the inevitable match that had to take place before the Christmas
break and saw us travel up to the South Windsor Recreation Complex, to take of
the #1 Windsor Blue squad. We had to put
our game faces on early and required two U11 call ups to fill out the
bench. Before I forget, a big thanks
goes out to those two young U11’s who came up and battled every shift for the
team.
The game started with a simple
strategy of taking away shooting lanes and open ice-skating opportunities for
the Windsor Blues, our ladies tried to capitalize on any shooting chances they able
to get. The young ladies were relentless
in jamming the Windsor’s shooters and forcing them to the boards to take away
great opportunities. Even on the
offensive side the strategy paid off, Blair Davis opened the scoring @ 6:12 of
the first by throwing a moon beam shot on net after crossing the blue line and
low and behold it found the back of the net, the refs didn’t think so, but our
roaring fans made sure to let ‘em know it needed to count!! We stayed ahead until 2:02 remained in the
first when Windsor got on the board, and never looked back.
With Olivia Versnel, standing tall and shaking
off a barrage of big wrist shots from Windsor she and the defense did their
best to keep the rest out. The SCP squad
didn’t let up with the shots on Windsor but couldn’t find the sweet spot in the
net for the rest of the game. At the end of regulation time, we were down
5-1 and out shot 22-11. The staff took this game as one of the better that the
girls had played this year. The board
work to get out of our zone was better, skating with the puck was better,
defense clearing pucks from the crease area was better, goal tending positioning
and top shelf shot blocking was better, forcing the opposition to the wall was
better, back checking by all forwards was better…… which made choosing a
hardest working predator a tough one. In
the end, Alyssa Middleton showed that her ability to play any position when
asked was stellar and that she has taken the lessons from games and practice
and turned them into great game plays, congrats Alyssa on another signature on
the vest!!
Now, from my opening line stating that last weekend was a
little break from being at the rink…. we switch gears to a busy weekend at the
rink for our girls. We have practice
Thursday, Friday and Sunday, with Friday and Sunday being full ice practices. Then games Saturday morning and Sunday
night. These practices will give us the
opportunity for some one on one work, to focus on skills on the ice and some that
can be practiced at home. Keep up that
hard work Preds, it keeps showing on the ice by how much you all seem to love
this game!!! See you soon, GO BLUE!!