The Howie Stand-In Report
2004-03-09: Mighty Pirates 2 vs. Venom 3
The Tuesday trade deadline passed without incident in PirateLand®, with management opting to stick with their roster as is, in spite of extreme pressure to upgrade. YTV, for example, was reported to have added to their roster two complete squads from a Calgary beer league, 8 former members of Cirque de Soleil and the entire cast of Sponge Bob Squarepants. Meanwhile, the phone-in shows had been a-buzz for days, with fans demanding that the team dump its high-priced, under-performing veterans. But management spokesman Les ("Stand Pat") Klein cagily pointed out that a) the team consists entirely of high-priced, under-performing veterans, and b) there was no way the Pirates were going to mortgage their future by trading a promising youngster like Mark (Jaromir) Sager — a name mentioned most frequently by pundits and opposing GMs as likely trade-bait.
So, with sighs of relief all around for jobs safely secured at least until September, the Pirates took to the ice Tuesday night to decide the season series with the Venom, which was deadlocked at two 2-2 deadlocks.
Snakebit is the only way to describe the 2-3 outcome. The Pirates worked hard and generated a ton of pressure in the opposing end, but the Venom's goalie was as good as he was lucky, robbing Pirate shooters time and again. And when he was beat, more often than not he was rewarded the clang of puck on pipe. In the end, only Johnny Mutch was able to fool the fanged one, once from a scramble in front and then on a primo blast that beat him cleanly on the glove side. Meanwhile at the Pirate end, back-up Tim Sturgeon put on fine show of his own, bailing out his defense corps on a couple of clear breakaways.
Apart from the Venom's questionable first goal (which came after the play had clearly been whistled dead), the game was well-refereed, which was appreciated by both sides.
And now on to the Zig Zags, and the burning question (a smouldering roach, perhaps) is: will they come out blasting to avenge their previous defeat? or will they proceed with caution, knowing that THESE PIRATE COLOURS DON'T RUN. Or something like that.
