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After extensive contract negotiations, the Mighty Pirates organization is extremely pleased to welcome back Howie for another season of insightful, amusing, and extremely addictive commentary! Yes, Howie tells it like it is!

You'll find links to each and every Howie Report right here after each game.

The Howie-Les Report
2005-02-21: Mighty Pirates 2 vs. Loch Monsters 4

Last night saw the Mighty Pirates ice 10 skaters as Howie relaxed from a hard day of cutting up the powder in B.C., Mola and Dimock contemplated their ailing knees, and the Barrie boys lay a snooze in their warm little beds. It was an inopportune night to be down a third of your team (especially as that third contained four of six defencemen) as the Mighty Pirates were up against the toughest team in the division, the Loch Monsters. They may have lost last week, but they sport the best record in the division — post preseason.

Without their regular defence pairings, the Mighty Pirates were forced to dragoon forwards Gallivan and Leggett into patrolling the blue line along with Bingham and Kwinter, while rolling out the forward lines of Turner-Perri-Jezioranski and Sager-Mutch-Mandell. And without Howie in attendance at the Rinx, it falls upon this reporter to churn out another pale imitation of the mellifluous prose of Howie with the less than sonorous Howie-Les report ... which might be fitting in this case as Howie also missed the last tilt (1-2) against the Loch Monsters prompting this reporter to claim "It still says here that next time the Mighty Pirates come out harder and shoot more. If they can put in two in the first period and force the Monsters to have to attack, thus effectively neutralizing their goon game, the Monsters won't stand a chance. And then there will be the opportunity to run up the score on the counter attack. You read it here."

So what happened?

The Loch Monsters again doubled up on your heroes, winning 4-2, and this time the Mighty Pirates spent a large part of the game just hanging on, as well as substantial time running around in disarray, though all this bad play wasn't for lack of individual effort or heart [for a definition of heart, see under: Bingham]. Well, the defence of the Loch Monsters isn't any secret. They've allowed only three goals in seven games since beating the Mighty Pirates (2-1) and shutout their opponents five times. (Apparently, their team defence deserves more credit than the last report gave it. Oops. Okay, no one ever claimed this was a knowledgeable scouting report. There's a lot of speculation, personal bias, maybe a shortcoming or two, and theory here.) Their defence is dependable and stays at home with the exception of #11 -- whom the Mighty Pirates met for the first time. And their forwards back-check like hell, remaining opportunistic goal scorers, rarely failing to capitalize on a Mighty Pirate mistake. It makes for an effective hockey strategy. The Loch Monsters play a tight and stingy game and they play it well.

And the Mighty Pirates failed to score those first two goals. When Mutch (from Mandell and Sager) tied the game at one with his 17th goal of the season, the Loch Monsters came right back and scored nine seconds later. It wasn't that far to 3-1 and 4-1. And it didn't help that the Mighty Pirates were rendered incompetent on extended power plays by the Monster forecheck. But finally, not to be outdone, Jezioranski, fresh from wrist surgery, and a welcome surprise presence in the game, made the score 4-2 with his 17th of the season. Assists to play-maker Perri and Leggett.

And there it ended.

The Mighty Pirates really had little to say in this game, so credit is due the Loch Monsters. They scored four goals, only gave up two, and did a great job neutralizing the Mighty Pirates' one and two-man advantages. From that perspective, they should be a team that the Mighty Pirates look forward to playing: a challenge and puzzle to solve. An opponent to test their skill and development against. But the truth of the matter is, this reporter would rather have a root canal than play these guys. The Mighty Pirates have suffered far worse beatings on the scoreboard and been just fine about it. But, when you have to play a whole game with guys on your team worrying about their safety, it sucks. Sure, the refs should be keeping things under control, but at this skill level, it's just not always going to happen; so, you have to depend on the good will and common sense of your opponent. (We all have to get up and go to work tomorrow, and a lot of us have to drop our kids at school, so I just don't get why anyone wants to play a game like that.) You have to hope your opponent will play hard, but also understand that this is a recreational league, not some kind of pro league where your job is on the line and you stop at nothing to get the puck, even if it means disregarding the safety of your opponent. Unfortunately, a game against the Loch Monsters feels like the latter — and it's no fun. From there, things just escalate and get ugly. There you go.

I'm done whining, and the Mighty Pirates will be up for the next match, ready to play hard. So it says here again, that the next time the Mighty Pirates will come out harder and shoot more. If they can put in two goals in the first period and force the Monsters to gamble more on the attack, the Monsters won't stand a chance against a fast counter attack. You read it here, for whatever that's worth.