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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.

Ice Demons? Ice Dogs? Ice Capades?
2009-11-30: Mighty Pirates 3 vs. Ice Demons 7

Having seriously dogged it during the preseason so that they would not get moved up a division or two so that they could play teams of their own calibre (and — perish the thought — actually risk being shown up to be just another "beer league" team), the Ice Demons (5-3-1) are still not satisfied. They want to be moved down even further so that they can win by even more lopsided scores. Clearly 9-0 and 7-3 wins over the proud Mighty Pirates (3-6-0) are not enough so soothe these fragile egos. In an attempt to convince True North that they need to play in the Gilmour Division, or possibly in the beginner league, the Ice Demons actually allowed the Mighty Pirates to win the third period of their game by a score of 3-2. How weak is that, eh?

But maybe it is the world of show business they are interested in — an Oscar for actors in a supporting role, or a part in the Ice Capades? After all, they demonstrated that they were masters at chipping, hacking, slashing and tripping, and then falling to the ice whenever they could to get the sympathy of the refs. In this way, they succeeded in getting the Pirates called for five questionable penalties. Luckily for your heroes, they scored on only one power play opportunity, and in fact, it might well have been the Pirates' success in killing off a 5-on-3 situation in the second period that finally lit the fire under the Pirate bench, and started them off on their own scoring parade.

But I get ahead of myself... The 11:15 start time certainly put a damper on the enthusiasm before the game in the locker room, and the fact that only E. Mintz and S. Klein were there to strap on the blades as subs meant that there would be no complaining about ice time. A quick look at the game sheet on PirateHockey.ca shows that the list of no-shows exactly matches the number who actually came out. Part of the absences can be explained due to the team representative suffering from jet-lag and forgetting to summon more subs ("Klein syndrome"), but other factors must have also been at play, for example, the collective memory of the 0-9 spanking the goldenrod and ebony suffered at the last meeting with the Ice Demons.

Nevertheless, with Lella struck down by workaholism, the Sturgeonator stepped between the pipes, and he had S. Klein, Besant, E. Mintz and Jezioranski protecting him on defence. The two Johnnies, Gallivan and Mutch, played centre, while Mandell, Turner and L. Klein took left wing and Phillips and Sager (back from his injury) took right. Okay, in fact, L. Klein played defence until E. Mintz got dressed, but that is just a technicality!

The first two periods ran about as you would have expected: The Ice Demons reeled off two goals in the first period and three in the second. But a subtle shift took place early in the second. A minute after the Demons had made it 0-3, first Mutch for hooking and then a minute later E. Mintz for body contact (doesn't that go both ways?) got relegated to the sin bin, and the Pirates were down two players for nearly 60 seconds. Yet, the Bucs managed to kill off the penalty, and the Ice Demons only managed to score again later (but twice), as the period drew to a close.

It is of course important not to lose sight of the tremendous effort that Tim Sturgeon expended in making spectacular saves against ridiculous odds all through the game. He really kept it from being a total embarrassment. But in the third period, first Gallivan and E. Mintz combined on a beautiful give-and-go to finally break the shutout (and make it 1-14 over the two games), to be followed less than a minute later by a tremendous first, second and third effort by Turner, Mutch and Phillips, with Allan finally driving the puck over and behind the sprawled out Demon goalie. What was this — a sudden shift in wind direction? Okay, the bad guys did manage to score two more in the period, but in the spirit of "win your shift, win the period, win the game," the Pirates came back yet again, and with Jezioranski working to free up the puck near the Pirates own blue line, the puck slid over to L. Klein who handed it over to Gallivan, and the youngster made it count again, with his second goal of the game. Final score (third period): Pirates 3, Demons 2. Never mind about the Demons dogging it, the Pirates won this one (period) fair and square!

The Pirates' job does not get any easier this coming Monday. Instead of the hell that is the 11:15 pm start, we have a rush hour special with the puck dropping at 6:10 pm against the Mongolian Horde (4-5-0), another hard-skating, hard-shooting club. But at least these guys have some class, and the Pirates will be looking to get back in the winning column with a solid all-out effort of Pirate Brand Hockey®. Be at RINX 2 to catch this match — it promises to be a doozy! And if you are lucky, you might catch a glimpse of your heroes sporting brand spanking new "R" t-shirts (yeah, but where are the long-promised third jerseys?)...

GO PIRATES!!! VIVEN LOS PIRATAS!!!

Howie