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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.

W-W-W-What's Up, Bucs?
2010-11-08: Mighty Pirates 2 vs. Nordiques 0

Finally, the Ws are starting to appear on the score sheets of the Mighty Pirates, Version 2010. They have certainly been a long time coming, but their loyal fan base knew that once the uncertainty of the preseason was behind them, the men in goldenrod and ebony would buckle down and get to work. After several seasons of ups and downs, True North seems to have fine-tuned their rating system sufficiently to create a real semblance of equality among the teams in the Monday Gilmour Division. There has been very few real blowouts among the teams remaining to battle it out for the rest of the winter of 2010-2011, and this observer thinks that — here at least, if not in the NHL — any team, any night could come out on top.

That does not leave the Pirates with much choice except to play the best possible style of Pirate Brand Hockey®, which focuses on strong defence and opportunistic offence, on positional hockey with strong back-checking and fore-checking, on clearing the puck first and foremost, and on true teamwork both on the ice and on the bench. Staying out of the penalty box does not hurt, either! With one or two exceptions (for which explanations abound), all of the games to date have been tight battles — and a whole lot of fun for both teams!

Last Monday night's game against the Nordiques was no exception. The Nordiques came down to the Gilmour from the Monday Ellis Division after the preseason, and have shown their hunger in their debut in their new surroundings. Their goalie was spectacular, their defence was stellar, their passing was perfect and their dekes were astounding — how do you make the same move seven times in a row and get cleanly away with it against a team that is so experienced as the Pirates — unless you are superstar quality.

Against this desire for victory, the Pirates had to continue to struggle with a lack of consistency in their roster. The team continues to be plagued by a wide variety of afflictions, from the ever-deadly workaholism to exotic surgeries (bionic eye surgery, back reconstruction) to which aging team members are exposing themselves to gain a few more years of fame and stardom. Of the regulars on the team list, Besant, Kwinter (they of the MP in-house legal team), Phillips and Mandell were all out of commission. Luckily, Captain Mola availed himself of the able cadre of subs committed to the Pirate cause, and called up Mintz, Leggett and Siddons to shore up the team. With an ailing Sturgeon-ator between the pipes suffering from a pinched nerve, the able strategist positioned a powerful defence to protect the Pirate zone in J. Klein, E. Mintz, Butler, Siddons and Sousa. He positioned Mutch at centre with Hine and Jezioranski, and Gallivan at centre with Leggett and Mola. He also dug deep into the playbook and resurrected a semblance of a Grind Line, with stalwarts Sager and Turner supported by the deadly quick forecheck of speedster L. Klein.

The shock of facing first the Grind Line and then Mutch, Hine and Jezioranski on the second shift of the game was too much for the Nordiques, and Jimmy J. potted the first goal on a beautiful feed from Dave Hine just 1:24 seconds into the game. But if you thought then the game was going to be a cakewalk, you would have been dead wrong. The Nordique/Rangers (there was quite a controversy about the mixing of styles between jersey and logo on the Nordiques' uniforms, which continued well into the week after, sparking impassioned debates on PirateHockey.ca) bounced right back, and their goalie and defensive corps were nothing if not spectacular. They clogged up the neutral zone and anticipated so many moves by Pirate attackers that your heroes were held at bay until 41 seconds into the second period, only to have Gallivan score a second goal off incredible efforts from Mola and E. Mintz to make the score 2-0, but the Pirates would not score again.

Lest we lose sight of defence for any length of time, the Pirate blue liners were equally up to the task, and prevented the Nordiques from mounting any serious scoring threats (okay, except for those couple of big saves by Timmy on breakaways that saw the Pirates falling backwards as the charging Nordique forwards took the puck straight up the middle!). In the end, the Nordiques pulled their goalie with more than a minute to go, but the Pirates prevented any damage. And with the exception of one penalty called on Big Dave Hine, the game was a clean one and a fun one! Watch out for these Nordiques — they are a force to be reckoned with in this division.

So at this early point in the season, let's see what else is different from years gone by. Clearly Matthew Lella's goalie position has been ably filled with Tim Sturgeon, the Summer Pirates' long-time regular netminder. The infusion of J. Klein (who was lucky enough to have the Pirate Brand Hockey® gene passed down by his father) and David Hine (another Summer Pirate import) has filled somewhat the holes left by the departure of Shaun Leggett from the regular roster. And the unique platooning arrangement between Giovanni Tassone and Jim Butler has brought some stability to that challenging position. But this reporter has to say that both the depth of the subs roster and the introduction of the Grind Line into the winter Pirates' repertoire have made this team a fun and interesting squad to watch. And after seven games, they are very much in the hunt — undefeated, but still with just three wins and four ties. This is a damn good team — stay tuned to some fun hockey this winter!

After yet another bye week — do these guys ever actually have to play to earn their salaries? — the Pirates take to the ice again next Monday, November 22, at 8:00pm on Rinx 3 to face the peculiarly named Smell the Glove (3-2-2). It was a barn-burning 1-1 tie the last time these two clubs met, and it should be a real doozie again. Come on out and check it out — the stands are likely to be packed!

GO PIRATES!!! VIVEN LOS PIRATAS!!!
Howie