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Iron Man	Game Streak
D. Turner	37
Phillips	27


	Mutch has played 450 career games! M. Sager has played 400 career games! Mandell has amassed 200 career points!

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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.

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2014-12-22: Mighty Pirates 2 vs. Rage 2

Howie was all set for Monday night's Mighty Pirates (6-6-2) game against the Toronto Rage (10-2-2) at Ricoh Coliseum, expecting the usual pummeling of your heroes at the hands of the TNHC Monday Night Gilmour Division run-away leaders. At game time, the Rage was leading their closest opponent by six points and had been unbeaten in eight straight games.

With holiday season in full swing, and Besant, R. Kwinter and Mutch announcing their absence in advance, Captain Mola called on reserves A. Kwinter, Rosenberg and Weber to step in, and with Jezioranski a game-time decision, S. Klein got a last minute call-up as well. In the end, JJ managed to make the game and L. Klein elected to watch the game from the sidelines with perennial stand-by loyalist and last-minute sub, T. Turner.

Those familiar with True North Hockey know that gate receipts have been a long-standing issue in terms of revenue sharing for the teams. The league does pitifully little to generate excitement for the games and put fannies in seats. Indeed, it is only the PirateHockey.ca website that contributes to attendance in any meaningful way — and even then, only on the rare occasions when it is up to date.

Amazingly however, last Monday night, Ricoh was rocking — and not with the rock-and-roll antics of Gallivan, Mola, Weinstein, Lella and D. Turner, either. The stands were full of real-live fans, easily eclipsing all previous winter Pirate attendance records (although not the all-time attendance record set by M. Sager's birthday bash set by the Summer Pirate affiliate team!). It has to be noted that many of the fans were family and friends of Mandell visiting from South Africa and Australia, resulting in L. Klein and T. Turner being peppered by many questions, the three most notable of which were:

Why did the Pirates start out the game with a two-minute penalty? Answer: apparently, having played True North Hockey for 21 years, the Pirates have still not learned not to put pucks on the ice until after the Zambonis — yes, Ricoh has two Zambonis — have left the rink and the doors have been closed.
What is off-side? Answer: apparently, having played and watched hockey most of their lives, some players still think they can cross the opponent's blue line before the puck.
Which one is Auby? Answer: #44, usually parked just to one side of the opponent's net, waiting to "clean up the garbage."

There were way more people watching the game than there were playing. That was immediately evident, as Toronto Rage enjoyed four subs on their bench while the Pirates had three full lines. El Capitano had the luxury of putting out some highly productive combos, including the Commute Line (Lella, Gallivan, Leggett), the Grind Line (D. Turner, M. Sager, Phillips) and the Star Line (A. Kwinter, Mola and Mandell). On defence were J. Klein, S. Klein, Sousa, Rosenberg, Weber and Jezioranski.

While the Rage were outmanned and missing a couple of their most prolific scorers, they still had the measure of the Pirates in the first period, as the play was strikingly even throughout, with the play moving fluidly back and forth between ends. The Pirate play was in this correspondent's view classic Pirate Brand Hockey®, with excellent defence, the forwards well-positioned in both the defensive and offensive zones, and superb team play witnessed by crisp passes, calm play-making and quality puck control. Several shifts saw the Rage hemmed into their own end, with repeated shots coming from the point, the slot and point-blank range.

Then, 1:30 into the second frame — a period that has on occasion seen the Pirates slump due to long shifts and sloppy defence — Mola grabbed control of the puck at the Pirates' end, carried it up and into the Rage zone and shovelled it back to J. Klein standing at the blue line, who fired a rocket towards the goalie which was expertly deflected into the net by Mandell, standing at the ready as usual: 1-0 Pirates. While the Rage started to show some signs of fatigue, their youth and skill kept them in the game, applying constant pressure. On one of those presses with 1:14 left on the clock in the second period, Weber made a superhuman effort to push the puck forward to Mola, who shot a laser past the goalie from the other side of the blue line to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead... Mola's 300th career point! But that lead would not have lasted very long had the Sturgeonator not made a spectacular glove save with 15.7 seconds left on the clock, robbing the Rage of yet another scoring opportunity.

Not to be outdone, and with their invincibility being challenged, the Rage managed to push the Pirates back into their own end, and with 9:18 left in the game, cut the lead in half on a dipsy-doodle shot from the point that fooled Tim with its mid-air action. However, he was not flustered and kept his cool as he made another miraculous save in the midst of a mad scramble in front of the net with 4:19 on the clock. Vito almost sealed the deal with a great rush with under two minutes left. Alas, despite the fact that the Pirates currently enjoy the fewest penalty minutes in the Gilmour Division, showing that they are trying hard to clean up their act vis-a-vis bad behaviour, when they are assessed a penalty, it often comes back to bite them. With 1:40 left in the game, M. "Dr. Hook" Sager was called for tripping and sent to the sin bin for the rest of the game. The Rage pulled their goalie, and using the six-against-four man advantage, managed to keep the puck in the Pirates' end and with 24.7 seconds remaining, deflected a shot past Sturgeon for the game-tying goal.

With the "W" and two points within reach for almost the entire game, the Pirates had to settle for the tie to stay within eight points of the Rage in the standings, in third place trailing the Haymakers by just one point. The outcome was disappointing to some — who expressed their frustration vocally — but the crowds in the stands appreciated the quality effort put out by both teams, and most reporters were focussed on the remarkable consistency, team effort and calm demonstrated by your heroes.

But wait — there's more! The job does not get any easier as the season moves into its second half. Next Monday, the 29th, the Pirates face off against the sixth-place Cyclones at 9:20 on RINX 1, and we know that they are facing a holiday-depleted roster, with L. Klein, Rosenberg, Leggett and Phillips confirmed scratches and Lella and A. Kwinter day-to-day decisions. Who knows who else will be claimed by the excesses of the Hanuka-Christmas-Kwanza-Festivus season? Regulars and subs will need to make sure that if they are available, they bring their A-game to RINX next week.

GO PIRATES!!! VIVEN LOS PIRATAS!!!

Howie