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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!
2017-02-20: Mighty Pirates 2 at Dirty Pucks 4

Manitoba Drive, or more specifically Ricoh Coliseum, had been kind to your heroes so far this season. But, not last night.

And, ahhh... the smell of a backup goalie at Ricoh. Smells like... victory. For the bad guys, that is!

And even when, for a fleeting moment, the Pirates (6-10-3) found a way to beat Nguyen, who has actually skated out four times for the Dirty Pucks (6-11-2) this season, the Bucs would, yet again, give up a bushel full of unanswered third period goals and come up empty-handed. Yikes!

The first period was a real grind. Partially because the ice surface was not up to NHL standards. Not even AHL standards. Heck, we've even seen nicer ice at Rinx! Nothing like great passes hitting bumps and changing direction. Alas, both teams were at a disadvantage in this regard.

Captain Sousa had much work to do with so many regulars out of the lineup (C. Besant, Jezioranski, Mandell, Phillips, Rosenberg and M. Sager). The commute line rode first, with Gallivan between Leggett and Lella. Mutch centred L. Klein and Mola, while Weber took the middle with D. Turner and J. Sager.

On the blueline was a youthful five-man unit of J. Besant, J. Klein, S. Klein, T. Turner and Sousa. Yes, it's true, we have no idea how old Sousa is, so we're going to call him 25.

It wasn't a great start as a fairly innocuous play turned into a 0-1 Dirty Puck lead. From then, both teams seemed to trade chances... but, nothing was going in. In fact, the teams would play frustrating, goal-less hockey for about 16 minutes. It didn't help that Nguyen's logo had a puck magnet within it (isn't that illegal?)

The Bucs best chance of the first came on a beautiful pass from Mutch to L. Klein, but his powerful snapshot was denied.

The Pirates were, however, rewarded late in the middle frame as Weber battled in the slot, and sent a sweet pass to J. Sager who was able to get the puck passed the goal line... finally! We had a tie game, 1-1.

But, the Bucs weren't done there. Under a minute later, with an offensive zone faceoff, Gallivan won the draw to Lella. Without skipping a beat, Lella moved the puck to the point where T. Turner let go a howitzer. With traffic in front, the puck sliced off a Dirty Puck defender and found its way to the back of the net... it was 2-1 good guys!

Surely the reward of a lead going into the third period would be enough to keep the effort level at 10, right? Wrong! The Pirates stopped skating. And, they also started giving the puck away carelessly. Who does that? (Editorial staff would often insert, "The Maple Leaves?", after those three words... but, I suppose we can't anymore? Darn you sharp-shooting Maple Leaves!)

The Dirty Pucks tied the game just 1:19 into the third, and we would be set for more scoreless hockey for most of the period.

Gallivan took off on a nice rush midway through the frame, going around two defenders and dishing off to Leggett in the slot. Leggett's nifty wrist-shot handcuffed the goalie, but rattled off the post!

Then... mayhem! You know, when two players get involved, willingly, in a slashing, shoving and spearing exchange, the refs usually send both players of to think about what they've done. But, on this night, not only did the ref toss Mola around like Cruella De Vil on a bag of puppies, he gave Mola four minutes and nothing to the Pucks, opening the way for a late power-play goal. Shame.

The Dirty Pucks would add an empty-netter, leaving the Pirates winless in three games against them this season and a 2-4 score on the clock.

Will there be another meeting for the Pirates to finally get a win? Well, it won't be until the playoffs at least. Maybe another semi-final tussle! We shall see.