Written by Sunday, the NH Avalanche 2000 team played its’ last scheduled road game of their Bantam Major season at The Rinks at Exeter. They squared off against a familiar foe, the Seacoast Spartans. Familiarity may have been the theme of the day in actuality, but maybe not in the way one may think. While the opponent was one that the Avs 2000 team has seen numerous times this season, it had been four weeks since the last time this Avs team had been on the ice together. Four weeks, ironically, since they had seen this Spartan team in fact.
Regardless of who knew whom, the Avs jumped out to an early lead in the game. Max Lajeunesse scored in the first 100 seconds on a feed from Clay Sanders and the Avs were off and running. Later in the period, Mikey Perry tallied a goal on a scrum out in front of the net, and after one period the Avs led 2-1.
The second period saw the Spartans storm back with a pair of goals, one on the power play, and take a 3-2 lead into the final period. In the third period Sydney Herrington scored a power play goal for the Avs on a beautiful hockey play, to tie the game at 3-3. Wait. What? I’m sorry, the goal was wiped out by one of the many stellar examples of officiating in this game. Apparently, I found out during my post game interviews, that the referee had called the goal no good, after not blowing the play dead for a goalpost that was an inch off of the peg, caused by the defensive team, because he was thinking about blowing his whistle, and that process normally takes him two seconds, and in those two seconds, Sydney scored the goal?!?!?!?! Okay, so back to a 3-2 deficit for the Avs until they earned a 5-on-3 advantage after, FINALLY, drawing some penalty calls from the officiating crew. Unfortunately, as it would turn out, the Spartans scored the only goal (that counted) of the third period while down two players, and held on for a 4-2 win. The Avs probably deserved better. They played well at times while certainly not clicking as well together as they had at other points in the season. They still battled and certainly appeared to draw several more penalties than were called while they were whistled for the first six penalties of the contest.
The Avs finish their season play with a home game on Sunday, March 1st at 4:20pm versus the Advantage Ice. See you all then. Enjoy the remainder of school vacation week.