Boch and Pop - 2010 Flames - 1 In Awesome Wonder

Boch and Pop – 2010 Flames

Boch Ice Center – November 04, 2023 – 2010 Flames at Boch Blazers (EHF).
Pop Whalen Ice & Arts Center – November 05, 2023 – 2010 Flames at Back Bay (GSL).

November started with a thumping down at Boch Ice Center, as the Blazers handed out a 8-1 beat down to the Flames on Saturday. Then the Flames traveled up to the new and improved Pop Whalen arena to play Back Bay, and won, 7-2. So a split for the weekend, against a pair big, physical teams.

Looking at Pop Whalen from outside, on a fall morning in November.

: (Photo by 1inawesomewonder. 2023.)

The 2010 Flames traveled down to the Boch Ice Center on Saturday to play the undefeated Boch Blazers. The Flames were beaten before they even took the ice. There were scraps and scuffles among teammates. And a long day grew longer as the game started very late.

Then of course there is the lack of game presentation at the Boch Ice Center. One ref. 13 year-olds left to police themselves in between out of position calls that seemed like fits of impatience from stripes, as if the four uncalled penalties wore him down, so he just started blowing his whistle from the wrong blue line and calling penalties.

As usual, the ice was soft and way too wet to start anything resembling a hockey game. Just another trip to the Boch Ice Center. Big name, no substance.

And I cannot stress enough, regardless of these physical factors, the Blazers would beat the 2010 Flames ten out of ten times given the two teams’ mindsets and efforts on Saturday. This isn’t sour grapes, this is just a terrible place to play hockey, year after year. The lobby is great though.

The Blazers are big and fast. They had kids who could beat anyone up the ice and score, but they moved the puck, and made some great goalmouth passes for easy goals. On the other hand, the Flames Hockey 101-ness showed up all weekend, and that doesn’t hold up well at this level.

The Flames took 9 penalties through two periods, which led to a Boch power play goal, a 4-0n-4 goal, and another goal as a Flames penalty expired.

Flames goal – The ref had his arm up to call a penalty on Boch. While the delayed penalty never ended up as a power play, Petrie was digging for the puck in a pile on the end boards. He and Soucy emerged from the scrum and the puck slid out to St. Pierre who stepped into a shot. The shot was saved, but Soucy was at the goal mouth to tap in the rebound. Soucy from St. Pierre and Petrie. Down, 5-1.

At Boch Ice Center –

(MRYHA) 2010 Flames: 00 – 01 – 00 = 01

Boch Blazers: 02 – 03 – 03 = 08

: Jacob doesn’t always shoot the puck, but when he does, he shoots from inside the crease.

: By his tremendous powers of the mind, Jacob wills the puck into the net after his shot wasn’t close enough.

While this was a great effort from start to finish against a team that is better than the score indicated, there were some bad habits or lack of hockey 101-ness that were glaring, at least to me. The 2010 Flames still don’t head man the puck as often as they could, or should. That screams of either a trailing player’s lack of this simple hockey axiom, or worse it’s a conscious selfish decision to assume that their possession of the puck behind the play is a better choice for the team.

Forwards played out of position, like there were too many centers and not enough wingers. Defensemen were up ice way too often. Players literally ran into each other, with the puck, without the puck, in retreat, etc. It was not a comedy of errors by any means, but sometimes the team looks like they have not been drilled in 200-foot positional hockey, up the ice and back. Other teams at this age could wake up at 3am, and in a sleepy fog still skate their position with the same familiarity as meandering in the dark to the refrigerator on a different floor than their bedroom.

Just because the score favored the Flames does not mean that there isn’t a whole lot yet to learn for this team. I guess, what I am getting at is this; This team has been very successful in the categories of effort, coachability, playing for one another, and winning games. Those are great things to be successful in. And honestly, they are great kids.

Given the things that they do consistently well, when they match up against a team with proper spacing and structure as part of their game, the playing surface starts to tilt away from the 2010 Flames. Then, multiply the spacing and structure by a factor of, even half-decent skaters, and the Flames have to play near-perfect to compete.

The great news is that this team is hungry to learn and hungry to play hard. Now, if their collective hockey IQ can improve and they can demonstrate some hockey 201-ness or even 301-ness, then anything is possible. There is room for growth, and now is the time. Draw it up, drill them, walk them through step by step, literally make sure they know the positioning forward and back. Run it. Practice makes perfect. Games are over hyped, and mostly for parents. Learn the game, in all of its glory. Then, go have a blast playing the sport which you work toward mastering.

Flames Power Play Goal – After an offensive zone face-off Back Bay had the puck on their stick, poised to clear the zone and take some time off the penalty. Then, Ouellette, with his 9 foot reach, poked the puck off the defenseman’s stick. The puck slid right toward the net where Petrie dug, sliced, and chopped at the puck before banking a shot off of the prone goalie for the power play goal. PPG – Petrie from Ouellette. 1-0.
Flames goal – After a nice pad save by Ingalls, the puck bounced past the Back Bay player that was in position for a rebound. The puck kicked toward the half wall where Beal banked the puck off the wall as Soucy curled with speed to head up ice with the puck. Soucy flew up the left wing and got a good shot on goal, but it was saved. St. Pierre came in from the other wing and put the rebound into the net. St. Pierre from Soucy and Beal (After a nice save by Ingalls). 2-0.
Flames Power Play Goal – Okay, so Ingalls made a huge right shoulder save on a great Back Bay chances. You can’t get an assist as a goalie from a save, but since Ingalls purposely directed this right shoulder save toward Giampa which led a break, well, we’ll see. Giampa took the puck and sped up ice on the power play. He his Ouellette with a pass as he entered the zone. Ouellette was flying up the middle like he was gliding down a slope and split two defenders that looked like they were climbing the slope. Just before Ouellette skated right out of the building with too much speed, he ripped a shot that sent ripples through the net. PPG – Ouellette from Giampa and Ingalls. 3-0. GWG.
Flames goal – St. Pierre poked the puck past the defense and just like that, he, Giampa and Beal were all at the net, with a puck to bat around between them. Giampa had a shot and then that rebound came to Beal who also shot. That was saved too. Then Giampa had an open side of the net on his backhand and he slid the puck into the net with St. Pierre right there too. Giampa from Beal and St. Pierre. 4-2.
Flames goal – After some love Back Bay #18, Giampa and Ouellette battled for the puck right on the red line. With Giampa and #18 still down, Ouellette emerged from the friendly exchange of Thanksgiving greetings with the puck and took off like a cartoon character. Ouellette burst into the O-zone and rifled a shot into the net, followed by a brief celly. Ouellette unassisted. 5-2.
Flames goal – Lazzaro skated in from center ice to break up a meek clearing attempt and took possession of the puck. Before anyone could react, Lazzaro absolutely pulverized a shot that skimmed off of the near side post into the net. Pretty much a perfect shot. Lazzaro unassisted. 6-2.
Flames Power Play Goal – Beal handled the puck behind the net, and eventually he was able to work the puck to the front of the net. Petrie was right there at the crease and was able to push the puck into the net for the goal. PPG – Petrie from Beal. 7-2.

At Pop Whalen –

(MRYHA) 2010 Flames: 02 – 02 – 03 = 07

Back Bay: 00 – 02 – 00 = 02

: The 2010 Flames break the huddle before the game. Petrie stares down the opponent with full game face mode already wearing a five o’clock shadow. He thinks to himself, “Mr. Beal, mark it down, I’m netting a pair today.” ~ Got it. It’s noted Gav.

: As Soucy crept forward like he was undetectable, he made himself smaller as not to be seen. Then he fired this secret shot on goal.

: Ouellette barrels up the wing and gets full flex on this wrist shot. They found the puck in Locker Room 8. Nobody was hurt.

: It looks like Booth is following through on a nice shot for the Flames. In what is now known as a “live glitch”, Booth stayed in this exact position for several seconds. The Zamboni driver said it had something to do with the new wireless router. I don’t know.

: Beal pulls a Matrix moment, bending the puck around the shin pads of the defender after he fired the shot. But since he’s not good with angles while in motion, the shot slid just wide of the far post.

: St. Pierre to Beal…to Giampa. Eventually, Giampa will backhand this puck into the net. But for now, he pauses for effect. Well played.

: Beal is urged into the corner on the forecheck by St. Pierre. Of course St. Pierre was speaking in broken French so Beal proceeded with his normal tentative cautious approach.

: Snow flies at the far end of the ice, but Big T remained cool and calm as he made the save. He also provided some helpful feedback to the opponent which would come back to bite him later.

: I have no idea what happened on this play. I was trying to get a good picture of the baby in the ad on the far wall, but St. Pierre skated through and said, “Shoot this!” So I did.

: Some people have called this picture, “Downtrending cones.” Others have called it, “Look Out!” Another called it, “Where is Cooper going?” I call it, “Determined”.

Countless hours of my life have been spent in the tracking of numbers while loving the sports and players that produce them.

: Strat-O-Matic baseball board with my own notes written on the board. The two Sporting News magazines that I kept from 1977, with my favorite two players, Dr. J and Pistol Pete. Red Sox Yearbook from a trip to Fenway, Fred Lynn’s last season in Boston.

: My brief note sheet tracking the 2010 Flames six goals on Saturday at JFK. My notes were significantly shorter than the game itself.

: The other side of Saturday’s notes. Multiple games, and a practice autograph to make sure a new pen writes the way I like. Plus you never know when one might run into autograph seekers.

: I would ask for the Sporting News Register for hockey, baseball, basketball, and football every year for Christmas. Every box score, every stat, pictures, and countless stories. Those were my favorites.

Flags and banners. Scoreboard and Bantams. Pop Whalen on a Sunday morning. Youth hockey. Playing the game.

Goalies. They stop pucks. They hold up lines of people shaking hands. Because, well, they’re goalies.

You can find more 2010 Flames material in these pieces, here. 2010 Manchester Flames.

The current look at my ‘hockey office’. So many hours spent in this space, tracking numbers and capturing season after season. (C) 1inawesomewonder 2023.

The beginning of every article. (C) 1inawesomewonder 2017.

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributors, mostly mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the schools, coaches, players, or characters listed in any of these blog posts. Or, maybe they do, but you would have to ask them directly.

Either way, “It’s a great day for hockey” ~ the late “Badger” Bob Johnson.

“We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we’re too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.” ~ the late Herb Brooks.

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it: If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” ~ Jim Valvano on how to live life, during his ESPY speech.

“I started writing sports stories 20 years ago. I still do. I write because somewhere, in some game, a kid might be having the time of his or her life. That’s awesome to think about. It’s all about the kids.” ~ Steve Beal Sr.