Halifax Floor Hockey LeagueHey ladies and gents! This is Billy Concarney here with the recap of our first round of the play offs for this our 2018 A Season.
Up first we saw the 1st place Chill square off against the last place Titans.
The Titans had a rough season this time around and were hoping for a fresh start. The Chill had the best record and a pretty well rounded team.
The short and the sweet?
Titans drew first blood scoring quick when Dan Sinnott buried a shot past Highmore off a pass from Mark McGuigan.
The Chill answered back when their late season replacement Eric Eisener scored on a pass from Gerard "woody" Gouthro to even it up.
1-1 after the 1st.
The second saw the Chill come out a wee bit harder as they notched the first 2 goals of the period. Eddie Kell tried to keep the Titans in it scoring his first goal of the contest but Sam Haliburton pout the Chill up by two and after the second it was 4-2 Chill.
the third was rather uneventful as the teams traded goals, but in the end the Chill took this one by a score of 6-4.
Notables were Eric Eisener who had 2 goals and 2 assists for the Chill, while Eddie Kell made his mark with 2 goals and a helper. Also worth noting Jason Boudreau turned in a great performance facing 51 shots.
Next up saw the Second place Hackers facing the seventh place Bulldogs. The Dogs were a bit of an under achiever this season that you could chalk up chemistry maybe? The Hackers have been their usual force.
This was just an ugly lopsided affair from the get go.
Not going to report too much here.
Notables Caines led the way with 3 goals and 4 assists, Strum with 4 goals and a helper and Copper with 1 goal and an assist.
Bobby Zwicker becomes the first goalie in the history of the league to record a play off shutout. Way to go Bobby.
Chill take this one by a score of 13-0
Also worth noting Tom Wynn faced 68 shots...this season's most highest shot total.
our next game of the night saw the 3rd place Fire meeting the 6th place Slayers.
Slayers were severely disabled due to the fact that the "Bonnie and Clyde" duope of Jonathan Darnbrough and Jenna Briggs took off with Jason Briggs in tow headed across the great divide....but man this is what poor timing looks like!
First period was scoreless but the star was Adam Larder. He faced 24 shots in the first period...almost as many as his counterpart faced the entire game.
Second period saw Fire captain Rob Tyrrell ride over the hill and take control netting the first two goals of the game enrolee to a play off hat trick.
Kyle Bauers grabbed a goal on on elf the nicest moves we've seen this year, surprising Strum with a hard low shot. But try as they might, the Slayers just could not muster any sizeable attack as the Fire D kept them too far out to be a threat.
Stars were Rob Tyrrell who picked up a hat trick and Adam Larder who put in a valiant effort facing 56 shots.
Fire win this one 5-1
Last game of the night saw the 4th and fifth teams square off, as in the Lynx and the Sabres.
The Lynx got on the score sheet first when Matt Reed scored off a pass from Shane Erb. But the Sabres jumped back in there with three goals to take a first period 3-1 lead.
Second saw Lynx Captain James Griffin-Alwood take a bit of control as he did the old Moses trick and parted the sea, walked in and ripped a couple past Kane, who was kind of surprised how he made it that far to begin with...and with no Chariots! Shane Erb scored and the Lynx had the lead 4-3. But speaking of captains...Keven Pittman tied it up in the last minute of the period making for an interesting third period.
The last frame saw the Sabres tighten up but not before Kyle Bradbury scored a pretty impressive goal of his own to give his team the lead and ultimately the win.
Not without drama as a pass made its way across the floor with 2 seconds left but Matt Reed was unable to get a good shot off and the Sabres held on for the win.
Notables in this game were James Griffin-Allwood with two goals and Keven Pittman with two goals.
So there you have it folks.
The semi finals match ups will be
Sabres vs Chill Big floor at 8:30
Fire vs Hackers Big Floor at 9:30
One has to believe that this will be a rare occasion where we see the twi best teams during the regular season face off against one another for the title. But stranger things have happened!
This is Billy Concarney saying so long and be well folks!