Halifax Floor Hockey LeagueThis is Billy Concarney uncharacteristically coming to you the night after rather than five nights after.
Last night saw our remaining four teams fighting for the chance to dance next Monday night and these games had their ups and downs but when the dust settled, there were two teams left.
Let's see who they were!
First game up was between the Titans and the Hackers. Last week the Titans shocked the world by upsetting the regular season champs, the Chill, in a game that saw them take control from the ball drop. Could they do it again tonight?
The Hackers came off a big win against the Lynx winning 9-4. They had a chance to move ahead but had their work cut out for them for sure.
The ball dropped and the game was on. The Titans were missing their big cheese Scott "Rocket Sauce" Cross who was out for undisclosed reasons, but that didn't hold them back from starting with a bang.
The first goal of the game belonged to the Titans as Wes Cook buried one using a screen and they were off to the races with a quick one goal lead.
Not to sit still at all, the Hackers grabbed the next two and when the period ended, they took a one goal lead into the dressing room...er their side of the gym, because we don't have real dressing rooms, but everyone stands at the bench and pretends.
The second period saw the Hackers start to take control as Dave Cooper picked up his second goal. But not to be out done, Wes Cook scored a TSN highlife of the Night worthy goals with a one handed flipper into the top corner on Kane. One of the nicest goals of the year for sure. But the Hackers answered back with goals from Shane Erb and Cooper before Dave Martell banged a rebound home to keep it close.
The score was 5-3 Hackers after two.
The third was the turning point as the Hackers came back led by Cooper who added two more goals to his totals for the night. Although the Titans answered back with two of their own, one being Cook's third of the night for a hatty, Cooper led the charge yet again adding two more gaols capped by another from Shane Erb.
This was a clean affair and the Hackers moved on into the finals with a confident win by a score of 11-5.
Worthy of notation are Hackers captains Dave "Super" Cooper who nailed 7 goals tonight and earned this weeks Eastside Mario's Player of the Week honours. Congrats Dave.
Also Wes Cook recorded his first 3 goal game of the season and rookie Kyle Bayers grabbed 2 gaols and two assists.
The second semi-final saw the Slayers, another team with a cinderella game last week, facing off against the Bulldogs, who proved they were a gutsy team themselves squeezing out a late game win by one goals over the Fire.
This could go either way and we couldn't wait to see how this one would end up.
The game got under way and the Slayers grabbed an early lead when Eric Eisener ripped one home off a feed from Alex Gale., but the Dogs would not sit still. Team leaders Mark Mcguigan and Trevor Wadden both answered back with a goal to give the Dogs a lead, but that was short lived as Ryan Milligan tied it up with a slapper off a pass from one of the Bulldogs own defencmen not to be named in this article for anything but heroic displays of athleticism who score a breakway goal. Anyhow it was all tied up until...
One of the Bulldogs defencmen, Johann Tienhaara to be exact, took a pass and in a heroic display of athleticism made a nifty move and scored a breakaway goal on The Gargoyle Burgoyne. Oh...did we let the cat out of the bag?? ;-)
That was followed up by Mcguigan's second goal of the night and after the first the Dogs had a 4-2 lead.
The second started off with speedster Mike Gelinas picking up his first goal of the night off a feed from Marky "Mark" Mcguigan. But Ryan Milligan answered with a goal that was followed by JD ripping a slapper and this one was close with the Dogs leading 5-4 after two. During the second, Dogs captain Adam Secord went down with a lower body injury leaving his squad under manned heading into the third...but will it hurt them?
The answer is nope! The third saw the Bulldogs take a commanding lead when Trevor Wadden snapped a quick shot past the hapless Burgoyne followed by back to back goals from Mike Gelinas, who notched a are hat trick for himself.
JD scored the lone goal for the Slayers, but their run was over by that time and Trevor ended the night with his third goal off a feed from Wade Mullen. This one ended up being more lopsided than we expected, but the Dogs dominated and took this one by a score of 9-5
The Dogs were led by Trevor Wade who scored a hatty and added two helpers while Mark Mcguigan grabbed two goals and two helpers. Mike Gelinas recorded his own hatty tonight as a result of his shear speed and determination.
The Slayers were led by Ryan Milligan who grabbed a couple off goals tonight.
So that's all she wrote for this week folks.
The finals will see the Bulldogs visiting the Hackers in the yet to be determined arena at an 8:30 game time. Will it be the wide open spaces of the Big Floor or the confined space of the Small Floor? No one knows quite yet, but one thing we do know is...it will be on a floor.
The Dogs are led by Mark Mcguigan and Trevor Wade who both possess game changing qualities. Backed by Paul Highmore in nets, these guys will be tough.
The Hackers have their own speed and a couple of tricks up their sleeve in Stephen Thorne and Richie Wanamaker. If the Dogs are smart they will hone in on these two guys and put their best guys on them to shut them down. That will be the key to their victory.
Oh, and Marty "the Party" Kane is kind of weak and just moves side to side, so he won't be a factor. The key to him is get to him early as he doesn't have any play off experience and gets frazzled easily.
This should be a good game no matter how lopsided it looks on paper. I'm telling you guys, Thorne and Wannamaker, they are your key guys. Forget about everyone else and just shut them down!
Ok, enough propaganda for one night.
This should be a great game between two deserving teams and may the best team that night win!
This is Billy Concarney saying so long and be well folks!