Hockey Finals

Adam re-taping his stick before the big game

On Sunday afternoon we played in the playoff finals against the Penguins. We had beaten them twice in the regular season, but both games were tough with one going to a shootout.

Adam is 2nd in the league in scoring and the kid he's facing off against, Logan, is the leading scorer.

We got an early goal to put us up 1-0

But Logan scored twice to put the Penguins up 2-1 going into the 3rd and final period

The game was coming down to the wire with both teams just missing opportunities. There were several shots off the posts and Adam made some great moves to get off a shot destined for the top corner of the net, but the shot deflected off the handle of the goalie's stick.

There are 7 skaters on each team, with 4 playing at a time. We have 3 really good skaters and, during the regular season, we tried to make sure that 2 of them were always playing while working in the other kids. We ran quick shifts and everyone played plenty. In the playoffs, we decided that all 3 of our best skaters would stay out as long as they could. As this game wore on we could tell that our guys were exhausted - not only from this game, but from the tough game the previous night. But, we didn't want to pull them since we were down a goal. 

In the end, we lost 2-1. I was so proud of the kids for giving it their all. It's hard to beat an evenly matched team 3 straight times. I definitely had second thoughts about playing our top kids so much that they didn't have their usual energy at the end of the game to get over the hump and I felt bad that some of the kids didn't get to play as much as they were used to.