Firstly a great BIG THANK YOU to BIG BIRD for running the gate every week, it makes such a difference.
We had a few new players on board this season, Annie Miouse and Lee Brown, a husband and wife Canadian pair that the Big Bird found; I think it was at Nite Owls training. They were a good pick up. Annie plays really good solid defence and Lee had a gallop up the front with the Reverend and Woody. He banged a few in the back of the net too. Considering he shouldn't be playing at all because he has a cactus knee (you should see the brace thing he wears) it was a good effort.
Another newbie was David McLeod who came from the Development Council. He played the last 6 games or so and was getting to the right places at the right times. He showed great improvement from start to finish. How he did this with everyone including "Bird" telling what he should and shouldn't be doing/standing/thinking after every shift I don't know. He is either partially deaf of has a good bullshit filter.
Mick Rowan, one of the good old boys from the Dandenong era made a return to the not so big league, skated well and proved you don't forget how to do it, its just a case of making your body actually do what it is your thinking.
Bruno Gutton, a late life starter got the call up after playing in Div 4 over summer along side Mick and "King Andy". We had plenty of laughs, bagging his "Frenchness". We then found out about his previous life in the French Military and figured he could probably kill us all with a spoon and the French jokes dried up after that......
The standard of C grade was much, much improved this season. It used to be a place for new players to the sport or broken down old farts such as......me, to play out the last few season before heading off to the Nite Owls. Apart from the return of the slap shot, it was also classed as contact but no checking! This was a bit a hard one to get our heads around, especially for us old hands who had been playing non-contact hockey for years.
As I said, the standard had shifted up a notch, the reason for this being the club mergers I suppose. Quite a few guys who would have been good solid B' players came down to our division and scored some goals. A couple were way too good for our grade I reckon and should have been banished back Up-stairs. Too scared to take a hit me thinks.
All good for the sport I suppose but it made our stats look a bit lop-sided.
No training time really shows up. Just the basics of hockey for the newer guys and trying to get some level of fitness for the more mature members of the team. You need to skate twice a week, no matter what age group......Simple.
We started to get some passing and a few ripper goals going towards the end of the season, which has been the trend the last couple of season actually.
The fact that our "Reverend" was awarded MVP for our league was fantastic and he would be the first to say that he didn't do it ALL by himself........... Somebody had to pass it to him! In his own words "Back-check, what's that?"
Mark Tozer
Premier C Coach
