Last night was all about the pieces of the puzzle falling into place.
The opponent was "HIJS Hokij The Hague Bullets", the team that's currently last place in competition.
Add to that: our sad loss (for some stupid reasons) at the away game against them, our victory two weeks ago, a solid team that has been practicing hard and got to know each other better, plus a brilliant coach *massive thanx* and we have all the ingredients for a victory !!!!
Slightly past 17:30 pm local time, the puck dropped and the game was on....
First period was rather boring, but the teams were really well matched.
At 10:43 the Bullets made their first goal. And at 18:31 they found their way into our goal again.
A 0-2 setback in first period is not that bad (many games we've had to deal with more) but it was not how it was supposed to go.
So coach made clear *whehey this ain't gonna continue like this on my watch* that the Studs had to work harder to get to making goals and second period started.
And that's what happened. Okay, just 35 seconds into the second period HIJS found the goal once more [0-3] but Studs made sure they wouldn't do that again.
At 28:47 some dude from The Hague got to meet our refs, and they told him that his behaviour (body checking one of the Studs) was not acceptable and therefor gave him 2 minutes of penalty time to spend in the penalty box (though it isn't much of a box at our rink but anyways) with our fantastic multitasking bench-official (I ate a sandwich and I texted and I probably put on some hand cream as well during the game) sorry, I'm wandering off....So as this dude was on the penalty bench, Studs made good use of the powerplay situation and finally got the puck in the goal!!! At 29:40 to be precise, Jasper made the first Studs goal in this game, as Victor provided him the puck [1-3].
At 35:05 Victor thought it was a good idea to get the Studs score up some more, and made the [2-3] by himself.
44 seconds later, our new dynamic duo made the [3-3], Harri gave the puck to Richelle who shot it in.
The remaining minutes of the second period were exciting, lot's of *ooeehs and aaahs* from our fans but the score remained tied.
The team went into the locker room, where the coach would give a speech. All I know about that is that line1 got a warning that totally woke the hockey animal in captain Ivar, coach told some other usefull things and the players listened and learned.
Normally the third period is where our magic happens, so eventhough it was tied and The Hague was not bad, I had confidence in my team.
First 10 minutes nothing really happened (well yeah, the naughty player from The Hague joined us on the other side again), but then it all changed.
51:27, the dynamic duo decided to make it happen again, this time Richelle provided the puck for Harri to score [4-3].
A lousy 14 seconds later at 51:41 (I wasn't even done writing the previous one) Studs found the goal again, Jan (defense!!) scored the goal when Ivar gave him the puck [5-3].
The fans went completely wild, what a magnificent hockey night!
And there was even room for some more...Shortly after that, at 52:19 Annelies decided that it was her turn to get one into the goal and made the [6-3].
It was kept like that for a while, but unfortunately Victor and Jop wanted to meet the fans before the rest of the team would, so they both made a tripping on a player and were sent to the penalty bench (at 54:55 and 59:14). The penalty kill was successful the first time, but the second time The Hague shot the puck in our goal after 4 seconds (59:18) and the [6-4] was a fact.
The remaining 42 seconds Studs worked really hard to keep it that way, even tried to score again, and the last 10 seconds were counted down by the entire Studs players bench.
VICTORY!!!!!!!
Studs2 did it again, the third win of this season, the second in a row. Magnificent!
The fact: coming back from 0-3, working the way through to 6-3, that's just fantastic! Hard work, good work, together, good leadership and coaching, fast changes (remember that!) and not giving up but only improving what can be done better....you can be proud!
Afterwards some had a meet&greet with the fans, Bob had a coffee and an ice pack for his ankle because blocking a puck with your foot is no good (get well soon!) , there was a lot of fried dinner going round and of course there was BEER!
So that was a fabulous hockey night in Enschede. And while we were celebrating our victory at home, Studs1 were playing their 'game of the year' in Groningen....the story about that will be written soon (but I can already tell you that they did a superb job too, they WON)!
Now it's time to practice hard and focus on the next, and sadly the last game of this season. In two weeks we'll play away in Dordrecht :-)
