Monday, December 15, 2008

Flyers at Spirit River Saturday 13th

The second half of a home and home between the two best teams in the NPHL and once again it was the Rangers getting off to the better start. The game wasn't as physical as we were expecting and it was the Rangers who were the more intense of the two teams. Another big second period for the Flyers set up the victory and it was Dustin Kersey with an absolute beauty beating the defence to the red line before cutting to the front of the net and roofing a shot under the bar. To be honest the Flyers played a fairly lackluster game and were outshot for maybe the first time all season. Vizutti was strong in net and two more goals, one into an empty net, for Ryan Carter sealed the victory. I am not going to go into too much detail here since you can listen to a highlights package of the game over at energeticcity.ca/flyers

No fights in the game which I think both Jon and I found very surprising especially given some of the stick work the Rangers call "hockey." I speak in particular of a cross check to the mouth that Dustin Kersey received while trying to cross the blue line. That's not hockey at any level and you hate to see it in a work man's league like the NPHL and against Kersey who is a good player and a good guy as well.

The Rangers barn is not the nicest I have been to but the broadcast location that we were able to use was fabulous. Directly about the benches and within ear shot of the players. Only once did we have to try to ignore some verbals from Lefley (Mike I think) who, safe to say, doesn't like Bryan Lewis. I am sure the folks at home heard the language which is unfortunate but I love being that close and getting an even better idea of what was going on in the game.

As usual the bus ride home with the Flyers was fun. Not profitable but fun.

I am going to give three stars to the Kersey, Wiens, and Carter line. They played well in both games and were the best forwards for the Flyers over the course of the two games. Wiens even had a nice fat upper lip to show for his efforts courtesy of some more Rangers stick work.

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