A solitary farmhouse on Prince Edward Island, image credit to CNN
Isca Town stays atop the standings, DC wins the battle for second place, and a rivalry game is the third straight win for Portus Abonae.
Isca Town Captains 2, Labrador Caribou 0: Easy peasy, lemon squeezy for the Captains in this game. Although a 2-0 win isn’t exactly a blowout, this is exactly the kind of game Isca Town likes to play. They spent a lot of time controlling the puck, passing it around, looking for an opening, and limiting Labrador’s chances. A goal in the first from Shaun Webster and then a goal from Jason Gross in the second gave them a lead they would never relinquish. After the game, the Caribou’s star center Victor Hall expresses his frustration: “It was a tough one tonight. We didn’t do a good enough job asserting ourselves and we let them run the show for the most part. You hate to see that against any team, but if we want to be a playoff team this year, we’ve got to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys like Isca Town.” The Captains stay atop the standings and are quite close to their miraculous pace of 116 points of last year. If they simply repeated these results over the next two-thirds of the season, they would end on 111 points, also one of the highest point totals ever. For the Caribou, they were competing with Londinium for the fourth playoff spot, but have now fallen behind. Their offense has been a pleasant surprise, but they need to shore up their defense to really be competitive.
DC Oilers 1, Pons Aelius Steelers 0: The best explanation for this result is that DC beat Pons Aelius at their own game. Usually the Steelers defend, defend, defend, and wait for the right moment to counterattack. This time around, the Oilers found the right moment to catch the Steelers off-guard and hit them with the counterstrike. The Steelers were on the attack, but Ted Carpenter made a save and quickly slipped the puck out to Julian Stephens, and the swiftness of the Oilers’ passing took the Steelers by surprise. They reversed the ice really quickly, and Stephens finished off a give-and-go to give the Oilers the lead late in the second period. The Oilers took over second place and remain three points behind the Captains for first place and securely in playoff position. As for the Steelers, they are just one point up on the Royals, but still in playoff position. Their excellent defense is allowing only 0.5 goals/game, keeping them in the hunt.
Portus Abonae Privateers 3, Aquae Sulis Bears 2: This rivalry game in Portus Abonae was a tale of two periods. In the first period, the Privateers scored three times, as Archie Cole, Jessie Brock, and Jamie Atwood found the net. There was talk of taking out Bears netminder Art Morrison, but he stayed in the game. In the second period, Martin Wong and Nick May scored to pull the Bears to within one with five minutes remaining. But for the final twenty-five minutes, the play was back and forth, and both netminders were up to the challenge, each making double-digit third-period saves. Portus Abonae skated off with the win, now 2-0 in these rivalry games this season. The Bears are sitting in 10th place, but one point out of last, along with fellow no-hopers Mancunium and Vinovium. It’s a dreadful 45-point season they are on pace for, which would be disappointing to say the least. In this third round-robin before the All-Star break, they at least need to be competitive, or this could be a truly awful season. By contrast, the Privateers seem to have awakened from their early season slump somewhat, having won three in a row now. They have some momentum and sit just two points out of 7th place. A good third round-robin that puts them only single-digit points out of playoff position is imperative if they expect to compete.
Newfield Rangers 3, Eboracum Sharpshooters 5: A hat trick from Newfield's Brady Dowell couldn't stop Eboracum from securing a big road win to end the second round-robin. The Rangers winger and leading scorer scored once each in the first, second, and third periods. Unfortunately, his goals never tied the game, but only brought them within 2-1, 3-2, and 4-3. The Sharpshooters put the game to bed with an empty-netter in the last minute of the game. Eboracum will finish the first third of the season with an above-.500 record and 26 points, six behind fourth-place Londinium. They’ve clearly established themselves as a top-half team with a great offense, but their defensive inconsistencies are holding them back. They’ll also have to challenge the top three or four teams more if they expect to compete. Newfield’s been scrappy this year, and while they aren’t on pace to be competitive, they are on target to improve from last year.
Vinovium Lumberjacks 1, Londinium Royals 2: The Lumberjacks had a chance, they had a lead, but they collapsed in the third period, and the Royals rallied for the 2-1 victory. Roman Massey scored in the first, and the Lumberjacks held the lead for over a period. But the fast skating and better conditioning of the Royals began to tell, and Londinium began getting more open shots. Nico Nielsen beat Mel Pinson after weaving his way through the defense to tie the game, and at 16:02, Ben Malone got an open snap shot that beat Pinson high to put the Royals ahead. They've won eight of their last nine games. A win for Vinovium would have meant not being in last place for basically the first time all season. As is, their dismal results project a point total of 42, which would have been last by far the previous season. They will need to improve. As for the Royals, they're in fourth place, one point behind the Steelers and six points clear of Labrador and Eboracum. They're on pace for 96 points, their best result in recent history.
Sept-Iles Whalers 1, Mancunium Raiders 0: These two teams would likely want to be flying up and down the ice much more than they did in this game, but it was a hard-fought game nonetheless. Denis Babin flipped a shot into the net at 13:24 of the third period, catching Heath Lindsay off guard and bringing "Le Navire" to its feet in celebration. But for the first 53 minutes, there was hard checking, more than one penalty, and excellent penalty kill and defensive work on both sides. Jack Green, Troy Buchanan, and Jed Greenfield for Mancunium especially frustrated "Les Balinieres". But they couldn't hold on forever, and the nimble Whalers finally found an opening for Babin. A third of the way through, Sept-Iles sits in seventh place, topping the bottom half of the league. Their one point per game average would have situated them in eighth place last year, a significant improvement over their actual last place. Can this young team put something together and make a run? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, Mancunium is tied for last with Vinovium, an ignominious position to be in.
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