NAHL All-Star Game
National Arena in Londinium
Londinium, Nova Anglicana - The annual NAHL All-Star game took place at the National Arena in Londinium last night, where Team McQueen claimed a 4-3 victory over Team Smith. Unlike a regular season game, the All-Star Game consisted of three periods of ten minutes each, rather than the usual twenty. This was to lighten the load on the players, since it was only an exhibition. Before the game, goalkeepers Brett McQueen of Pons Aelius and Justin Smith of Isca Town were named as captains, and proceeded to pick their squads, schoolyard style, until each had an eighteen-man team.
The puck dropped, and play was noticeably different. Most teams in the NAHL favor patient build-up or a modest attacking style, but in this exhibition, play flowed freely and attack was the order of the day. Smith and McQueen are two of the best NAHL goalkeepers, and they played well, but they weren't about to overexert themselves, not with first place still up for grabs in the second half. Four minutes into the first period, Owen Jones, playing on a line with his DC teammate Julian Stephens and dynamic Aquae Sulis right winger Nick May, snapped a shot past Smith to put Team McQueen up 1-0. Two minutes later, Brady Dowell of the Newfield Rangers had a breakaway; he dodged Newfield teammate Graham Drummond and beat McQueen to his glove side high to tie the score. Asked after the game if he went easy on Dowell, Drummond said with a chuckle, "Heck no. I was trying to take his head off, 'cause you know he'll be bragging about that one in practice for days."
The first period ended with no further scoring, but the second period started with a bang. Team McQueen's Gaston Fortin, of Sept-Iles, executed a terrific give-and-go with his Whalers teammate Rene Kelly, that ended with Fortin beating Smith to give his team a 2-1 lead barely forty seconds into the second period. Five minutes later, Tim Smith, of the Eboracum Sharpshooters, took a nifty pass from his linemate and regular teammate Glen Gray and rifled a snap shot into the net past McQueen to tie the score at two. Smith is typically the passer and Gray the goalscorer for Eboracum, but the reverse was true to great effect for Team Smith. McQueen and Smith both made nice saves later in the period to keep the score level at 2-all. They were replaced by Labrador's Dave Francis and Londinium's Eli Boyd, respectively, after making 15 saves apiece.
In the third period, play loosened up even more. Nearing the end of the game, even the d-men were aggressively attacking and defense thrown to the winds. This made it more difficult for Francis and Boyd, but they played admirably, if often with too little support. At 4:38, Kevin Morgan of Vinovium was the open man when Team McQueen whipped the puck around the offensive zone, hoping to expose a weakness in the Team Smith defense. A quick wrister was all it took to beat a sliding Boyd and put Team McQueen up 3-2. It was a great moment for Morgan, and for Vinovium fans, who have seen a lot of losing and tough games this season. But at 7:21, Team Smith answered back. Sammy Jensen, the other DC Oilers' first-line All-Star, received an outlet pass from Quinn Baird, skated and dodged past the Isca Town defensive pairing of Jason Gross and Louis Tremblay, then, one on one with Francis, faked left, went right, and buried the puck in the back of the net to tie the score. If no team scored a winner in the next 2:39, the game would go to a five-minute overtime, then a shootout. But that wasn't necessary, as Philippe Laurent's heavy slap shot rebounded off Boyd, and Mancunium's Brandon Scanlon was there to finish the job, shoving the puck home at 9:14 to provide the final margin. Team McQueen held off the six attackers of Team Smith in the final 47 seconds and took the 4-3 victory.
After the game, players hugged amiably and fans cheered an exciting game. The NAHL draft is up next, and then the second half of the season begins. It's anyone's game, as the excellent All-Star play demonstrated today.
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