OK so our final regular season games happened on Friday and we are set for our new season to begin this week, The Playoffs!!!! Early game between Slovenia and Italy. An Italy tie or win will give them the 4th seed over the resting Irish and a loss will put Italy in the 5th seed. Italia had the entire line up healthy and ready to go but it was Slovenia who had a monster opening frame with a 5-1 lead. Shut outs at both ends for the entire 2nd frame. The 3rd period saw Slovenia out score the Italians 3-1 for a convincing 8-2 victory. Italy got goals from captain Marcelo Di Luzio and rookie Chris Johnson. Slovenia got 2 goals from both Ronald Richardson and Matt Goddard. Singles from Dan Barrett, Mike Rukavina, Dwayne Tygesen and Ron Cormier. Slovenia went 1-4 on the PP and Italy was 0-2. Players of the Game went to Italy’s Marcelo Di Luzio. WTF??? Where is Joe Peacock?????

And for the Slovenians back stop Gordie Ide.

Late game between Scotland and Portugal the top 2 seeds may be a preview of our Gold medal game. No impact on the standings BUT the Vezina was up for grabs as both squads were tied with the least goals against going into this tilt. Portugal was down many skaters and had to recruit the Barrett brothers from Slovenia to fill their minimum number of 10. Opening frame was very much a playoff style of hockey as both squads skated to a 1-1 draw. Portugal scored early in the 2nd and then scored again with 50 ticks left on the clock to take a 3-1 lead going into the final period. Shut out hockey at both ends for the final period as this was a tight affair from start to finish. Scotlands lone goal from Brad Stoll. Portugal got markers from Mike Russo, Rob McKean and Dave Woodside. Portugal went 1-4 on the PP and Scotland was 0-0. Players of the Game went to Scotlands goalie Tomi Nieminem.

And for the Portuguese goalie Scottie McCallum.

Special shout out to the Barrett brothers for helping out the Portuguese and who really look good with a plunger haha.

So that brings us to an end for our abbreviated 20 week regular season. schedule. Some shout outs and league awards go out to Portugals Scottie McCallum for winning his 3rd Vezina trophy and back to back as well beating out Scotlands Tomi Nieminem by 2 less goals against. Congrats to rookie sensation Scotlands #11 Brad Stoll who tore up the league this season with 45 points in just 16 games played, our Art Ross trophy winner. Brad also takes home the Rocket Richard trophy for most goals scored with 32, thats an average of 2 goals a game. Congrats to Scotland for winning the regular season 1st place award. Irelands Brice Lewis wins the Johnny Sparrow award for spending the most time with Brenda this season at 10 minutes. Slovenia’s Dwayne Tygesen wins the helper award with 18 assists. Scotlands Patty Sharp and Slovenias David Dodic led the league with 3 game winning goals for their respective squads. Team Scotland led most of the offensive awards with 88 goals for. They also led the league in penalty minutes with 56. Portugal and Italy with the lowest time in the box with 28 each. Portugal was tops in the league in both power play success at 33% and penalty kill at 85%. More individual awards will be announced shortly as the Exec will be voting on all of our other awards. This week kicks off our Playoff round robin games as all 5 teams begin with 0 points. Friday, March 25, 2022 the early game between the #2 Portuguese and the #5 Italians at 9:00 pm puck drop. Late game between the #3 Slovenians and the #4 Irish will go at 10:15 pm. Both games begin 15 minutes earlier than normal. #1 seed Scotland gets the week off to scout. Ok see you all on the ice lads!