GAME SUMMARY: Hogs Advance in B Pool Playoffs!

FINAL SCORE (OT):
Sweat Hogs 4
Hanson Brothers 3

Some history tonight.

First ever Sweat Hogs overtime game, and 90 seconds later, first ever Sweat Hogs overtime win! Biggest win in Hogs history? Could be.

We went into this game as a considerable underdog (underhog?) with a record of 5-15, playing a Hanson Brothers team sporting a 10-9-1 record. Good enough for 9th overall, or the top team in the B Pool. (Teams 9-16 made the B pool. We came in at 16th).

The Hansons got on the board first, but the Hogs pounced right back, as Nick fed a pass to Dom who beat the Chiefs tender to tie things at 1. We traded goals again before the Hansons took the lead 3-2 at half.

The Hogs shut them out the rest of the way, tying things up halfway through the second to knot things at 3. After making a couple late saves in the late minutes, Dave kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win.

In OT, Dom capped off a great game, scoring his 3rd goal of the game from a scramble on the right side of the net to give us the win. Credit to Jeff Barton who collected 3 assists on the night, and to the rest of the team who played solid defensive hockey, and kept them off the scoresheet.

Next week we play the Punishers in the semi-finals at 6:10, and if we win that game, we meet at 9:30 for the finals. (The winner of the Maniacs and Wobbly Pops). Ahh, playoff hockey!

In other Gm Blog-type info, I guess it's about time to pull the ol' plug on the Sens Playoff theory, as losses to the Canes and Thrashers have all but mathmatically eliminated them. The Sens have become vegetables. Technically still alive, but....

GAME SUMMARY: Chuck back on track

FINAL SCORE
Chuck Norrii: 13
Street Ballers: 7

Finally, FINALLY, Chuck Norrii is back on the winning side. This was the team of old (no pun intended....this will make sense in a sec) playing with strength, endurance, outsmarting our opponents, and not getting frustrated. Even when one of our opposing players was somewhat annoying. (I don't regret the head shot :)

Pun reference: Team of old. Our opponents tonight, for the most part, came right from the Seniors home. It was like playing dodgeball against my parents, and Nick's parents, and Sim's, and etc etc. With only 2 young players on the team, they put up a pretty good fight. They're younger guy was a solid player, but outside of that, this was a solid win for Chuck. We played well, but showed some rust, and at out best, should have outscored them considerably.

Next week is the season finale against the team we beat in the season opener, 18-2. Hopefully we can register the same kind of scoring margin and help keep us in the Top 4 for the playoffs. Could be looking at a semi-final match-up against Dickon, Shan and the Blue Balls. Hopefully we can finish 3rd and meet them in the Finals.

M@

SENS PLAYOFFS DRIVE: Update!

Ok, admittedly, my original post on the subject of the Sens making the post-season was more of a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration, at best. Haha, what if the Sens run the board and only lose 1 game the rest of the way....

Well, here we are more than one week later, and everything I speculated has come true. The Sens have beaten every single team they've faced, except for one loss I afforded them, to the Boston Bruins. So with my so far spotless "prediction" still in play, let's go over the rules one more time:

The Sens will win every game from now until the end of the season, beginning Wednesday night in Carolina. The remainder of the Eastern Conference will play out like so: If a 3rd place team plays a 6th place team, the 3rd place team wins. If a 4th place team plays a 5th place team, 4th would win, but it'd be in OT or a shootout, so the 5th place team would collect the point. Unless of course, they were playing the Sens, who I've already indicated win all their games. (And if they're going on this kind of a streak, well, they're not taking the Sabres or Leafs into OT!) Also, if an Eastern Conference team plays a team in the West, the team with the most points gains the win.

Anyways, here how things now play out. Breathe a sigh of relief, Habs fans:

1. Bruins 114 pts.
2. Devils 113 pts.
3. Capitals 112 pts.
4. Flyers 106 pts.
5. Penguins 97 pts.
6. Hurricanes 95 pts.
7. Senators 94 pts.
8. Canadiens (somehow) 92 pts.

9. Rangers 91 pts.
10. Panthers 89 pts.
11. Sabres 83 pts.
12. Maple Leafs 73 pts.
13. Thrashers 68 pts.
14. Lightning 65 pts.
15. Islanders 57 pts.

The Rangers only pick up 7 points the rest of the season, with a much tougher schedule than the Canadiens, which resulted in their slide. Otherwise, things go relatively as planned. Should be an interesting stretch going forwards. Should the Sens keep pace over the next week, expect another update next weekend!

Oh, and the Sweat Hogs lost to the North Stars 8-7. Not a great defensive game, hopefully the Hogs can tighten things up for the Playoffs and their first round match-up next Sunday, 7:50 p.m.

So far, so good!

If you scroll down and take a look at my article about the Senators and their almost-no percent chance of making the post-season. I calculated that if the Sens win all but one of their game, and the rest of the teams in the East win the games they should win (5th place teams beats a 10th place team, a 3rd place team beats a 4th place team, but in OT), then the Sens would finish 7th overall, tied with the Panthers.

This weekend, I will do a re-calculation and see if this still works, but thus far, the Sens have followed my prediction to a tee! They lost to the Bruins, which I predicted, but came away with 2 points in all their other games thus far. Will it keep up? Well, no, but as a Sens fan who watches and cheers regardless of their situation, it IS fun to speculate, and makes the games seem like they have more meaning than maybe they actually do. Especially beating up on the poor Habbies, who look eerily similar to last year's Sens. Don't worry Hab fans, this time next year YOU'LL be playing spoiler in March!

GO SENS GO!!!

M@

GAME SUMMARY: Hogs let one slip away vs The Great Unknown

FINAL SCORE
Sweat Hogs 2
Great Unknown 4

With 2 games to go in the regular season, the Hogs have clinched a playoff spot so these last contests are fine tuning for the post-season. Tonight was a good indication of what we're set to face when the ball drops in 2 weeks. Facing the Great Unknown (8-10-2) the Hogs put up a solid fight, and even led at the half, but a couple errant plays and a bad call by the ref on a ball on the goal line cost us the game.

We opened the scoring on a great feed from Dom Peluso, who threw a behind the back back-hand pass to Barton at center who put it away for the 1-0 lead. Minutes later, Desjardins, returning to the Hogs after missing 2 games, put one away from the point that trickled past the Unknown keeper for a 2-0 lead. The Great Unknown got one back near the end of the half, but the Hogs held the lead down 2-1.

The second half saw the Hogs play a more defensive game, not putting up as many shots as they could have, and playing a lot of man-to-man defense. This resulted in the occasional bad pass onto the Unknown sticks and Dave bailed us out a few times, but a couple got past. The goal to make it 4-2 was a crippler, as the ball sat on the goal line, with the net slightly askew, and the ref called it a goal. The Hogs lost all momentum, and dropped the game 4-2.

All things considered, missing only Aaron on the night, the team played a solid team game, and when you look at our previous game vs this team, an 8-0 loss, this is a vast improvement. The Sweat Hogs will look at next week's game vs the North Stars as a chance to build some momentum and confidence going into the B Pool Playoffs in 2 weeks.

Rare Nathan Footage

Here's some rare video footage of Nathan, who's learned to pull himself up on furniture. His new favourite game is "Roll Toy On End-Table". Enjoy.

For the Eternal Optimist

Ok, I admit the Sens chances of making the playoffs are all but impossible. They'd have to go on a sick run the likes of which Sens fans haven't seen since....well...the beginning of last season after the Cup run. All you hear about in the media these days are stories about a Glimmer of Hope. How if the Sens make it to 94 points, by only losing 1 game the rest of the regular season, that should be enough. For this Ottawa Senators team to run the board the rest of the way, with a rookie goalie and 3 games against the Bruins....well...calling it a longshot would be a massive understatement. It would take a miracle.

So, they say we'd need to get to 94 points, eh? Win 15 of the last 16 games, eh?? Well, I tested the theory. Here's my criteria:

I simulated the rest of the games featuring Eastern Conference teams. Based on the standings today, I assumed a 5th place team would beat a 7th place team, 4th would beat 6th, 11th would beat 14th, etc. I also assumed that if a 5th place team played a 6th place team, it would end in OT or a shootout. (Same with 1st vs 2nd, 10th vs 11th, 14th vs 15th, etc). In inter-conference match-ups, I gave the win to whichever team had more points. If both teams were within 1 point of each other, I assumed it would end in OT or a shootout. (This never actually happened). My final assumption, and this is the big one....would be that the Ottawa Senators lose only one game, against the Bruins.

You ready?

Here we go:

Final Regular Season Standings 2008-2009

1 Boston Bruins 119 pts.
2 New Jersey Devils 118 pts.
3 Washington Capitals 116 pts
4 Philadelphia Flyers 107 pts
5 Montreal Canadiens 99 pts
6 Pittsburg Penguins 95 pts
7 OTTAWA SENATORS 94 pts*
8 Florida Panthers 94 pts*

9 Carolina Hurricanes 91 pts
10 New York Rangers 84 pts
11 Buffalo Sabres 82 pts
12 Toronto Maple Laffs 74 pts
13 Atlanta Thrashers 62 pts
14 Tampa Bay Lightning 60 pts
15 New York Islanders 53 pts

This doesn't take into account a number of things, working both for and against Ottawa. On the downside: There will likely be more OT and shootout games played, so this is a big guess. I had 12 games go into OT or the shootout, so I don't know how accurate that will end up being, but I assume there'll be more. Very hard to tell.

On the plus side, Tampa Bay only wins 2 games for the rest of the season according to my system, and the Islanders merely get 1 point in a shootout loss to the Bolts. If the bottom dwelling teams pick up the slack and win a lot more games than I've indicated, this works heavily into Ottawa's favour, and could (COULD!) afford them the opportunity to maybe, just maybe....lose twice?

Anyways, there you have it, a reason for all you Sens fans to cheer every game from here on out, instead of being ironically bitter every time they win because we're all excited about having Tavares in a Sens jersey.

*(Ottawa and Florida were REALLY tied after all this. They both had 42 wins on the season, and split the season series 2-2. Since I don't really want to calculate goal differential, I'll give Ottawa the win, since one of their losses to Florida was an OT loss. So Ottawa got a 5 points out of a possible 8, and Florida got 4 points.)

NCPT: Before & After

Back in the day, when I first started the NCPT, I had no trouble finding hosts for our tournaments. We generally have between 15-30 players per tournament, more often than not averaging between 16 and 20. So 2-3 tables.

But lately, there seems to be a shortage of willing hosts. This season, in 9 tourneys, we've played out of 4 locations. Three times at Campbell's, three times at Keleher's, twice at Glenn's and once at the Party Room at John K's apartment.

Used to be, back in the day, that I, as tournament organizer, would host over half the tourneys, be it in my apartment in 2003-2004, the party room at my apartment, or in my basement, circa 2005-2006. But, those days are gone. It's amazing what a difference a tiny little baby can make:

BEFORE

AFTER

GAME SUMMARY: Chuck Norrii vs First Crusaders

FINAL SCORE
Chuck Norrii 11
First Crusaders: 13

D'oh well.

So Chuck suffered another loss bringing us down to a .500 team, much worse than any prognosticator would have assumed at the beginning of the Winter 2009 campaign. On this night, it sounds as though the Norrii may have beaten themselves, rather than their opponents. Some hi-lights from Nick Desjardins, making his return to the court since the birth of his son Frederic:

Can't believe we lost!

They were not a good team, and we couldn't beat them. They only had 2 good guys, and their girls could catch for the most part. Their one strategy was waiting until they got 3 or 4 balls, then throwing them at once. They did this all the time. We were just winging it for the most part, and our disorder ended up costing us.

The worst part was that we went up 4-0, and then lost the next 4 or 5 games. I'm telling you - it just wasn't very good.

Anyways, that was that. No game next week because of Spring Break.

Bah well, onwards and upwards. In 2 weeks we play a team currently sitting in 10th place, and if we're playing up to our level, this should be an easy win. Everything's must-win from here on out if we want to make the A pool.

M@

GAME DAY: Chuck Norrii vs First Crusaders

Not much to say here. Chuck Norrii (4-3, +24) have a tough game tonight against the First Crusaders (5-1-1, +24). We're in 4th place, they're in 3rd. If we want to make the A-pool playoffs for a chance at the Championship, this is a pretty big game to win.

Look for Laura to replace M@ tonight, Karen, Mandy and Joyce for the girls, and Tom, Alex, Nick, Jeff and newcomer Hogan for the guys.

As I'm not there, I'll post updates tomorrow when the emails start trickling in. Good luck tonight, Chuck!

M@

GAME SUMMARY: Hogs lose big vs undefeated Jager Bombers

FINAL SCORE:
Sweat Hogs 0
Jager Bombers 12

Ouch.

Yes, this was an ugly game. It could have been a LOT uglier, but we actually played some occasionally good defense and prevented the Jager Bombers (16-0-2) from running it up any further, which they absolutely could have. Despite the 12 goals, Dave played quite well, making several insane glove saves, some of which had some of the Bombers shaking their head.

What didn't help was being short on both offense and defense, as our 2 spares were last-minute cancellations. (Apparently they were even IN the building for the game, but had to jet right before....one had to leave and the other guy was his ride, lol. D'oh!) So we played with 5 forwards and 3 defensemen, and a very busy goalie. Solid game from Reynolds, who was tested....often.

All this being said, we did clinch a playoff spot, as we find ourselves 5 points up on the last 2 place teams, and with only 2 games left, they will be unable to catch us. Our next two games are against The Great Unknown (7-10-2, March 15, 7:00pm) and the North Stars (2-15-1, March 22, 4:30pm), both will be great tests going into the playoffs, and winning both may help our positioning in the B Bracket.

M@

Who would you keep in a Keeper?

So I haven't written about my Keeper Pool in a while, mainly because there hasn't been much to report. I've climbed the standings to 11th of 12 teams, as the last place guy sold the farm for draft picks. Still, it's nice not to be in the cellar, though owning my own draft pick is a kick in the pants, as 12th would obviously be better. But what can you do.

I digress.

I made one move on trade deadline day, sending Kris Russell and a 4th round pick and in exchange got a 3rd round pick back. As both picks are previously belonging to the same person, I basically moved up exactly 12 spots in the draft with this move. I hate losing Russell for such a low price, but I had no room to keep him, so at least I got something.

Not having room for guys is the main reason for this post. I've already decided who's gonna stay and who's gonna go (depending on off-season offers, of course) But I'd like your opinion on who you think I should keep on the team, and who I should let go in the off-season. I am permitted to keep 17 players on the list below (position irrelevant) as long as 2 are rookies.

Forwards:
Kane, Toews, Kessel, Zherdev, O'Sullivan, Tuomo Ruutu, Turris, Mueller, Voracek, Cogliano, Svatos and Penner.

Defence:
Erik Johnson, Jack Johnson, Barker, Vlasic, Carle, Sekera, Campoli, Pietrangelo.

Goalies:
Price, Dipietro, Rask, Pavelec

Anyways, just for arguments sake, or if you're bored at work today, this let's you play GM a little bit, and see what team you would make. My current list has 9 forwards, 6 d-men and 2 goalies from the above mentioned.

M@

PS, one thing to keep in mind is that it's a Keeper Pool, meaning I'm looking at trying to win the pool 2-3 years down the road, not right now, as my best players are still developing.

Game Summary: Chuck Norrii lose to the Sleeveless guy

Final Score 11-7 with Buck Dodgers picking up the win.

Chuck went into this game feeling good coming off a strong win last week, but were unable to pick up the important win this time around.

The Norrii played a solid game, but were ultimately done in by arguably one of the best dodgeball players I've seen. Referred to only as the Sleeveless Guy, our opponent had a cannon of a shot, and as a result I spent a large portion of the game on the sidelines rubbing my arm. He was virtually uncatchable, though many of the Norrii made several attempts. Normally I wouldn't single out a specific player, but when he sat, we won almost every game.

Oh well, onwards and upwards. Next week Laura returns to the court as Chuck tries to turn the ship around. Special thanks to Pat, Kaitlin and El for coming out to spare tonight. Anytime a member of the Chuck norrii Alumni can make an appearance, it's a good thing.

M@

GAME DAY: Chuck Norrii vs Double Or Nothing

Tonight Chuck Norrii get the Welcome M@s out! GM Cox finally makes his return to the dodgeball team in an effort to build on last week's win.

The Norrii will be in tough as they've lost Nick Desjardins for this week and possibly next with the birth of his son Frederic. Congrats to Nicky and former Chuck Norrii Michele on the new addition!

In the meantime, the Norrii inch ever closer to retaking first overall, remaining a win behind the first place Blue Balls, led by former teammates Shan, Duane, Dickon and Amanda. This is a very possible Championship match-up.

But as of right now, Chuck sits in 4th place with a record of 4-2. Our opponents sit right behind us in 5th with a 3-3 record. This should be a good test to see how far we've come as a team. See you tonight at 7 at Glashan!

M@