JT Busts the Dusters

WWGRD was in desperate need of a win on Friday afternoon, as the possibility of an 0-3 start was staring the boys right in the face. They once again came up against a team who was scheduled to play a UWIHL double-header, just like they did with the Warriors the night before. Also like the Warriors, the Dusters handily won their first game of the back-to-back set, to the tune of a 7-1 thumping of the Anglewood Jacks. With another short bench, WWGRD knew this game would be no cakewalk.

The boys in blue came out flying, knowing a fast start would be massive for them as they were yet to have held a lead at anytime during the season. Emergency call-up Brent Lozinsky picked up the puck in the defensive zone and made a duster defender look silly before dishing the puck up the wing to Cappy Marc Berthiaume, setting up a 2-on-1. With the defender staying strong in the middle of the ice, Captain Crunch just threw a hard low shot on net that found its way straight through the tendy's five hole, giving WWGRD the much desired 1-0 lead.

The story early on (and eventually throughout the entire game) was the stellar play of WWGRD net minder, Johnny Tracey. JT was turning away everything the Dusters had to throw at him early, protecting the 1-0 lead at the half for everyone's favourite UWIHL team.

It was during one shift in the second half that Cappy Crunch turned a good game into a career game. With the puck dumped into the Duster zone (on a play that some onlookers wonder why icing wasn't called), the Macedonian Menace won the battle down low and threw the puck out front to a streaking Marc Berthiaume. After stretching to receive the pass, Big Bert once again simply tossed a hard shot on net that found its way passed the Duster tendy on the low-blocker side and doubled the WWGRD lead. Only seconds later, with a Duster defenceman holding the puck in his own zone, El Capitano applied pressure and picked off the attempted outlet pass. As he was barreling down on the Duster tendy, he was tripped by the defender and fell to his knees. He maintained composure and reached for the puck from his knees and was able to pop it passed a sprawling Duster tendy, marking his first career UWIHL hatty.

JT stood on his fucking head the entire
game and earned his first career shutout
and WWGRD player of the game honours

The 3-0 lead was more than enough for the man of the hour, JT. The Woodslee Wall turned aside breakaway after breakaway, rebound after rebound and simply had an answer for everything the Dusters were throwing at him. The team hopped the boards and celley'd with JT when his first career UWIHL shutout became official. As Dylan Berthiaume said after the game, "Given the amount of shots and chances they had, we could have lost this game and it wouldn't have been Johnny's fault at all."

"Well you only one gino when you have a goalie that comes out and plays like that for the boys," Marc Berthiaume told reporters after the game when they asked about his first career hat-trick. He then added, "we've been working hard these last few games, going in the tough areas and muckin', and today we benefitted from our hard work out there."

On a more solemn note, this was the last game behind the bench for WWGRD bench-boss Dylan Turnbull, who will be returning to his temporary placement in Peterborough before the boys hit the ice again (FUCK THE PETES!!!). He addressed the media before departing the rink after today's game, saying "I thought that the boys really rallied with a short bench today and picked each other up out there to get that big first W. Johnny played incredible between the pipes and we really came together out there." He was asked about his overall impression of the first three games of the year and said, "through the first few games we were just getting the rust off, and we expect the top performance from each player from this point on in the season."

The boys have some time off to recover from a busy week, as there is no date set for the team's next game yet. They will be looking to carry the momentum of this victory into their next few games to get that record back up above five hundo. Jerseys and other swag is available at the team store at the arena. This week only, memorabilia from the two milestones reached today, including a silent auction for the towel Marc Berthiaume used for his post-game shower after his first career hat-trick and the piece of Pro-Wrap that JT had on under his bucky during his first career shutout.

Early Season Struggles Continue

WWGRD came into action on Thursday night looking for their first win of the season and facing the talented Warriors team. With a short bench, WWGRD would be helped by the fact that the Warriors were forced to play a game immediately before the 11pm matchup. The Warriors were feeling good coming into the game after dismantling the Big Rigs 6-0 in the first half of their double-header.

The Warriors were flying early, using their speed and puck moving abilities to hem WWGRD in their own zone to start the game. However it was once WWGRD had the puck in the offensive zone that the Warriors struck first, as a man slipped behind the defenders and was hit with a beauty stretch pass to send him in. The speedy Warrior forward made a good move on Johnny Tracey before sliding it by the sprawled out tendy. The Warriors kept up their pressure, moving the puck in the zone and getting shots on goal before pouncing on a rebound to stretch their lead to two. JT was doing his best to keep WWGRD in the game, but the team was going to have to push back if they were going to stand a chance in this matchup.

The forwards up'd the pressure on The Warriors in the zone and got some good shots but couldn't beat the big and talented Warrior tendy who was coming off a shutout in his season debut earlier in the night. A couple big saves on good scoring chances took the wind out of the boys in blue, and the Warriors weren't taking their feet off the pedal. Newly-signed Jason Koumaris lead the rush down the ice and fired a low, hard shot on goal and Corey "Big Sexy" Agar was Johnny-on-the-spot and pounced on another rebound, opening up a 3 goal lead for the Warriors.



McNasty is WWGRD's POTG
after leading the team in blocked shots
and showing he has bought into the
teams philosophy

The TSN Turning Point for WWGRD came while they still faced the 3-0 deficit. With the Warriors pressuring again, the puck made its way back to the point where the defender let a shot go only to have it get blocked and deflected out of the zone off of a sprawling Matthew McNasty McNaughton. This all-out effort in a three goal game that had three minutes left ignited the WWGRD bench and inspired the team to go finish the game on a 1-1 run. After the Warriors took a 4-0 lead on a puck that squeaked through the Woodslee Wall, WWGRD turned their focus to breaking the shutout streak at the other end.

Sheldon Tracey held a clearing attempt in at the line and made a couple moves on defenders as he made his way down in the zone before chipping it down low to Dylan Berthiaume. D Bert toe-dragged around a defender as he made his way out from the corner before jamming it far side on the Warrior tendy. This ended his season-opening shutout streak at roughly 79 minutes and change. This was the lone bright spot in a 4-1 loss for WWGRD, their second straight to start the season.

Another feel good moment came after the game, when an unnamed Warriors player who gets off to punching smaller players in the back of the head while rocking his period-stain red buckey admitted that he was a long time reader of the blog. To this I say thank you, I appreciate the support and figured you deserved a shout out, so stay classy big guy.

WWGRD's lone goal scorer, Dylan Berthiaume, addressed some reporters post game with his thoughts. "I think we showed that when Johnny plays the way he did tonight, we can play with any team in this league." He then acknowledged that the team may not exactly be in peak form yet, saying "our cardio definitely needs some work, but we can't use a short bench as an excuse, especially when we're playing a team that played before the game too." Newly added defenceman, Joshua Covelli, who had another outstanding game on the blue-line, addressed some members of the media after the game as well. "We had some ups and downs out there, but I believe that the boys are slowly getting a good feel for each other, and we just gotta turn our attention to another big game tomorrow."

As Covelli alluded to, the team gets right back to it as they hit the ice tomorrow when they take on The Dusters. WWGRD will be looking for their first points of the season, so call in to work with your best excuses to get out and support the boys in their afternoon affair. Puck drop is slated for 1pm at Adie Knox.

Bonos Burst WWGRD Season Debut

The boys in blue returned to the ice last night in UWIHL action as they opened up their season against the Pro Bonos. Fans packed Adie Knox arena to see the triumphant return of WWGRD and to get their first glimpse of the team's off-season acquisitions. The Bonos got off to a quick start, as a shot from the point snuck through a clusterfuck of bodies in front of the net and beat the screened Johnny Tracey in net. WWGRD turned to two of its top performers from last year, A-Cap Seaner Micelli and ex-call-up/new-signee Brandon Pancerny to spark the team back into the game, and that they did. They kept the pressure up in the offensive zone, threw the puck at the net and Pancerny was Jonny-on-the-spot and pounced on the rebound and banged it in the back of the open cage.

Brandon Pancerny was named the Player
of the Game for his 2 point performance.

The Bonos responded with two more bullshit goals to open up a 3-1 lead. The team’s second goal was another seeing-eye shot from the point that somehow managed to tingle some twine behind a hopeless JT. They then extended their lead to 2 goals when a third point shot was going wide, but hit a hard-working Eric Bauer in front of the net and ricocheted into the open net. WWGRD needed another spark, and it came in the form of the Macedonian-Menace, Alex All-Swedish-No-Finnish-Chinstrap-Djordjevski. The hard-working European bombarded the Bono defenceman holding the puck and stripped it clean off his stick, sending himself on a breakaway. In an attempt to shake his nickname from last year, No-Finnish made it look easy sliding it through the Bono tendy's five hole and clanking it off the bottom-back bar. The WWGRD bench erupted as the team had new life.

The TSN Turning Point of the game again occurred at the blueline in the WWGRD defensive zone. The '89 muckers Mark Micelli and Ryan Bouttete pressured one of the Bono defenders and caused him to turn the puck over. When Bouttete went to flip the puck up the ice to a streaking Micelli and send him in clean, the Bonos were once again helped by the vast amount of horseshoes jammed up their asses, as the puck deflected off the defenders stick and stayed in the zone. The defender then made a couple moves, got in alone on the WWGRD tendy and made a move passed the desperate tendy to restore the two goal lead. Just like that, what could have been a 3-3 game was now a 4-2 game.

The Boners added another goal to make it a 5-2 game, and WWGRD frustration started to show. An irritated Sheldon Tracey took a solid shot at a Bono player as they were skating to the corner for the puck and sent the plug tumbling into the boards. He then proceeded to challenge all four of the other Bonos that charged him. This may have proven to spark the spirits of the hard-working WWGRD. Intense forechecking by the elder Micelli and the fresh-faced Pancerny lead to a take-away in the Bono zone, right in front of their own net. Pancerny calmly and collectedly slid a pass over to #11 who pumped it home to give the boys some hope. However this would prove to be too little, too late, as WWGRD would fall 5-3.

"I thought the team fought hard tonight," Pancerny said after the game, "unfortunately we couldn't get the win. We have another game Thursday and we're gunna have to come out hard if we wanna avoid going 0-2 to start the year." When asked what he thought of his UWIHL debut, Matt McNasty McNaughton said, "It was fast." When asked if he could add anything else, all he said was "fast."

Tickets are already sold out for Thursday’s much-anticipated rematch against those Warrior fuckers that knocked WWGRD out of the playoffs last year, but some Standing Room Only tickets are still available. Doors open at 9:30, puck drop is slated for 11:03.