THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2007
HNA TIER 3 FALL/WINTER LEAGUE
LOS PHANTASMOS vs. GRIM REAPERS
Los Phantasmos 3 – Grim Reapers 3
BENSENVILLE, IL – Dylan Thomas famously wrote, “Do
not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the
dying of the light.” Well, Los Phantasmos raged three
times in the second period, but the Grim Reapers managed to
rage once every frame and forced a tie in a hard fought contest.
One player short of a full line-up, Los Phantasmos rolled
three sets of wingers and rotated two centers for their offensive
attack. The wing pairings for the evening were Greg “Auden”
Rolnick with Dan “Poe” Phillips, Randy “Whitman”
Cochran with Keith “Eliot” Hales, and Bo “Yeats”
Coonce with Sean “Dickinson” Tang. In the middle,
Ross “Longfellow” Gerbasi and Craig “Shakespeare”
Sonnenschein shared centering duties.
The blueliners for the evening were Jeremy “Frost”
Campbell, Jay “Angelou” Smith, Scott “Wordsworth”
Battle, and Tedd “Keats” Vanadilok. These poetic
souls all stood guard in front of netminder, AJ “Baudelaire”
Brandt.
In the spirit of timeless poetry, and with much genuflection
and apologies to the writing community, may we present the
following game recap in (dreadful) poetic form:
A first period awash in ice chips
Los Phantasmos did valiantly skate
Unfortunately out shot by the opposition
They suffered one lone goal mistake
Our heroes came alive in the second
When Gerbasi zoomed in towards the crease
Roofed a wicked wrister high stick side
And evened the scoring at one apiece
Los Phantasmos built on their momentum
When Gerbasi attacked again
His shot was angrily blocked away
But the rebound was shoved in by Tang
Seeking redemption in threes
Hales fed Gerbasi, who was quickly beset
Again Gerbasi’s shot was denied
But Cochran buried it into the open net
The period was sadly marred
When the ‘Repears notched a tally on the board
Los Phantasmos lead was cut to one
And the bench was awash with discord
In between trips to the box
For infractions real and imaginary
Los Phantasmos spent the third period
In a goal drought most scary
(Some might even say it was like hockey dysentery)
The ‘Reapers remained ravenous
And battled with Battle to score once more
Eventually working the puck past Brandt
Who was metaphorically gored like a betrayed matador
To the overtime period they went
Sticks gripped tight enough to cause blisters
But no team was to pull ahead
Thus forcing them both to kiss their sister
GAME NOTES: After suffering from an uncharacteristic absence
from the score sheet, Gerbasi is officially “off the
schneid,” as he put up 1 goal and 2 assists; Los Phantasmos
out shot the Grim Reapers 33-32; Los Phantasmos special teams
weren’t quite so poetic, going 0-3 on the PP and 7-8
on the PK (though they did manage to kill off a potentially
hazardous 5 on 3 disadvantage); Speaking of poetry, make sure
to be at Borders on State next Tuesday night when Los Phantasmos’
notorious netminder, AJ Brandt will be signing copies of his
new book of free verse, “There once was a goalie from
Manassas...” Brandt is an engaging and masterful storyteller,
who recounts his greatest moments in goal, all in limerick
form! Show up early, as the line is sure to wrap around the
block.