There are a number of certainties in the world. The sun will rise in the East, the Jays will
lose in Tampa
and the Leafs will miss the playoffs. It
seems that one other certainty is the 99 Chiefs will lose to Hamilton.
First, I apologize for the delay in preparing this article. Do to the previously mentioned cutbacks, we have no statistician and I wanted to look up some numbers to see if the above was true. Turns out, it’s close to the truth, but we have not lost every game to the Huskies (previously known as the Reps).
Using my superior web search skills, I found each of the previous 4 seasons game history and here’s how things look against Hamilton (prior to this game tonight)
0-6-2
That’s right, 0 wins! We, the 99 Chiefs, have yet to beat Hamilton. We have given up 27 goals, been shutout 3 times and have scored a meager 8 times on Hamilton tenders.
At this point you’re probably thinking “He’s making this up. No normal person would know this off-hand”. Well, that’s where you are wrong. Not concerning the “normal person” part, but the fact that I didn’t know this off-hand. I’ll add some links at the end of this story if you want to check them out yourself.
Anyway, you can probably tell where this is going. And, true to our history, we were unable to beat Hamilton. As a matter of fact, we, once again, were shutout. The odd thing is that each year (and this is my 4th) it never feels like there’s much separating the two teams. Not much other than the fact that they keep beating us. This is probably the team we have done the worst against of all the Alliance teams. I’m not looking this one up to be certain, you think I’m crazy?
This game started off a little slow, both teams unable to get it going early on. That changed midway through the first when a fluke bounce somehow managed to get past the Chief goalie and it was already 1-0 Hamilton. I felt like we improved as the game went on, but were not able to generate a ton of offense. Our first powerplay, early in the second was not one of our better efforts, and we happened to get hemmed in our zone ( I just had to use that term – thanks Bob Cole) at the end of the powerplay. One screened shot later, it was 2-0 Hamilton as I don’t think Ashton got a good look at that one. As stated, we were playing better and generating a few chances. We hit a post, had one just trickle wide and in the third, still trailing 2-0 and on another powerplay, Curtis A. had a backhand from the slot elude the goalie, but not the crossbar.
This was the way it ended as our Hamilton curse continued for at least one more game.
0-7-2.
We get at least one more crack this year to break the curse.
Player Spotlight
One positive I can think of from this game was the physical play of one of our new guys – Darien C. You don’t typically see many hard (and clean) open-ice hits in a season, but Darien almost turned the game around in the third with a beauty just inside their blueline. The hit caused a turnover and good scoring chance. Now, Darien has been doing this all year and believe me, other teams know when he is on the ice.
And now for the previous year stats:
Peewee
Minor Peewee
Atom
Minor Atom
(these links may cease to work at any given moment. They are all part of Bladenet and I have no control over how they manage them. They go back to 2002 so I don’t expect them to be removed anytime soon)