House Playoff Game #2 – Saginaw, MI

Wow. What a game.

It's not in my nature to leave it at that, however.

This morning's second playoff game against the other Saginaw Bantam house team may have been the best youth hockey game I've seen.

It was a classic goaltender's duel. Both teams did not create very many clean opportunities for a goal because of how hard both teams were playing defense. What did get through was managed very well by both goalies. By the end of the second period I could sense that the game was going to end up coming down to one play that would win it for one of the two teams. If the other team won, they would get the house championship. If we won, we would force Game 3 this coming week.

With about thirty seconds left in the game, a puck deflected off a player and ended up around the outside hash marks on the right faceoff circle. The left defender came over and sent a backhand shot all the way down to the other end, forcing the other team's goalie to make a save. The puck seemed to come off his pads a bit further than he liked, but one of our centers beat both opposing defenders to the puck, and shot it first time. The puck somehow got through the goalie and into the top shelf of the net with 22.3 seconds left in the game. 

Very proud of the team for the hard earned win. Although, I think I'm prouder that they played a full game at an intense level more than anything else right now. Go play another 36 minutes like this in the championship game - that's all I can ask for.