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BOHA Back To League Play After Successful Tournament
In the closing ceremony after a record breaking 11th consecutive successful invitational tournament, BOHA President Andy Leroux thanked the tournament CEO Terry O’Neill for a job well done and awarded him another two year extension for this well paying job. To many observant of this prestigious event, it was a flawless 5 days of great hockey, best foods and refreshments in town with the usual Friday night entertainment to cap off the highlights. At the end, when the tally is in, some of the deserving West Island charities will be the winners and BOHA members will proudly hold their heads high.
Back in league play, both Red and Gold played a cautious 1-2-2 formation game. For a while, it appears that 0-0 was going to be the score until the ensuing faceoff in the Red zone when Red’s first draft choice, Mike Rourke, who has never missed a runway, was off his lane to allow Gold’s Jeff “Jet” Jones to side swipe the puck from Paul Painter who had his heavy leaded skates on again to score on Red’s half asleep goalie. Although the zebras signaled that the puck did cross the red line, BOHA video replay machine could not capture the play as the speed of the puck was below the standard 15 mph set by the competition board. Team Red’s offensive line D, Joe Marchildon, who was criticized for his “gentlemanly” play lately, then took his famous snapper inside the blue line and followed with a pass out to deflect off JP Mayer’s skate for the tie. With a goal more from each side, the score ended in a 2-2 tie.
Team Green, touted as the favourite team to finish first by Vegas, gambled on a new formation and backfired to a 5-1 loss to Team Blue. With the game still close after 3 minutes, Team Green used their newly devised 1-0-4 formation where the designated defenceman goes in to the offensive zone while the other four stays on the blue line to wait for the puck. Team Blue, the new favourite to win it all, caught on early and used their dump out to their speedy wingers getting twenty two 3 on 1’s with Paul Regimbal involved in twenty of them. With three minutes left in the game, Team Green playing coach Neil Gargul became the first casualty in BOHA coaching fraternity when he was fired by aluminum tab collector Jack Hubert who felt that the strategy is only good for warm ups. With the game over and behind closed door, Team Green held a meeting and voted Ken Rowe to be the next game coach, who confided to his team mate and junior Field Reporter Peter McCusker that he might use the 0-0-5 formation the next game.
Team Black, who was summoned earlier by league president Andy Leroux why the team is using so many call ups, introduced to each other one more time before coming on the ice to meet Team White, who is riding on a four game winning streak. Playing with confidence never seen before, Team White went up 3-0 and started to coast. Meanwhile, Team Black became familiar with each other and led by the spirited one legged Mark Dubois, who is playing with a broken leg, Team Black began to chip away. First it was Mike Montagano goal and then new comer Greg Maloney, who skated all night to keep the Black in and a well deserved 3-3 tie.
Odds and ends ......
Already six games played and no trades yet. BOHA Balancing Committee has been meeting in the last few weeks via visual telepathy, a new technology. Field Reporter overheard that trades are hard to come by as some members of the committee have problems visualizing the players in the trade talks added by many players having one way no trade clause in their contracts.
Tune in, more to come, sooner than later.
Cheers,
Field Reporter
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