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Post by spiritfan8 on Sept 17, 2008 22:17:39 GMT -5
Cheap shot, ac. Just an observation.
Nice summation by the puckman. I would mildly differ in that I would have given the decision to Allicock over Hunter. NO QUESTION on Breen. Smith was totally schooled. Typical London tactics--goon it up when they are losing. Although perhaps we should be honored--I'm not sure that they have ever felt the need to try this with us before.........
Speed to burn for the Spirit. The Sanderson-Muro-Pleckaitis line was absolutely leaving people in the dust. I heard about this line at Beef O'B's the other night, and wasn't sure about it. I'm now a believer. Sanderson showed good wheels and fit right in. He wasn't a star, but I thought he should have been. (which would have given that line the first, second and third stars!!)
Guy was awful in net for the Knights. Two easy goals for the Spirit when he was badly out of position behind the net. If Daniels comes back, they could be a potential buyer.
Nice beginning to the game when London wasn't on the ice for the National Anthems. Somebody slipped up there! Their bus was late, but they were there for all of warmups, They missed Honesty Elliott doing her usual great job.
Very glad to see our guys answering the bell tonight. A couple of questionable hits on Svoboda in the third and somebody was right there to deal with the villain both times. Oh yes. Svoboda has great hands, on both ends of the ice. He's going to be a keeper. Must be that number 8 on his back!!!!!
TJ Brodie looks significantly bigger than last year, and it looks like Flames' rookie camp lit a fire under him (Flames....fire....HAHAHA!!!) It will be interesting to see how Crawford and Comrie (and maybe Combs) look when they come back.
All in all, a very satisfying Opening Night win. Let's face it--any win over the Knights is a great one. The Spirit did a lot of things well and thoroughly out played London. But I'll say the same thing I'd say if we lost big: it's one game, and there are certainly things to work on (and let's start with the minor penalties.) If the team works this hard all seaon, I'll be reasonably happy.
Windsor Saturday night could be a different story. I don't know how many of their guys are still at NHL camp, but the more, the better. They will be seriously good this season.
Looking forward to Saturday!! I have to find a radio so I can hear Greg Brady one more time!!!!
And to Joe Pleckaitis and Barry Sanderson if you happen to read this--great game. Those horns from Section 21 were for you, as promised!!
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Post by MidlandSpiritFan on Sept 17, 2008 22:42:29 GMT -5
Thanks for the recaps everyone. All in all sounds like a pretty good opening night win. Paid attendance on the on line scoresheet was 3106. Any estimates as to how many butts were actually in the seats (except during the goals and fights of course)  |
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Post by newguy on Sept 17, 2008 23:22:53 GMT -5
I was there as well and actually there were 7 fights he missed the murovich fight also a draw mostly a hugfest. Sorry this was actually called as matching roughs, my bad. This was the team I was expecting to see good offense, good defense, good goaltending, and this team will not take any crap this year. great to see. by the way don't expect to hear from newguy until something negative happens. just an observation. Wrong again. Do you ever get tired of it? Being wrong? Adding nothing? I'm sworn to secrecy for what you tried to do to me last week, ac, but when the time comes, karma comes around. Now go hide or complain, whichever it's your turn to do. The thing you did was so far out-of-bounds, and you START it up again now? After days of quiet? Dude, you are inches away from being completely exposed. Do you want that? I was there. Very good win. London was awful as they often are at the start of the season, but full credit to the Spirit. Much better season opener than last season, but again, Guy was about as bad as the London goalie who let in 10 in the season opener 3 years ago after the Knights won the Memorial Cup. I was impressed. I've said it to everyone and almost everyone except this poster I'm quoting above gets it......I hope I'm wrong and they have a great season. But we'll be able to judge them very well at the end of October. The 06-07 team looked awful in their first two home games, and then rolled to a 94 point season. But splitting their first two games at home is a good start, so NO, I don't expect them to win Saturday! |
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Post by MidlandSpiritFan on Sept 17, 2008 23:45:17 GMT -5
by the way don't expect to hear from newguy until something negative happens. just an observation. Wrong again. Do you ever get tired of it? Being wrong? Adding nothing? I'm sworn to secrecy for what you tried to do to me last week, ac, but when the time comes, karma comes around. Now go hide or complain, whichever it's your turn to do. The thing you did was so far out-of-bounds, and you START it up again now? After days of quiet? Dude, you are inches away from being completely exposed. Do you want that? acwright84 and newguy......please take your personal bickering elsewhere or at least confine it to PM's amongst yourselves. |
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Post by SaginawGensFan on Sept 18, 2008 0:21:37 GMT -5
Wrong again. Do you ever get tired of it? Being wrong? Adding nothing? I'm sworn to secrecy for what you tried to do to me last week, ac, but when the time comes, karma comes around. Now go hide or complain, whichever it's your turn to do. The thing you did was so far out-of-bounds, and you START it up again now? After days of quiet? Dude, you are inches away from being completely exposed. Do you want that? acwright84 and newguy......please take your personal bickering elsewhere or at least confine it to PM's amongst yourselves. I was JUST going to say the same thing! No more of it or both will be gone. |
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Post by donjohnson on Sept 18, 2008 6:50:56 GMT -5
i may have had a few icy cold bud lights in me but i could have sworn Breen fought Wilson and not this Smith person you're speaking of
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Post by eaglei12 on Sept 18, 2008 7:12:52 GMT -5
No you didn't have too many as Breen did fight Wilson and definately had the win. I thought the lines worked well last night and Spirit as always worked hard and outplayed the Knights. I would have to agree that I thought, although not much of a fight, I would give the win to Allicock as he had the take down and threw a couple more. Murovich, Pleckaitis, Sanderson line was fast and really set the pace from the start. Szwartz, Chappel, Allicock looked good and I found that Allicock looked more confident and stronger than last season and Szwartz as usual looked great. Tront, McDonough, Svoboda line worked really well together too .... definately liked what I saw from new and returning players. A couple errors on D with Treccapeli but it was the home opener and I'm sure there were a lot of jitters to overcome. All in all a pretty darn good start to the season.
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Post by teamspirit08 on Sept 18, 2008 7:24:27 GMT -5
i may have had a few icy cold bud lights in me but i could have sworn Breen fought Wilson and not this Smith person you're speaking of That "Smith person" is the son of former NHL defenseman Steve Smith of the Oilers/Blackhawks fame. |
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Post by johnt on Sept 18, 2008 7:34:47 GMT -5
Not sure if anyone else caught this.. On WNEM 5 news Scot Johnson was talking with Craig Goslin about the season and opening night. Goslin made comment about "Here today, NHL Tomorrow" he then went on to mention that Comrie was drafted and away for tonights game as well as Nick Crawford being drafted by the Nashville Predators...It really disappoints me that a teams management can't even get the correct team name of who drafted its 3 players this year. Now if a large number of players got drafted I could see where it would be hard to remember, but lets be honest nearly every one of us on here knows that Crawford was drafted by Buffalo... Goose did the very same thing at the Meet the Players Reception last week. |
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Post by ohlfan06 on Sept 18, 2008 8:31:03 GMT -5
So most likely not a slip of tongue like someone else noted eh..He must really beleive thats where Crawford is haha
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Post by SaginawGensFan on Sept 18, 2008 12:42:28 GMT -5
Maybe he just looked at the jersey... both have similar colors, but the Buffaslug definitely does not look like the Preds logo.
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Post by spiritfan8 on Sept 18, 2008 14:19:04 GMT -5
I actually believe that Monday night Goslin said 2 wrong teams for Nick. The first one--which I can't remember-- and then the Preds. The Spouse and I exchanged looks after the first team, and almost started laughing when he then said Nashville, which is why I remember it.
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Post by eric8199 on Sept 18, 2008 14:39:07 GMT -5
I was pretty happy with last night's game. Thought the guys played really well. A couple defensive breakdowns, one leading to a goal, but all in all the defense was pretty strong. Power plays seemed pretty weak. Good to see Mirovich step up, as well as Plekatus and Swarz. Sanderseon will be a good asset this year, it appears. The kid is fast. Breen's fight was definitely the best one of the night. Glad something happened in the third period, because I was falling asleep during the second. Wasn't real impressed with Underwood tonight. Last season he did really well when he got ice time, but last night the only thing I remember from him is a really bad play where he coughed up the puck. I'm sure he'll get better. Both teams were rusty, as you'd expect on opening night. Thanks to London's goalie, we didn't have to work too hard to get goals. Finally, I was playing around with my work's new camera last night and took some photos. Here they are:  The tail end of the Swarz fight, as the refs are pulling them apart. Had the camera put away at this point, and was too into the game to get it out. oops!  Smith takes a shot on goal.  Allicock takes a check to the boards.  Brodie handles the puck behind the net. |
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Post by kivpit on Sept 18, 2008 15:20:32 GMT -5
who is this Smith you speak of? It was Szwarz last time I checked...
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Post by spiritfan8 on Sept 18, 2008 15:39:36 GMT -5
Wow. I opened the Bay City Times tonight--a paper that historically hasn't even bothered to give the Spirit's score on many occasions. Lead story in the sports section with a width-of-the paper photo and TWO articles. One on the game, the other centering on the sparse crowd and the off-ice glitches. But they were stories. In the previous 6 years I have never seen a game that got this much coverage in Bay City. Maybe we have a hockey guy in the sports dept!!!
EDIT: Although upon review, it would appear that Jon McQuinn (Times sports writer) must be the nom de plume of Mark Constantine--altho their pictures look nothing alike!! The stories were uncannily similar. While I think the size of the crowd was a legit topic, I think going after the GameDay staff for miscues during the game--on Opening Night, no less!!--was a bit tacky. It looks to me like lots of the gameday people are new this year also.
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