LONDON WEREWOLVES AT THE PROVINCIALS

E-Champions – 7-6 winners in sudden death overtime!!! – parade route and timing to be announced shortly, banner raising ceremony planned for opening night next year.

Masters Provincials Tournament was held this weekend at the Toronto Rock practice facility in Oakville. The London Masters Werewolves entered the tourney a solid 12th (of 12 teams) relegating us to the pool of death against Halton Hills (#1), Brampton (#2) and Six Nations (#9) – not  a good omen for keeping the goalie’s self esteem high. Oh well, we can always be the spoilers as Masters’ tournament tie breaker is goals against, so our explosive offense can easily knock someone out (and has in the past).   Friday night started off not too badly with a 3-6  loss to Six Nations. Anytime we can stay within 5 goals of Nations is a moral victory. More than 3 spares on the bench helped with defense and an early 8:00 game time allowed for lots of discussion and strategizing in the beer garden and restaurant/bar afterwards. Saturday morning game vs Brampton ended in a 1-8 loss, not too much positive other than we kept them from double digits. The afternoon game promised some excitement – top ranked Halton was already 0-2 and out of the running to repeat their 2013 Sr. championship. Could we rub their noses in a first to worst tumble – probably not. Halton went ahead early but London kept picking away getting to within 1 before a late penalty killed the comeback attempt. Final score was another loss, 5-7, flushing the Werewolves to the Toilet Bowl game on Sunday against the ‘Boro Boys (Team moto: “Our drinking team has a lacrosse problem”). Not sure how last and 2nd last end up being the E final instead of the F final – whatever, maybe Halton just didn’t want to play on the turf side of the arena! Peterboro got off to an quick lead scoring 20 seconds in and then the London goalie’s inability to comprehend over the shoulder shots quickly made it 3-0. Not a good start…again. PBoro made it 4-0 before London made an appearance on the scoresheet. A couple of nice power play goals and some memorable, titanic face off battles (and victories) by the infamous JKOW brought London close, tieing the score and eventually pulling ahead by 1, 6-5 late in the 3rd period. A should-have-been-easy-to-stop shot from PBoro late tied it up and it looked like London was going to finish with a draw – tied for 11th spot still sounds better than tied for last…it’s all about the narrative. BUT…..apparently OT was to be played for these crucial championship matches – soooo….. 5 minutes of Sudden Death! WONDERFUL, London can still claw defeat from the jaws of, if not victory at least not defeat. Sudden death was…exciting, Peterboro getting a chance and hitting the goalie in the chest protector on their only shot. But London was able to pick up the rebound and push the play down to the PBoro end. Then Russ, in his continued jihad against goalies, got the ball in the corner, cut across the front of the net and buried one to WIN! THE! GAME! FOR! LONDON! E (or F…whatever) Champions for 2014. Always good to win the last game of the season – makes it easier to come back for another kick at the can next year.

Other London results in Oakville – a short benched Forest City Danglers (London Jr. Masters) were 1-2 and eliminated Saturday night. Ashmore and Bricknell, playing for the what appeared to be a fast, highly talented Orangeville Jr. were undefeated in the round robin and semis but lost in the finals to Bramalea Jr. 2-3 in what must have been an interesting game.

For the Senior Championship, Toronto Beaches Sr. survived a semi final scare against Durham Sr., tieing it up with 11 sec to go and winning in overtime to claw their way to the finals where they coasted to an 8-1 victory over Six Nations.

Overall a good time appeared to be had by all – great facility, good Mill Street draft served by …very nice bartenders – it’s why we still play the game.

On to next year.

Stay tuned for some archival pictures that have been excavated from depths of history that should be embarrassing to some members of LMLax.

G2