Phantoms @ Hamilton Bulldogs 1-6-09: First Period

Oh, how much did it make my day (not) to hear that Jamie Koharski is our ref? I guess I can't carp too loudly, as we have only seen him a few times so far this season. (Thank God.)

Apparently, Teslak had a little brain lock moment at the end of the US national anthem. He forgot that as we're in Canada, we still had one more anthem to go before he could replace his mask and get ready to play. :)

Former Phantom Chad Anderson is in the Bulldogs lineup. And another former Phantom, Steve Gainey (son of Bob Gainey), has been signed to a PTO by Hamilton.

The Phantoms have gotten an early PP, but although we got set up in the Hamilton zone, we weren't able to open the scoring during the man advantage.

Unfortunately, a few minutes after that, the Phantoms were victimized by a protracted mad scramble in front of our net. The rat fink puck just wouldn't cooperate with anybody not wearing a Bullogs sweater, and the end result was a puck in the Phantoms net. 1-0, Bulldogs.

I see Beaulieu on the ice, which is good news. There's one player that we've gotten back from injury.

We're about to go on the PK, as Klotz has gone off for boarding.

We survived that shorthanded situation, as well as a curious stoppage of play that happened while we were on the attack. Nobody, including the officials, seemed to be able to discern why, exactly, play was stopped. (See my grumbling in the first paragraph.) Matsumoto questioned the officials as to why the faceoff was about to be moved out of our zone, causing them to confer and correct that decision. The faceoff was held where it belonged, INSIDE the Bulldogs zone.

We just had another alarming scramble in front of our net where if the Hamilton player had been able to raise the puck, he'd have put it in easily. Thank goodness the puck was being ornery again.

While we were shorthanded, with Matsumoto in the sin bin, Yannick Lehoux just BLASTED a slapshot past Teslak. He ripped that puck, which caught the crossbar and deflected down into the net. 2-0, Bad Guys.

Meanwhile, one of our guys gets hauled down right in front of the referee, who just stands and watches. No call. As long as he is equally lenient to both teams, I'll keep my peace.

Today, two Phantoms were named to the Canadian All-Stars: Claude Giroux and Danny Syvret. I'm pleased for them. This presumes, of course, that Giroux is sent back down by the Flyers in time for him to play in the game. I'd have liked to see Scott Munroe get chosen as well, but then again All-Star games ten to be flat-out murder on goalies. So maybe it's to the team's advantage that we're not sending our starting goaltender to be bombarded by a bazillion shots in an exhibition game where defense is practically unheard of.

At the end of the first period, the SOG count is Phantoms 5, Bulldogs 15. So I guess our goaltenders are getting bombarded by zillions of shots anyway... but at least it's a Real Game that they're getting this kind of workout during, not an exhibition.

The score is currently Hamilton 2, Phantoms 0.