If you're a fan of Prison Break on Fox you'll recognize the title of this post as the mantra of the mysterious GATE corporation. It may as well be the mantra of Islanders coach Scott Gordon as he tries to look for positives in what is quickly becoming a long season.
It was another tough loss to the Flyers last night.
Gordon continued to push the positive, of course, but boy he's got his work cut out for him in that regard.
With Rick Dipietro out nursing the mystery injury, the Islanders got it to overtime but went down a man when Frans Nielsen got called for holding - a very marginal call I thought from what I saw on the replay. Jeff Carter ended the game with an awesome shot from in close and that was that. Gordon is stressing that it was basically a well played tie but a loss is a loss to the psyche of this young team. There I go again, letting myself become captive.
Unfortunately the positive for much of the year will be close losses and the occasional win. The really negative will be the occasional blow-out and with the Islanders playing the Habs this weekend, I'm bracing myself for some major negativity.
Thursday Night Hockey
As I noted in my biography I have played hockey for most of my life. For the past 18 or so years (I think anyway, I can't really remember) that has included Thursday Night Hockey - THNL. The THNL is simply a scrap league where we have two teams - Black and White - that play against each other every week for bragging rights and a beer. However, make no mistake, this is competitive. Most of the players have played at fairly high levels of competitive hockey and so every game is played hard and the skill level is pretty good. Since we took out the contact four or five years ago the competitiveness has rarely gotten ugly - rarely.
Anyway, I thought I would add a section here to make mention of the THNL and it's progress throughout the year.
This year I find myself on White. The biggest problem I have with this having spent the last four years on Black is that I no longer get to wear my black Islanders practice jersey. The only white one I own is an old jersey with the THNL crest. At this stage it's closer to yellow than white. Definitely no style points there. Too bad the Islanders' third sweater is blue and not white or that might have been a nice reason to buy one.
Last night's contest was pretty even on the scoreboard with Black scoring two goals in the last minute or so to win 7-6. It is worth mentioning however that several of the goals that Black scored were by players 'on the suck' which, if you don't know, means they were hanging around center ice waiting for break out passes. Sour grapes? Who cares.
NFI
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