Oct 13, 2012 | jjohnston | 913 views
Ilderton
Our Atom AE boys hosted Ilderton for an exhibition matinee at Timken Saturday, and as it turned out we were way too gracious of hosts. We followed a lack luster practice on Thursday with a very lack luster first 2 periods of hockey today. By the time we realized we were in a hockey game it was all but over, and the Jets flew home with an 8 to 2 win.
Shhhhh, anybody else hear that? I think it was a WAKE UP CALL! We have had two easy victories to start our league games this year, and I think the boys thought this was going to be easy. Granted, I feel Ilderton may be the team to beat this year, but they simply wanted it more today. They out skated, out passed, and out worked us badly for the first two periods. We tied them in the third, proving that if the effort is there, we can play with this team. Fortunately, this game was just an exhibition, and the boys got to see first hand that slow play, and lone ranger rushes may work against the less experienced teams in the league, but not against the stronger ones. Tyler Lewis scored our first when he picked up a rebound from Lucas Glanville in front of the net and poked it home, Tyler Johnston scored our second on a breakaway after Rhett Devries sprung him with a pass up the middle. Both Ethan Giles and Andrew Valdez played in goal, but got very little help in front of them as at least half of Ilderton's goals were rebounds when our Dmen did not tie up sticks.
We are certainly a better team than we showed today, and I hope it was a valuable lesson learned. When you don't come to play hard, you might just get run over. The boys don't play again for ten days in Strathroy on a school night, so this will be another difficult game. Hopefully our motivation level will return to where it should be before this becomes a trend. I am looking forward to practice tomorrow boys, and yes that is a thinly veiled warning, be prepared to go to work. I want to see the work ethic it took to make this team, not the laziness that I have seen over our last two times on the ice. Good teams are able to rebound, and I'm sure we will get our heads back in the game starting tomorrow.