The Bends

tUMD 2, Tiggers 2 (tUMD 3v3 win)/tUMD 1, Tiggers 2
tUMD 2, All-Stars 5

When one has been deprived of hockey for such a long time, one has to be slowly acclimated. Just like a deep-sea diver must slowly return to the surface, a hockey fan cannot go from zero hockey to, say, a blow-out sweep, or else they will get decompression sickness (aka the bends).

So I was in no danger of nitrogen bubbles bursting in my brain after a weekend of lackluster hockey.

This is not to say there were not any hockey highlights of late. Just none that I witnessed in person.

Team USA beat Canada in the WJC on Thursday, that was good. Joey Anderson was an integral part of the team, showing up on the ice in nearly every important situation.

This is pretty awesome.

The Wild are playing well and winning games in regulation sometimes even. Unprecedented!

Bulldog alumna Meghan Huertas signed with the Connecticut Whale and scored a goal in her professional debut.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BO_R-_yDJTV/

Look at that Florida tan.

Anyway, after a very cold week, I was very happy to return to the rink for some Bulldog action. Instead I got… Bulldog inaction, with the exception of a few minutes of excitement courtesy of one Neal Pionk, who took tUMD from 0 to 2 points in dramatic fashion.

The highlight of the game, I couldn’t even see from my vantage point: Squirrel making a Tiger look foolish.

Avery Peterson had Avery eventful home debut, with his first goal as a Bulldog and his first ejection as a Bulldog. Congrats on that, I guess, but you’re the only hope for Riley Tufte to ever get a goal so maybe don’t get ejected again.

Saturday was a double-header of sadness. I arrived (late) to the Bulldogs vs. the Whitecaps. It was kind of not a very good game, but look. The Whitecaps are an All-Star team. They have Kendall Coyne, Shebbly Ebbly-Bebbly (Shelby Amsley-Benzie’s real name, according to BC fans), and Bulldog killer Stephanie Anderson. This weekend tDogs play UMTC and I would like a win so this was not exactly a confidence booster. tDogs were at the men’s game Friday night, so maybe they caught The Suck from that.

The men’s game was just terrible and depressing. It was a nightmare of missed connections and flubbed shots and all the little things that usually have gone right for this team going wrong. There were moments of excitement but tDogs could not get anything going. The folks in my section were getting extremely antsy and annoyed. I think I have found my people.

The men take on St. Cloud this weekend, a team who also had a disappointing weekend, so I’m hoping for a couple of good games (good games = Bulldog wins), but tUMD’s sweep of St. Cloud in November was not easy and involved a significant amount of “puck luck,” which they may have run out of, temporarily.