In OP’s opening week for hockey, a lot has happened. A lot of work has gone on the past few weeks, and on paper, the results might not be what we all hoped for. So far, OP Puck is 0-2-1. As said before, on paper, this may not look amazing. But if we dive deeper into these past 3 games, these were all victories in some way. I will say, we have a team with a lot of guys who haven’t played together and are still figuring out how to be a well-oiled machine. Our first game was against VGR, a tough 5-1 Loss. This was our first game and I think that we needed to get our feet wet. It was a learning experience and, not to mention, it was our first game for our new goalie. Even though it was not the result we wanted, we learned a lot from it.
Our next game was against MKA. Sadly, it was a blowing 4-3 defeat. At first, the team was crushed and had their heads down, but Coach Tafel did one of the things he does best: rally the troops. He told us that even though we lost, we took away a ton of great things from this game. The more Coach Tafel talked about all the good things we did that game, the more I noticed he was right. We had a great power play, and all three goals were scored on this powerplay (scored by Colin Reis, Matt DeAngelis, and Ciaran Kelly). Tons of guys made great plays as well, such as Tyler Gobel (2 assists), Shamus Vale (put everything for the team), Matt Clark, and many more. Even though the puck didn’t go our way that day, we know that, at some point, it will.
Our most recent game was against Cranford. It was a hard-fought battle ending in a 0-0 tie! Both sides had many chances and played great defense, but the real takeaway from this game was OP ”Brick Wall” Collin Beard. It seems he is finally settling down in the varsity goalie spot he has been working extremely hard for. He saved 33 shots, including some spectacular saves that kept us in the game. I know that with Collin Beard in the net, we are always going to have a chance to win.
Overall, these past three games have been great learning steps for us. We are only getting better and big things are expected for the Rams.