The Wranglers came oh so close to giving the Eugene Generals a scare. The Wranglers realized that once you got behind their forwards, the Generals "D" was mostly ineffective. It was only when some of the forwards came back did they get the Wranglers out of their zone. I will go away remembering the score as 2-3 (not 2-5), and the Wranglers fighting hard for a tie or who knows maybe a win.My disappointments were few, but there were some. One, that the Wranglers couldn't engineer a goal during a pro-longed 5 on 3. Two, the short handed goal. And three, some of the too long puck handling that some of the Wrangler players like to do. But, the Wranglers showed heart, hard work, effort, and improvement. There were plenty of nice passes (although a few Wranglers cannot still catch a pass), many passes caught, tenacity for the puck, offensive zone puck cycling, and a couple of goals. Here's the stats, the Wranglers made 26 shots (10-5-11) against the Generals' 55 shots on goal (21-26-8). Congratulations CKJ you stood on your head all game long to stop the General's barrage of shots. Way to go Wrangler "D" you stopped 'em from making this a blow-out. And nice job with the offensive production forwards. Two goals scored were by Steve McCormack (assisted by Summa & Abera, and then Long & Guzman). Way to go Steven.
And then, after all of that, all of the Generals' incessant whining and sniveling they finally did get stripes on their side. Again, the Wranglers played great. No, the rant is about the poor officiating and how terrible it is when a referee can definitely affect the outcome of a game. The last call by head referee Jones was terrible. Calling a 'high-sticking' penalty way after the fact, and when he really didn't see it is not the right call. Then to choose a player, "who they think" was the offender was, was... Well let's keep it clean. I saw so many missed infractions on both sides, but then to make that call effectively gutted the Wranglers. Playing 4-5 against the Generals for the remainder of the game and lose a key player made it ever so tough. All I can figure, is that local boy, Jones probably wanted to show that he could be impartial since the game was on the verge of getting out of hand. There were so many hits, many of them with elbows raised, and checks from behind but these were only lightly called. It shows me that local hockey politics still exist, and he has some burr up his saddle against the Wranglers. I also think it is just wrong to have the local hockey director referee a game - it does make the appearance of impartiality seem lacking. Well, Mr. Jones you showed your impartiality - what a joke! I hope NorPac hears about this and adjusts it's ref'ing. (Oh, you say when pigs fly?)
Finally, I would like to award some "best actor" awards. Micheal Frei for always diving after just getting hit, but throwing the odd punch here and there. Again, I heard that last night was his last game in the US. Buh bye. Second award goes to General's head coach for his "What? We didn't do anything wrong?" act. Third award goes to the head ref for his great acting job of acting like he knew what he was doing. LOL!
