The Greece Athena/Odyssey Thunder Hockey team opened their 2009-2010 season at home, 7:30pm on Tuesday 1-Dec, with an exciting 3-2 OT victory over the Pittsford Panthers. Leading them onto the ice draped in GT superhero capes and flying the newly bedazzled Thunder Freak Flag with a fresh new Dr. Tre' mix bumping in the background during the warmup, were this year's Thunder mascots, Trevor "mini-cheese" Brown and Steven "mini-vyper" Vyverberg. The 3rd masco-teer, Jared "mini-milsy" Smith, was double booked with practice at ESL but hopes to make his debut later this month. Amanda Sherry opened at the mic to set the mood with her sweet, sultry voice. On with the game.
Opening frame was clean with only a few shots a side, but Ian Cumming was clearly on his game, stoning Pittsford early on a mini-breakaway and gloving everything that came his way. Snake saw a few shifts at the blueline with his bro, making a nice poke-check to break up the rush and moving the puck well. But the Panthers would strike first, midway through the second stanza, with the old lax bingo play, as Matt McCarty hit Marc Weyl coming off the bench for the first goal of the game. It was a wake-up call for the Thunder, that it was time to grab their lunch pails and go to work, as they followed it up with a 2-minute rally pinning the Panthers in their own end, but they could not break the seal on Haen, the senior netminder from Pittsford. It was only a matter of time though, before junior forward Mike Briganti would take matters into his own hands, intercepting an errant pass by the Panthers point man on the PP and going on a tear that resulted in a short-handed equalizer that went in low stick-side. Thunder fans had their hands up, they're playin' our song and let the butterflies fly away, scoring a goal like thaaaaat, tying the game oh yeaaaaah. That's right, the 'first game since states butterflies in the stomach' were clearly gone and it was game on as Cheese and Sherry took turns rocking their checks in open ice to get the boyz all fired up. Shots were fairly even through two periods with Thunder having a slight edge at 11 to 9.
Five minutes back from the break, Thunder tried their hand at a slightly modified lax bingo play of their own. It started off with Tyler Mattle pressuring the puck down low in the corner, forcing his check to unload early, while Vyper came flying off the bench and into the zone to keep it. Vypes immediately wound up and cranked a hard and low slapper on net that was tipped in by Andy Sherry just inside the left post for the go-ahead-goal, 2-1 Thunder. With a 1-goal lead in the bank, Thunder simply had to play smart and just keep getting it deep. They executed flawlessly on this plan until about the 2 minute mark, when Vyper was called for interference. It was a weak call as he was trying to get to the puck when his check wobbled and fell. Thunder PK was perfect all nite, but Pittsford would exercise their T.O. option to draw up a powerplay with the extra attacker and as the penalty was about to expire, Panther's forward Scott Edwards netted the equalizer with only 59 seconds remaining in regulation. Despite several valiant efforts to regain the lead, time ran out and we were gooooooooooooooooin' to overtime, something Thunder has not experienced in quite a while.
Just under 2 minutes into the extra period, Captain Cheese came barrelling down the right side and put every ounce of his being into a blast that burned a hole right through Haen to light the final lamp. Quite simply put, the Panthers were Thunderstruck... show's over, drive home safely everyone... sophomore defenseman Tyler Grimshaw picked up the lone helper on the winner!
No star of the game here, just a solid team effort across the board with everyone chipping in, from AC helping the cause with a few shifts up front to Hebs and Keough playing steady on the back-end to Cumming turning away 21 of the 23 he faced. Said Webb, "It was a character win". Added Wader, "Attitude+Belief+Consistency=Success". And all the way from Florida comes an absentee ballot from Weilert with his standard, "one game at a time". That's right, Thunder is One and ohhhh and on the road again!
Thunder will host West Seneca, 3pm @ Lakeshore on Saturday, 5-Dec. Be there or be somewhere else missing out on history in the making!
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