The final game of Ice Night saw the “one-man-show” Raptors taking on the “are-they-gonna-show?” Rhinos. Within 15 seconds we had a pretty good indication of how things were going to go down when Murray Richardson came down the left wing and made it 1-0 Raptors with a shot that beat Rhinos replacement goalie June on the blocker side. But, Rhinos got one back and tied it when Mike O’Neill bounced one in off of Raptor Mal Turner at about the 4 minute mark. Not content to score on just one of the nets, Mal quickly made up for it and gained the 2-1 lead about 14 seconds later. Then the Raptors’ Marcus Maidment shoved JP Grimard into the Rhino goal and took a “shoving-a-Rhino-into-the-goal” penalty. Marcus could only give that familiar hands-up gesture that can only mean; “It’s not my fault you guys are a bunch of pussies.” Finally June seemed to find his groove while making some nice stops to kill the Raptors’ four-man advantage. But just when the Rhinos had successfully killed off their own powerplay, Murray netted another off an assist from a well-rested Marcus, making it 3-1 Raptors. At 13:45, Murray again proved that this really is a one-man team when he completed his hat trick. It was a point shot that went well wide of the net but bounced off the back boards and right on to his stick as he stood at the side of the net for an easy tap-in that made things 4-1. That’s not the way he tells it to the ladies, though.

The second period saw Raptors’ D-man Adam Gault go heavily into the boards, bringing back memories from last season when a similar incident occurred and left Gault unable to play for a good part of the season. Gault had to leave the game and needed the assistance of a lady friend to get his clothes off. We should all be so lucky. Rhinos responded by taking a pair of penalties, so Marcus capitalized and made it 5-1 on an assist by, who else? – Murray Richardson. After that it seemed like nobody scored a goal for almost an entire eight and a half minutes, but then the Rhinos’ Dave Morrison made it 5-2 while on a powerplay that was caused by an interference call made against the Raptors’ Nick Iadenza.

The third period had a pair of tripping penalties thrown first at Paul Bray (Raptors) and then at Richard Krahn (Rhinos). Mal “I’ll-give-you-one-man-show” Turner scored on a power-play breakaway that made it 6-2. It looked over, but the Raptors took a pair of penalties. The beer was kicking in so I don’t remember who the other penalty was given to, but Marcus definitely got one of them as I remember seeing a variation on the “No, really, you guys are pussies!” gesture. On the Rhinos powerplay O’Neill made a nice feed to Dave Morrison and just in case he didn’t know what to do with the puck, O’Neill loudly yelled; “Shooooot!!” which was nice because usually O’Neill yells; “Pass it to meeee!” Anyway, Morrison did make a nice shot and beat Raptors’ goaltender Jeff Cuvillier (who’s been known to listen to audio books on string theory while playing net) on the glove side, narrowing the Raptors lead to 6-3. The Rhinos were momentarily jubilant but the Raptors laid down the wet blanket less than 3 minutes later when Mal sprung Marcus on a breakaway…??! Ok, I took these notes over a week ago, but I swear that’s what they say. Marcus banged in his own rebound off the goalpost and effectively ended the game.

But, NO! Just before the buzzer the Rhinos swarmed the Raptors and potted one more to make the final 7-4. The Rhinos seemed to be trying to say to both the crowd and the Raptors – “This game was a well fought contest that could have turned out very differently. Minus a few bad breaks and with a little stronger goaltending tonight, we could have easily come out victorious.” But perhaps Rhinos tough-guy O’Neill put it more eloquently when after the game he was heard to mutter; “F ------ ’ s -- t!”

Three Stars

– Don King Disorderly