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Team Tai Tai:
Great job to all of you who played in Hong Kong as well as those of you who did
not go but helped train and warm up the traveling team. The jerseys looked very
sharp and many fans in the stands commented. The yellow stars really jumped out
of the red background under the rink's lighting. I have the jerseys for some of
you that did not travel this trip.
If you haven't heard, the game was a thriller played on Saturday at noon. Pat K
and Helen looked like dynamite firing the shots at the Hong Kong goalie. Ching
was also very fast and aggressive on the line. Carol and Liz shut down several
attempts by Hong Kong to penetrate into our territory. Sylvia, still hot from
three games in her own league, also cleared the puckseveral times to prevent a
shot on her brother in goal. Sylv and Helen recruited 12-year-old hot shot
defense Mo Ruo who was already scheduled to play ten games in three days for her
own age group. Another last minute recruit, Birkley Doll age 11, contributed to
the front line with a goal.
Carol earned the only game penalty when she decked an opposing player at the
blue line. Although she apologized profusely in three languages, the referee saw
Carol as a trouble maker and sent her to the sin bin for two minutes. On the way
to the penalty box Carol slipped and almost took out the ref as well. Mike
Horenko has it all on video tape. But Beijing played tough during the power play
and at the half time Beijing was up 2-0.
Things turned in the second half (two 18 minute periods total). A screamer of a
shot flew past our defense and just caught the top left corner of our net to
bring the score to 2-1. Three minutes later a last minute dive by our defense
blocked a shot but ended in a four-player pile-up at our goal mouth. Everyone
got up but John. To make a long story short we spent a few hours at the hospital
and only his lower back muscles are hurt, not the
spine or kidneys. Meanwhile on the ice (I didn't see this myself) we recruited a
young goalie from Singapore who was dressed for the next game. He wasn't as good
and soon Hong Kong racked up three unanswered goals for a final of Beijing 2,
Hong Kong 4.
Helen can give a better analysis of the game, but from my uneducated perspective
it looked like some of the best team work and effort I have seen from our
players. The competition clearly had better skaters and
shooters. But we seemed to play well above our Tuesday-night level and that got
us ahead by two goals in the first half. It looks to me like our team is ready
for better challenges on a regular basis.
Regards, John Kauffman
john@kauffmans.org alternate:
kauffman@eastnet.com.cn
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