Blighters Blog #2

Another weekend split and we are 2 and 2 for the season. We won in Hull, which was a big game for us considering we lost up there last year and did not advance in the challenge cup last season. Our goal this season is 3 trophies so we need to win those games to keep advancing.

Dan Lacosta was still out with his injury. I have been shooting on him before practice but his status is still unknown. It is nice to see him back on the ice and he looks good out there but you never want to rush head injuries. I think the coaching staff has handled it well by bringing in another goalie in Greg Blais in the meantime to give Dan the time he needs to get healthy. Dan is by far the most important player for us this year if we want to win any trophies so it is important for both him and us that he gets healthy and back to where he was before the injury.

I thought both Blais and Joe Myers played well for us in net this past weekend. Both gave us a chance to win and luckily we were able to win one of the games. Joe has got better with each start. People need to remember Joe has been strictly used as a back up for the past 7 years with Cardiff only seeing action in a handful of games each season. Despite that and working a full time job outside of hockey I think he has performed admirably for us and will continue to improve. It is a very difficult situation for him to be put in to carry the load at this point and I think having Blais here will definitely help the situation.

Losing our goalie in the first game of the season and starting the season 2 and 2 has led to its first casualty in losing Adam Ross. For those who did not get a chance to meet him he was one of the nicer guys you will meet. He was an ultimate professional on and off the ice. You would not see him eating anything but raw vegetables on our long bus trips. I think it is unfortunate for him the way things worked out but with the goalie situation I think our team needed to make a change to score more goals. Max Birbraer has moved back on defense and we have brought in Jake Morissette, an ex college teammate of Andrew Lord at RPI. They both played against Mac Faulkner and I when we were at Clarkson and in case they are both wondering the answer is still yes; RPI sucks! It was an intense rivalry between our two schools due to the fact that we were 2 of the top engineering schools in the country. By intense rivalry I am only talking about the regular season because I don’t recall them making the playoffs while we were there.

This weekend looked like a tough one when we first saw the schedule and after the first 2 weeks it has just become tougher. Dundee is off to a 4-0 start, thanks in part to their goalie making 50 saves a night. We play them on Saturday, a long bus trip that starts at 7am tomorrow morning. We then drive back through the night and play last years Treble champions Nottingham in the BBT. 2 big character wins is what our team needs right now and I am excited to be a part of that this weekend