Another new rink for the Mite A Stars and another evenly matched battle goes in the books. The Ice Palace did not live up to its name if measured by locker room size or peculiar smells but neither fazed this team. They came out strong and gave Burlington a run for their money. Jack Glowacz kicked it off with a Mark Messier quote, "I think the thing you always got to keep in mind, you know, hockey is a game of one on one battles". Very true Jack and battle they did. With two strong centers in Abigail Travers and Jimmy Driscoll, the three sets of wings got the ball rolling. Cam Sullivan playing left wing, Brendan Heffron playing right wing would create the classic triangle with Driscoll after a nice rush by Sullivan. Driscoll would find Heffron in the middle who made a sweet move and put this one home. A huge faceoff win by Abby and more hard work from the second set of wings, Stevie Migliero and Joseph Soares resulted in a digging goal by Jack Glowacz. All of them heeded Jack's earlier words! The action in this one was back and forth. Wings Anthony Grabau and Jonathan Soares were everywhere today, hustling back to help on defense or digging deep in the corners. Both were Bergeron like! Seeing their forwards working hard the defense decided to step up their game too. Down a player with right D-man Timmy Sullivan off for tripping(the first ever Stars' penalty) the rest of the defense core killed it off. Minutes later the Stars' would find themselves down two players with Cam Sullivan off for hooking and James Glowacz off for crosschecking. James was hustling all game but seemed to enjoy taking a nice break with his teammate. The Sullivan boys' parents and the Stars' head coach should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this mayhem to occur today! Anyway, Burlington found themselves with a 5 on 3 power play. This is where the stellar play of D-man Mike Murphy really stood out. Mike was on fire all game, breaking up plays, moving the puck out of the zone and working hard. You name it, he did it today. With help like that in front of him you'd think goalie Dion Sacca would have an easy game. Not the case in this one. Dion was flying from post to post making multiple acrobatic saves all game long. He kept his team in it throughout and looked like a young Tuukka Rask at times. Both Murphy and Sacca went above and beyond the call of duty and found themselves on the receiving end of well deserved game pucks! Yup, this game had it all, sweet passing, nice goals, strong D, great goaltending, a few penalties and all around hustle. Great job Stars! Don't stop having fun!
