A Nail Biter in the Season Opener

Final Score
Shockers 7 - Decepticon 6 (OT)

In what team captain, Alain Godard, can only summarize last night's season opener at Le Rinque as a "nail biter" the Shockers were able to pull through with their first win of the season coming in the way of a shootout.

The first period started off a little shakey, the Shockers looked decently strong and in shape but it was the Decepticons who were able to find the back of the net, potting two goals back to back. The Shockers, Ben Bucharme, would reply before the periods end by cutting in front and banging home and shot that fooled the Deceptions goalie.

Momentum seemed to swing in the Shockers favor as they opened up the period to tie it up 2-2 with Andrew Stevens knocking in Steve Diabo's howitzer that bounced off the back of the boards. However, the Decepticons would take another jump of two goals in a little less than 1:30 apart from each other. Shockers soon responded with back to back jacks, including a fancy-pants passing play by the Godard-Ducharme-Stevens trio as well as another from Stevens tipping home a point shot from Jeff Jasmin. Decepticons would reply back with one of their one, but only to be smuthered by the Shockers with a goal from new-comer Dwayne Pilon and veteran sticksman, Diabo, who lent his services to fill-in for this game.

The third saw both teams came out strong but it would be the Decepticons who would tie it up with less than 6 minutes into the period. After that it was an all out battle of tug-o-war as both teams had their chances but could not seem to capitalize before the period closed out.

Ladies and gentlemen, this game had to go to a do or die shootout.

The Shockers did not have the best of luck in shootouts in the past but then again this is a new season and the Shockers had no qualms about turning it around this time. Pilon took the first shot and missed his opportunity to beat the opposing netminder five-hole. Assistant captain, Marc Boucher, was up second and shelfed a nifty fake to give the Shockers a 1-0 lead. Diabo would close it up with a taint-snapper in the lower corner of the net to boost them up 2-0. Giancarlo Capaz would get all the help he needed and stayed solid seeing all the Decepticons attempts out of his net and bringing his team to victory.

The Shockers celebrate the victory but know that there is still a long season ahead, Godard commented on the topic: "We are extremely happy with how the team has come together in game one of the season, the new guys are really helping us out in places where we lacked last season and we can only go up from here."

Stevens added, "Pilon, [Gary] McDermott and [Goppy] Sandhu really blew me away with their performance tonight and the guys who have been here before really took it to the next level. Management can breathe easy that they made some good calls to get us some great guys to bounce experience and knowledge off of. They are really going to help the guys who might not know what to do in certain situations and, overall, it is going to help our progress during the season."

"To get that goal tonight felt great but I wish I could have nailed that shootout attempt. The guys played great and after a couple of more games together, this team should be on the road to good things," commented Pilon after the game.

The press wanted to get a comment from Boucher on his shootout goal but had already left to celebrate the victory in his 1989 Ford Bronco.




More photos available at http://picasaweb.google.ca/andrewbacca/Season2Game1VsDecepticon#