San Diego Gulls

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Gulls serve up a turkey a day early

By Larry Knowles

November 28, 2005

San Diego--The Gulls offered up a turkey a day early, losing to the lowly Victoria Salmon Kings 4-2 on Wednesday night.

Gulls head coach Martin St. Amour summed up the effort by saying, “We just didn’t show up today. We didn’t have the effort that we’ve had the past couple of weeks here. It’s pretty frustrating because going into this game I was pretty positive that we had a good chance of winning.”

The Gulls came out firing in the first period and it looked like the winged scavengers were going to win this one running away. But Salmon King goalie David Currie withstood a cannonade of shots and sparked a palpable momentum shift.

Controlling the puck once they got it, though, was another story. Passes went too far ahead of skaters and the puck bounced around more than a Tom Cruise appearance on Oprah.

At one point in the second period, a frustrated fan yelled at the Gulls five, “We have a slight control problem!”

During the first intermission, fans served up a few turkeys of their own as part of the annual Turkey Shootout. A handful of fans stood at the blue line and slid frozen turkeys into inflatable pins in front of the net.

The shootout was followed by a cartoon turkey appearing on the Jumbotron. It came to sing.

“First I was afraid, I was petrified.…”

“Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side….”

The fowl whined through a few more lines before getting to the kicker: “You think I’d crumble, you think I’d lay down and die!”

By God, it was a protest song—at a hockey game! Who put the turkey up to this? Bono?

“Oh, no! Not I!…” Fans booed lustily. Security stepped into the concourse.

“I will survive!…” Debris rained down on the ice. Flares illuminated the upper reaches of the iPay One Center.

Okay, not really. San Diego can be an apathetic town. If this had been Plymouth, though,…

In the second period, the Salmon Kings picked up where they left off. At 7:22, Kurt Drummond found himself with a Steve Lingren rebound and the entire left side of the net undefended. All he had to do was shoot--didn’t matter where the puck went: top shelf, mid, or low. It was all open. He easily flipped the puck into the net.

At 8:59, the first fight broke out and the Jumbotron segued into a famous brawl from Slapshot. Something tells me that fighting isn’t exactly discouraged when the home team is 5-7-2.

The Salmon Kings scored another goal at 12:05 in the second period and went on to outshoot the Gulls 18-8.

The third period started inauspiciously as, at 1:13 the Salmon Kings drew a penalty shot. But Gulls keeper Tyler Weiman stuffed Adam Taylor like a nine pound butterball. The stop woke the Gulls up from their Thanksgiving nap and the winged-ones played inspired hockey for the next ten minutes. Deep into the period, they went not on an ordinary power play, but a Weinerschnitzel power play!

A Weinershnitzel power play is more special than a normal power play. By definition, it’s a brief opportunistic period in which the Gulls, backed by a special synergy between the San Diego Gulls, LLC and the Weinershnitzel hot dog company of Newport Beach, California, go a man up on their opponents. It’s an exciting time in which only the Gulls are expected to score.

An ordinary power play, in contrast, provides less excitement. Yes, the Gulls go on the same one-man advantage, but the synergy, it just isn’t there.

Fans love the Weinershnitzel power play. It’s good for the game.

And it’s good for the Gulls. They finally got on the board at 14:25 when Gil Fournier took a loose puck on the two-man advantage—a double Weinershnitzel power play!—and chopped it into the net.

The Gulls pulled within one a minute later when Dave DaSilva took a Pierre Luc Sleigher rebound and put the puck where it had just been.

But, alas, Victoria iced the game at 17:10 when Adam Taylor knocked in a Jade Galbraith feed. The crowd fell silent. They’d had enough turkey for the evening. It was time to take a nap of their own.

San Diego Gulls official site: www.sandiegogulls.com

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