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Gulls beat up on Stockton, Jr. Gulls beat up on each other
By Michael Clarke
November 28, 2005
San Diego--On Saturday the Gulls, staked to an early lead, defeated the Stockton Thunder before 6,473 mullet-adorned fans at the iPayOne Center.
The game was unusually physical to begin with. Perhaps it was the Charlie Daniels music blaring from the arena speakers. The Stockton Thunder came out aggressively, spending a good amount of time in the first period attacking the Gulls end. If not for some key stops by backup goalie Tom Lawson, the game might have gotten away in a hurry and the mullets may have been for naught.The stalemate was broken when Martin Mandeville made a stellar pass to Nikita Korovkin, who was charging the Thunder net. Though Korovkin’s shot was deflected by Thunder goalie Jeff Weber, Dan DaSilva--who’s accumulated 8 points since being assigned from the AHL’s Lowell Lock Monsters--got the rebound and put the puck in for the first goal of the night.
A few minutes later, as the Gulls found themselves in a penalty kill situation, Alex Kim stole the puck from center ice and put the puck in on the left side to put the Gulls up 2-0. Would this be a repeat of last week when the Gulls cruised to an easy 7-1 victory against the Bakersfield Condors? (Hardly.)
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The Jr. Gulls opened up a can of Whoop-Ass |
By far the coolest thing of the night was the Junior Gulls exhibition during the first intermission. These nine and ten year olds provided the most physical hockey of the night with their brutish play and aggressive cross-checking. There was more tripping in this 10 minute match than at a Pink Floyd concert. And if Whitney Houston was right when she said “I believe the children are our future”--then it looks like the future is going to be a little on the violent side. |
It took 11 seconds into the 2nd period for Alex Kim to score his second goal of the night. At this point it looked like the Gulls could coast the rest of the way and make plans for their post-game meal. But then, not two seconds after Gulls announcer Mike Thomas said, “The Gulls are at full-strength,” Thunder forward Joel Irwin skated around two Gulls defenders to cut the lead to 3-1.
The rest of the second period for the Gulls was as up and down as Ashley Simpson’s musical career. Da Silva scored his second goal of the night to restore their three-goal advantage, but the Gulls, and the Thunder for that matter, just couldn’t stay out of the penalty box. The Gulls gave up a short handed goal to Mike Lalond, and then while the Gulls were on their “Weinerschnitzel Power Play,” Nathan Martz of the Thunder put in a short-handed goal to bring this one-time rout to extreme nail-biter status.
In the end it was good clean hockey in the third period that was going to decide this. Yeah, right. What am I saying? The third period was brutal. Gulls defenseman Richard Keys got hit in the face by a stick on a blatant non-call and Chet Ferreria put two vicious hits on Thunder forwards that were so loud I could hear them over the guy in section 4b screaming the words to “Sweet Home Alabama."
Perhaps the biggest groan of the night came when Aaron Foster of the Thunder broke his stick in a tantrum-like maneuver after a Lawson save. Not even the Junior Gulls did that. He was booed soundly--and deservedly so.
As it turned out physical play and a two-goal lead turned out to be enough for the Gulls. The win made it two in a row for the Gulls and helped them stay tied with the Long Beach Ice Dogs for second in the Pacific Division. Maybe most importantly they defended the sanctity of “Mullet Night” and made it safe, once again, for Gulls fans to turn up the volume on the stereo playing “Free Bird” and go home victorious.
San Diego Gulls official site: www.sandiegogulls.com
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