Through 39...

By any hockey player's standards our January schedule has been busy. We have had 3 games a week since we rang in the new year, with every game being really important in the league standings it has felt like playoffs. It has been fun...

After the Comet game last week, which we won 7-1, I was told that on Thursday in Asker I would be given my first night off of the season. Our other goalie Lars Haugen, is very good. He has played for the Norweigan National team in several tournaments and deserved a chance to play. Him and I get along well so it was a little easier to watch from the bench and wish him well. Although, I have become accustomed to playing every game and I did not like having no control of the game especially in this crucial time of the year. Lars came through in the game, the team played very solid and we walked away with a comfortable 5-1 win. As soon as the buzzer went, every one of us were thinking about our game on Saturday.

Our 4th 'Derby Match' against our close rivals from down the road Sterjne. We were 2-1 against them so far this season, and they were 7 points behind us in the standings. Our arena was sold out, the supporters were in town around 12:00 drinking, signing, and waving Sparta flags everywhere. It is really cool how into this everyone gets. It is truly personal when we play them. In the first we were nervous and it showed, they were all over us. They out shot us 13-6 in the first but came away with a 1-1 tie. Our coach between periods, sat down when he talked to us and acted like his dog had died. It was really weird it was like he knew what was coming...We played wide open hockey and found ourselves down 5-3 after the second. I felt like I was playing ok, I was not controlling my rebounds well though and they were all over it. It was really frustrating. Another first this year then happened..I was pulled to start the 3rd. It was so disappointing! I watched the third as we played much better and had some chances but we were only able to get 1 back. We had won a lot in a row so it was bound to happen but it seemed like we went from top of the world to bottom in one bad period. Worst of all, we would have to hide in town to avoid people giving us their opinion of what went wrong. On Sunday, we were given a gift though. Frisk-Asker won in Valerenga!!! We were now two points behind them in the standings with 1 game in hand.
We had back to back games with Furuset, the first of which was our game in hand. Furuset is the last place team who lost their goalie to a Finnish team (his home country). No matter who it was, we were a win away from being in all alone in 1st place for the first time in a months. We were a little slow at the start but did manage a 5-1 win on the road. First place was ours. We played Furuset for the last time this year on Thursday at home. Lars played and we beat them easily 9-2. Saturday we traveled through the snow to Lillehammer. I have commented before but it really is more beautiful with the snow. Such a cool city. We have not been able to win there yet though..and Valerenga was playing Furuset, there would be no gift this weekend. We needed to win to stay in first. We played what I thought was our best road game of the year. We were very solid. We played without our captain, and two of our top defencemen. They are all out with injury, well the captain had a fever..???? (I know what you are thinking..Different cultures I guess!) We were tied 1-1 after the first. In the second we had a lot of powerplay's and we made 2 count. With a 3-1 lead going into the 3rd we knew that would come hard early and they did. We killed off some power plays and scored a good goal off a good forecheck to make it 4-1. They pulled their goalie with 5 minutes left but we held them off and got an empty netter with a little over a minute to go. The final shots were 28-24 us. It was really good to get win in their rink in case we play them in playoffs.

We have played 39 games with 6 remaining we control our own destiny. If we win out, we win the league. We have 1 more game this Thursday and then we have 2 weeks off for another National team break. This time for break I am going to head to Cardiff. I will get to see the Devils play on Sunday at home and then see Vother and the boys in action at a Super Bowl party Sunday night!!! It should be a good time!!