Sunday Night Hockey

After so many weeks of home losses and badly played games, Chelmsford surprised us all tonight. It was a league game against the hated Milton Keynes Lightning, and none of us were altogether optimistic about our home team's chances. As the game started, I turned to Calvin and said "We're going to win tonight" -- but I don't think either of us really believed it.

There must have been something in the air, because within minutes of the first period it was clear that Chelmsford were playing well -- both teams were playing well, to be fair -- and it could be a close-run game. Passes were meeting the right players, shots on goal were being successfully saved -- but at the end of the first period it was still a no score game. You could tell the crowd was a bit edgy, comments were made regarding last weeks' game which saw only one goal in the full sixty minutes, and that was against Chelmsford.

The second period saw the quality of hockey maintained -- good interceptions, the usual handful of penalties, but the clock was ticking away and I was starting to think there would be no score in the second period. Jon hadn't been able to make tonight's game, so I was drafting out a message to tell him there was no score at the end of the second -- when Chelmsford took first blood, and made the score one - nil. First blood was truly taken with a fight towards the end of the period -- the crowd cheering louder than when we scored.

The third and final period had everything to play for, a one goal lead wasn't anywhere near safety against the Lightning (whose fans seemed to be inexplicably wearing red cowboy hats tonight) -- so it was just as well when Chelmsford took it up to 2 - nil. There was still at least 15 minutes of the period left, and although Milton Keynes needed three goals to take them into the lead, I didn't have so much faith in Chelmsford that I thought they wouldn't mess it up. All they needed was to play defensively, but could they manage it? The quality of the game was easily the best all season, however the threat was there -- it wasn't our game yet.

With four minutes left on the clock, and Chelmsford still winning two goals to nothing (and the constant, incessant drumming of the Lightning fans -- being met with shouts of "You're losing!" from home team fans), the Chieftain boys drove home another goal against Milton Keynes. The clock ticked down, and we had a happy glow of winning a home game after so many weeks of disappointment.

There was five seconds to go, when a Milton Keynes shot just drifted lazily into the Chelmsford goal -- all the more frustrating because at any other point in the game, there might have been at least one defender hanging around, able to easily intercept this effort. Instead of a decisive 3 - nil shutout, because of a lucky visitors goal we had to settle for 3 - 1 instead. But you can't turn your nose up at that.

Last year, a home loss to Milton Keynes marked the end of a run of several wins for Chelmsford -- here's hoping tonight's victory marks the start of such a run of good fortune, and good playing.