Strange night at Woog

Feb. 9, 2021

Spiders come out 11–3 over Arctic Wolves in a very strange game.

In the first of the rescheduled games, the Spiders took on the Arctic Wolves at Woog/Wakota late night Tuesday.

The game started out strange, and went downhill from there. On an early first period breakaway with two Wolves defenders in close pursuit, Eric Grotbeck scored on the Wolves’ netminder Jamison Ottum, who flopped forward to try to make the save. The puck bounced straight back off the bottom bar and back out, and Ottum’s goalie mask apparently caught something (stick, skate? He didn’t know...) on the way down, breaking his neck protector. The refs, one just arriving at the top of the circle, and one from the blueline, saw none of it up close. Not the goal, not the contact. But after discussion (and Ottum losing his temper), the end result was Eric in the box for goaltender interference, and nothing else on the board for the goal. However, you wouldn’t know by looking at the scoresheet, as the penalty wasn’t officially recorded. All that would set the tone for the night.

At the 6:30 mark, awaiting a faceoff in the Spider zone, Ottum appeared to struggle and went down to his knees, and was eventually helped off the ice. The Wolves’ Matt Zarras, a longtime AHA goalie, ended up standing in the net. That lasted until a whistle at 4:47, when Ottum returned to the ice, where he stayed for the remainder of the first period, which all told, took a whopping 42 minutes of ice time.

After 1, 2–1 Spiders. With Zarras back playing deterrent in the Wolves’ net, the Spiders ended up scoring three goals in the second, while the Wolves added another. The scoresheet would have you believe they all took place in a span of 7 seconds, but chalk that up to AHA math, and scorekeeper who didn’t seem to know how to run the board controller. The scoreboard showed 1–0 for most of the second period, and didn’t list any penalties, until the end of the second. That’s when the scoresheet would have you believe that a YouTube-worthy fireworks-laden melee broke loose at an AHA game. The refs, who again filled in the blanks for what they thought they saw, ended up tossing Mike Mettee for fighting, with a 5-min. major and the attendant Game Misconduct. However, in reality it was a mostly innocuous post-whistle tangle instigated by D. Salamone of the Wolves, who took exception to Mettee’s body positioning behind the net. After the whistle, Salamone bolted out, knocked a Spider player to the side to jump Mettee and give him a piece of his mind (and gloves). Mettee pushed back, as anyone would when being yanked at, inadvertently pushing against Salamone’s facemask. And that was it. The refs decided that was a punch, and per the USAH rulebook, does constitute a fighting penalty. So Mettee was ejected, and Salamone got a double minor for roughing.

In the runtime third period, Zarras spent most of his time roaming the neutral zone, including setting up plays in the offensive end corner, thus leaving the Wolves’ net wide open. So the Spiders tossed a half dozen more pucks into the empty net, including one 200-foot “missed pass” by John Andres from behind the Spider net.

Final score: 11–3. Don’t bother looking at the scoresheet, as while everyone got in on the scoring, including Dave Schuster from 30 miles away from Schuster’s Office™, it’s highly inaccurate as either the scorekeeper wasn’t sure how to enter the stats, or simply didn’t write anything down during the game.

In the standings, halfway through this disrupted season, the Spiders remain in a three-way tie for the fourth and final playoff spot with the Arctic Wolves and Royals.

Next up, will supposedly the Spiders face the Royals, next Tuesday. However, the game is scheduled at Tria Rink, which is currently closed due to the NHL Wild’s facility (and team) shutdown due to Covid-19. So, puck drop, potentially, at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday night.