Highland Park freeze-out

Jan. 19, 2025

Spiders and Walleye skate to a frigid tie.

One of the coldest games the Spiders ever played was on the outdoor rink at SLP. Sunday night at Highland, came close, as the temps inside Charlie Brown’s barn were hovering near zero, causing the ice chip up, pucks to jump, referees to trip over the redline, and icicles to form on cages.

In the first, the Spiders’ breakout froze up too, as most of the period was spent trying to get the puck across the defensive blue line. Despite ample opportunity on the power play.

In the second, the Spiders generated numerous chances, with four open nets just begging for a puck.

By the third, chants of “next goal wins” could be heard. And on a broken play in front of the Spider net, the Walleye capitalized to get the game’s first marker. It took almost half the period for the Spiders to respond, with DeBleeckere dishing from Gretzky’s Office, to a waiting Ronneberg stick, who was about as ready as he’s ever been in the slot. Tie ball game.

Those “next goal wins” chants started anew, and sure enough, the Walleye snapped a two-bar beauty just inside the right post. But the reason the puck had daylight was because the net was off by about 3 inches, dutifully noticed and summarily waved off by ref Michael Bernard. Much to the chagrin of the Walleye, who pleaded for Toronto (or Live Barn) intervention.

The lone highlight from the rest of regulation was an actual Walleye-on-Walleye confrontation in front of their net. In an AHA game. The refs couldn’t believe it, and could be seen flipping through the rulebook to see if they could call both for fighting.

Due to an extended TV timeout for Bernard to relace his skate, there was only 3 minutes left of ice time for the runtime overtime. With at least icing two stoppages, it seemed the game would end in a stalement. But yet another blueline turnover, resulted in yet another a Walleye rush, and the puck on the forward’s stick with 1 second to go at the right crease … but … he made one too many moves and he missed the net just wide, and as he collected the rebound ... stalemate saved by the buzzer!

Final score: 1–1

Tejeda had to make 32 saves on the night, including a few pop flies behind screens, and plenty of net-front scrambles, to earn that point for the Spiders.

The Spiders will take that point every night, and gain slightly in the C3 playoff race, which was just announced this week as comprising the top 10 teams of the 19-squad C3 level. With just a point ahead of the Fighting Walleye and Blue Ox, the Spiders would proceed to April hockey if the season ended tonight.

But plenty of deep-freeze season to go.

Lifetime against the Walleyes, which dates back to the 2020–21 playoffs (where they went on to win the C3 hardware), the Spiders slightly improve to 2–6*–1, including the asterisk game.

Next up for the Spiders, not a bye for Championship Sunday (unlike Wildcard Sunday). The Spiders take on the “Fighting Loons Red” team, which is in last place (unlike their counterparts, Fighting Loons Black, who are in first place). The Red squad just moved up from D1 this season, and is backstopped by Gold Spiders summer goalie Andy Enestvedt. Last year they went 15–2–2–1, and 2–1 in the playoffs.

Puck drop, Sunday Jan. 26, at 7:45 p.m., back at Richfield (again).