Boys With Balls eulogy: A season of ups and downs

The Boys With Balls hockey team was eliminated from the SBHL playoffs last week with an 8-4 loss to the Misty C Ballers. The team finished with an overall record of 5-10 through regular season and playoffs.

In the spring, Yahoo! Sports wrote a series of pieces called “Puck Euologies”, paying tribute to teams as they fell out of the race for the Stanley Cup. In honour of that, I present to you the 2010 Boys With Balls puck eulogy.

The start of the season was anything but .. good. Even mediocre would have been acceptable. It was so bad, you could compare it to the first seven games of the Toronto Maple Leafs season. Sure that “NHL” team lost eight straight to start the year, while BWB lost just three, but at least some of their games were respectable. The Boys lost their opening triad of matches by a combined score of 25-5. They popped their cherry in the fourth game of the season against a team called Ottawa Black. I guess even the worst teams in Toronto can still beat an Ottawa team when they need to.

From there the season had about as much consistency as Vesa Toskala’s glove hand. Win one, lose one, win two, lose four, win two, lose two. To truly understand this team’s struggles, you’d have to understand the enigma that was their offense. I’m not even sure a nuclear physicist would have been able to solve this puzzle.

The same team that got shutout (that’s right ZERO goals in a ball hockey game), set a league record by scoring 17 in a single game. Their top two goal scorers, Tim Correia and Matt Di Nicolantonio, had 27 of the team’s 65 goals, good for 42%. They scored three or fewer goals in seven of their fifteen games. They had a player score a hat trick on three separate occasions, while having a player score five goals twice more. The team was an offensive juggernaut on some occasions, but looked like a wounded animal struggling to find its way home on others. Then there was the back-checking. Let’s just say you’d be more likely to see James Bertola turn down a free pasta dinner than see a BWB forward standing in his own zone on a breakout.

The defense was generally a solid corps, anchored by stalwart Steve Costantini. If there had been that kind of defending in the Sudetenland, there wouldn’t have been a World War II. Ket Patel was also a plug in the back end, providing tenacious and steady support, but he mysteriously disappeared for the team’s final five games, which led to their demise. Scotty Thomson, Lukas Notten, Brendan Pon and John Mastrella all took turns attempting to contain a full-on offensive attack by themselves, and they all performed up to task. More often than not, the defence held the offense at bay for as long as they could.

Goaltender Dave Capo was a Jekyll and Hyde character for BWB this season. At times he showed flashes of brilliance from his glory days as a first baseman that earned him the nickname “Sponge Dave”. On other occasions he was a combination of Vesa Toskala, Andrew Raycrofy and Trevor Kidd wrapped up into one package. That’s not an affront on the netminder at all. Playing net in ball hockey is no walk in the park, and he usually gave the team a chance to win before they found a way to lose it on their own. Nobody gave a consistent performance on every night of the season, and the Sponge was no different.

Lastly, there was coach Barney Bailie, father of captain Josh. He returned to coach for the third season, and the attrocities of the first three games under his command are well-documented. The first victory of the season also happened to be the first game that he was absent for. Fans and critics alike were immediately calling for his dismissal, claiming the team was better off coaching itself. His high-pitched screaming was often audible from every corner of the arena, and by season’s end, players were giving 150% effort just so they wouldn’t have to hear his blast. While it proved to be an interesting motivational tactic, the team has yet to comment on whether Bailie senior will be returning for a fourth season behind the bench.

Overall, the 2010 BWB season was full of ups and downs, rises and falls, and balls bouncing every which way.  Considering the team hadn’t played in two years, they exceeded expectations with a late-season surge, and with proper conditioning and continued committment to winning, this should be a team on the rise, which will be harder to face in the future.

Final Stats Leaders

Games Played – Tim Correia, Josh Bailie, Dave Capo (15)

Goals – Tim Correia (17)

Assists – Brendan Pon (9)

Total Points – Tim Correia (23)

Penalty Minutes – Matt Di Nicolantonio, John Mastrella (stat not formally kept, we couldn’t decide who ended up having more)

Fights – Matt Di Nicolantonio (1/2)

Stitches – Lukas Notten (does the number really matter, either way, he’s the man)

Teeth Nearly Lost – Daniel Hofland (see above)

Vomit on Bench – James Bertola (2)

Full Stats

	GP	G	A	TP
Tim Correia	15	17	6	23
Matt Di Nicolantonio	14	10	8	18
Brendan Pon	14	7	9	16
John Mastrella	14	8	7	15
James Bertola	12	5	8	13
Daniel Hofland	14	7	5	12
Josh Bailie	15	3	6	9
Steve Costantini	13	2	6	8
Mark Gaglione	12	2	5	7
Lukas Notten	13	2	4	6
Scott Thomson	14	1	3	4
Ket Patel	10	1	1	2
Zubin Mistry	2	0	0	0
Ricky Bhatia	3	0	0	0
		W	L	T	GAA	GA
Dave Capo	15	5	10	0	5.13	77