By Moe

KEYSTONE PLAYER OF THE WEEK Julie Kremer

• Moe's Tavern Shopper - Flowers for Algernon Edition
  
• brought to you by 1-800-FLOWERS-FOR-ALGERNON
  
• or flowers@algernon.com
  
  

I feel like Charly in Flowers for Algernon. Some kind of experiment was done on me, because from late last year through the first half of this year, I was as hot as any floor hockey player in history. And now I've retreated into retardation. What happens to Charly in the end? Does he still go on to win another championship?

THE BEST DEFENSE...
...is a good offense. It keeps the ball out of our zone. Perhaps I have a contrarian view, but I thought we dominated the first half and sustained as much offense as we have all season. Four goals ain't bad, coulda been eight, but how many times have we dominated a game that was still close in score at half-time, then broken it open?

I thought our strategy should have been "more of the same." Instead, we went into a defensive crouch, and anyone who has seen football teams drop into a "prevent defense" knows that doesn't work. As a result, we actually spent more time in our own end in the second half, reflected in our scoring only one goal.

Our defense, by the way, had a very strong game in my opinion, if only our diamond guy didn't sometimes get in their way (Note to Dizzy: the diamond guy should never be behind our own net, even if, in a way, that's more of a diamond shape; by diamond, we really mean the five on a die).

Alex performed well in goal; he let in at least one from a really bad angle, but it was a pinpoint shot too. Alex was not the source of our problems down the stretch. And as Mike pointed out, for some reason we didn't monitor that one guy, the only guy on that team with talent, more closely. I think we were too lackadaisical, too confident we would prevail. We get like that sometimes.

PLAYOFFS
One more regular season game and then the playoffs. We need to get right with the Lord. We need a positive mental outlook, or at least a witty one. We need to relax and play our game. The 6-on-6 thing might have us a bit confused right now, but we have deeper talent than most teams, so it should be to our advantage. We might want to reconsider the diamond position; it worked so well the first time out, but not so much lately. Maybe we just need to rename it the 5-spot, or the X.

MORALE
I think we all need to look at the giant hockey stick; pray to it in fact. Cate, is that linked to our website? Moe's veterans will remember what I'm talking about. Moe's newbies will be inspired like never before.

KEYSTONE LIGHT PLAYER OF THE GAME
Julie Kremer, for her steady play and prescient sideline commentary. "As a team!" she likes to say. Of course, Marty did score an amazing goal while being taken down by Terry the Ref, who plays like a pro wrestler. Jen and Natasha had very strong games. Mike would've scored a couple more if I didn't get in his way. And Zivan didn't get hurt, though he fell at least once! But it was nice to have Julie back.

NEXT GAME
2 p.m., which hopefully means the floor won't be so dusty. It's the last regular season game, and I think against a team at the bottom of the standings. Let's play hard and dominate from the first drop of the puck. I'd like to destroy these guys for a confidence boost. Let's try to get everyone a goal, even if we have to take Sean (who presumably will be there) out of the net at the end to do it. Everyone scores on Sunday, some of us even twice.

moe