The game we all love

It's a shame the Summerside Western Capitals and Pictou County Weeks Crushers won't be playing at John Brother MacDonald Stadium again this regular season. The Capitals have already played their two games at JBM, but another one might have been highly entertaining to watch.

Some 500 penalty minutes between the Crushers and Capitals on Sunday, and Tony Pisano got two minor penalties?

Four minutes total???

The list of Crushers who fought in the 9-1 Summerside win is not much shorter than the list of those who didn't, but Pisano, the 6'6", 250-pound Boston Terror who'd rather fight than eat, made the latter list.

What was our favourite American boy doing while all hell was breaking loose in Summerside? Was he knitting some slippers to hand out as Christmas gifts? Thinking about the Bruins?

Thinking up creative ways to kick-start the economy (which at the moment would be more than our federal government is doing)?

"The only one on that team I would have fought was (Brett) Gallant," said Pisano. "We didn't go. It just didn't happen (but) everyone else stepped it up when we needed them to."

Indeed they did.

So full were the penalty boxes that at one point, Pisano was the only Crushers' defenceman permitted on the ice. The irony there is rather obvious.

Even ex-Crushers' goalie Max Pelzner got in a fight with new Crushers goalie Alex Newman. It wasn't much of one, apparently, but Max Pelzner??? I wish I had seen that. Actually I wish I'd seen the entire game - it's disappointing the Crushers only seem to get into these brawls during road games, as fans here would enjoy them just as much as they do in Summerside. Maybe more.

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Non-sporting thought of the week: It's comforting that our national leaders are providing wise, thoughtful and non-partisan leadership in these uncertain times. They are simply terrific. If anyone in the U.S. is even paying attention to this circus, they must be feeling sorry for us right about now.

It's embarrassing.

The U.S. has president-elect Barack Obama building bridges between parties and trying to lead America to a better day. We, on the other hand, are stuck (maybe not for long) with a quasi-dictator intent on blowing up bridges and polluting the river below; his rank-and-file, defend to the end supporters who seem to be part of the problem and not the solution; and a wacky, 'weren't-voted-in-to-power-but-we'll-take-it-anyway' coalition complete with separatists. Is this the best they all can do?

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YMCA Ball Hockey Part 2: in a back-and-forth game at the YMCA gym on Monday night, my team suffered a 5-4 loss. Both squads competed hard but the other side got the bounce at the end to eke out the victory. If we come to the gym every game with the same work ethic, however, we'll win a lot of hockey games.

That's the positive side.

On the negative side, we needed to clean up some defensive zone coverage issues. You can't be giving up 2-on-1s and 3-on-1s all night long - that's how you get beat.

Kevin Adshade is sports editor with The News