Hackers, Lynx Remain Undefeated

Mark October 10th on your calendars. That is the date the the LAN Hackers will meet the ADC Lynx for the very first time, in what's shaping up to be a preview of this year's league final. Both the Hackers and the Lynx upped their records to 2-0 this week with impressive, if not overwhelming victories.

The Lynx, playing Tuesday at their home arena, the Needham Center, beat-up on their fellow-expansion team, the Keane Chill 13-6. Leading the way for the second straight game was the tandem of Blaise MacPhee and Jay Allison. MacPhee, the league's leading scorer, potted 9 goals and added an assist while Allison scored two and assisted on 5 others.

The statistic that is perhaps most indicative of the Chill's game plan was that Chill forward Randall Leard had more penalty minutes (4) than anybody on his team had points. Leard, known as the "Claude Lemieux of the FHL" refused to comment on his team's dubious tactics.

The Hackers faced off against their old rivals the Lite-Sabres in Wednesday's marquee match-up. This rivalry has a new feel to it this year with the only remaining competetors from Finals past being John Dulong, John Price and Chris McMaster. The Hackers received fortunate bounces early in the game and parlayed them into a 4-2 first-intermission lead. Although the Lite-Sabres were able to somewhat neutralize league phenom John Price (3 goals, 2 assists), the Hackers depth proved too much for the young Sabres team too overcome. The Hackers doubled the Sabres in shots 61-30 and cruised to a confortable 11-7 victory. Sabres' goaltender Chris McMaster, always eager for an excuse, blamed the gear. "How do you think you would do if you were playing in stinky gear that's dripping in somebody's sweat from the game before? It's hard to play nets when you're holding your breath."

The week's final game pitted two winless teams against each other when the Keane Fire squared off against the Sunnydale Slayers. This was a wide open affair as both teams repeatedly took advantage of the Y's yawning cages. Fire forward Kevin Haddad was on a mission this week after being shutout in his previous game. Haddad tallied 7 goals and 2 assists as the Fire pulled away late from the Slayers 18-16. Even with Slayers star Kenzie Royal yelling "Who's your Haddad-y?" at Haddad for most of the night, the Fire's all-time leading scorer was unphased.