Well, it appears that some guys took me seriously when I said this would be the weekend to take off, if you needed to. I didn't mean just take off and not tell us, (thanks to those who did report in.)

Steve showed up but had a groin tweak from hockey, so he shot photos for us.

Even the ref didn't show up, so we decided to do a friendly, with us short by 2 and them short by 1. When their 11th man came, they gave us a loaner, who ended up playing harder for us than he was playing for them! He assisted Al on a goal late in the first half, but had to leave after that.

In the pre-game talk, Al gave us licence to try new things, "And if it doesn't work out and you get stripped of the ball in front of our own net... who cares? (Other than Kyle.)"

The day had started very nicely, but by game time, all of the sun was gone and the cold wind was whipping up. It even started to snow sideways at half time.

Unlike the last 0-0 game, there was plenty of space and we all got a good workout. Lots of silly stuff, though, like missed passes and near own-goals. I had a nice assist early in the second half, passing to our friends right in the middle of our box.

Kyle had big diving saves, to keep the score from going silly.

If anyone was keeping score, we were down 4-1 when we were getting close to our agreed-upon early shut-down, 20 minutes into the second half. Their captain, John, generously announced "Next goal wins."

Like in drop-in, we got serious then — and didn't allow anything else past us. We eventually had to call it, as some of their players had to leave.

Good sportsmanship showed by all — and we saved the league $60 on ref's fees. (Hey... we could have gone to the pub and not let Kris know the ref didn't show!)
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