Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year everyone!

This week's games were all good games that were, for the most part, very close.

The Crusaders were able to hold on to a 3-2 victory over the Cougars in the early game. Brett DeBoer scored a short-handed goal in the second period, which ended up being the game winner.

In the middle game, the Flyers held on to a 6-4 win over the Stars. The Flyers poured on the shots in the first half of the game, but were unable to beat Risser until halfway through the second period. After scoring this goal, the Flyers built up a 5-1 lead that stood up until halfway into the third. At this point, the Stars found their scoring by getting three goals and making it a 5-4 game. The Flyers scored into the empty net to seal the deal. Tyler Poort scored twice for the Stars, while Kev Karelsen scored a hat-trick for the Flyers and earns this week's Player of the Week honours.

The late game was a very close game until the Omegas scored four times in the third period on their way to a 5-2 win over the Hawks. Ian VanReenen scored the first goal in the game, which was his first goal in our league. I've got to say that I knew that it wouldn't be long before he scored, because my ankle still hurts from one of his shots from a couple weeks ago.

The penalties are way down from the pace we were setting earlier on in the season. I think that the referees have a noticed a difference in our attitudes towards them and they have responded by giving us more respect. It has been showing on our game sheets. I'm proud of the way we have policed ourselves in this matter. Let's keep it up!

Oh yes, one thing that I would like to see change in the new year is the number of times that the Player of the Week ends up being somebody who played in the game against the Stars. Smarten up!

Well, here we are at the half-way point of the season already. With the results of this week's games in the books, the standings are as tight as ever. The top four teams only have two points separating them.

The Omegas once again hold sole posession of first place by beating the Cougars in the early game by the score of 7-3. This was a week with a lot of defensemen scoring points. Darren Degroot scored twice for the Cougars, while Sid VanReenen scored twice for the Omegas. This week's Player of the Week is Lance Ross of the Omegas who scored once and added three assists.

In the middle game, the Hawks came out flying (parden the pun) by beating the Flyers 8-2. Another defensemen, Jamie Feenstra, led the scoring for the Hawks with two goals and an assist.

The short-staffed Crusaders were able to beat the Stars in the late game 6-2. The game was very close until the Crusaders let loose in the third period by scoring three unanswered goals. Cam DeBoer scored twice in the Crusaders' win, while yet another defenseman, Chris Pool, got three assists.

I have now given all the teams more roster sheets. These need to be filled out before each game and given to the score keeper. I've been hearing that only a few of the teams are already doing this every week. This is necessary so that we can accurately record which players are playing in each game.
Remember, you are only supposed to enter the players' numbers that are actually playing in that particular game.

Matt Kreeft of the Flyers and Duncan Vanderwal of the Crusaders are each suspended for the next two games due to their "fight" in the early game last Friday.