Congratulations to longtime Ak Bar Chad "Fireman" Johnson on the birth of his daughter.  She was born on 11/15/2009 and was 7 lbs 14 oz.  I played hockey with a guy who just turned 70 last night, so I figure little Addison will be able to play with the Ak Bars for at least 20 years before I retire.

Bear #26

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With about a third of the Ak Bars still shaking off the after effects of Andrew "Big Swede" Jahr's wedding, this first game was a little rough.  We actually held our own pretty well despite the fact that I could barely get my gear on without working my way toward metabolic alkalosis... The Nemesis jumped to an early lead due to a relatively flukey goal off a faceoff in our end during the first period.  After a scoreless 2nd period the Nemesis scored another goal early in the third period off a breakaway.  To add injury to insult, Captain Larry "Crusher" Curtis was hammered so hard he had to miss a few shifts to make sure all his bits and pieces were still in place and working.  Just when things were looking bleak Garret "G-man" Miedema saved the day by getting himself thrown in the penalty box, forcing Larry to go back out on the ice.  With a bum knee and all, Larry scored a blue line goal that snuck through the goalie's five-hole, putting some fire back into the Ak Bars game.  Unfortunately we weren't able to pull it out and finished the game 2-1.  We play the Nemesis two more times this season so as close as this game was I wouldn't be surprised to see a rubber match by the third game.  The next game is our traditional day-after-halloween game so I'm sure we'll all be in game form...

Bear #26 

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Almost anyway...  Our first game will probably be the day after all the Halloween parties like it has been our last 4 seasons.  I guess that's why they call it "beer league hockey".  That's right!  The Ak Bars are going into their 5th season!  Hard to believe we've been together that long.  This year we've got some new blood and old blood returning.  Welcome to Ed "White Shiancoe" Soler, Dimtry Deyev, and welcome back to returning member Wayne Rahl.  Unfortunately Dimtry is following in Ak Bar tradition and is already on IR before the season even started.  The team anxiously looks forward to his return so I'm not always tired on defense. 

We just got done pounding the Beavers tonight in a scrimmage and we were looking good.  (Actually I think they beat us if anyone was keeping score, but I can't resist slipping "pounding the Beavers" into the news.)  I think we only nearly tipped the puck in on Trey once (wasn't me!) and I only scared the crap out of him by passing through the slot once.  Oh and there was that bad pass behind the net, but I'm still blaming that one on Larry.  Pavel stayed out of the penalty box the whole scrimmage (no refs...) and Boyko only put one puck through the roof of the rink.  Fun was had and hopefully all the rust is blown off.

Check out the rest of the website as well.  Thanks to Jeren "Jergn" Anderson doing a little digging, you can see Player Stats and Standings for all our previous winter seasons.  Also, thanks to Will at http://freeteams.net, you can now see all Photo Galleries for each season without having to dig through individual season archives.  More to Ak Bars news to come soon!

Bear #26

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