Netting, A Loss in Neuilly

On Tuesday we made our way about 20mins outside of Paris to a small place called Neuilly Sur Marne. This is a new team in our league that got promoted from Division 1 last year. The way it works in France is that in the Elite League (Ligue Magnus) we have 14 teams. The top 4 get a first round playoff bye and the bottom 2 (13th and 14th place) in the regular season have a best of 5 playoff series to see which team gets to stay in the league and which drops down to Division 1. Then the Champions from Division 1 move up the following season to the Ligue Magnus! GOT IT???

Anyways, so that's who we played and with them having been the champions from Div 1 last year, you would expect it would be a pretty good organization and a nice rink to play in right? Well no. This place is in the ghetto to start with and the rink, oh my the rink. There is no glass, no stands no team bench and no penalty box. There is netting that covers the whole rink to prevent pucks from flying out of play, but if it does, it wont hit any fans because they have none, and there is no place for them to sit anyways. Behind the net, the netting is fair game, I took one shot that got deflected and it flew up about 20ft in the air but because it did not go over the netting, the play continued. Both teams watched and waited for the puck to slowly roll down the tall netting, as if they were waiting for the rebound in basketball to fall, boxing each other out, getting better positioning to jump up and grab the ball off the rim. However, on the side boards if the puck hits the netting, the whistle is blown and the play is dead. In about 4 or 5 instances, the puck hit the netting behind the net, dropped down and sat on the top of the boards, right on the ledge, never falling to the ice. Another whistle.

The game itself was bizarre in which the first period we took 5 penalties to Neuilly's none. They scored 2 power play goals. A scoreless 2nd period followed and then we made it close when I picked up the puck behind our net, made a few moves around their forwards in the neutral zone and walked over the blue line and took a slap shot stick side. On the same shift we nearly tied it at 2 but Jan Simko hit the post off of a one timer. That was the turning point, we went on to lose 5-1 in the Coupe de la Ligue game.

After the game, instead of heading back with the team on the bus, I jumped in the rental car with my parents who are in France right now visiting me. We drove to their bed and breakfast and then got on the road the next morning. Stopping for a few hours to see a castle Fountainbleau. I love castles but this place was a tad boring. I prefer the fountainbleau near Adstoll Arena in Windsor!