| It wouldn't
be so bad being Captain, like Mike Pelyk, except you go down with your ship. And when you
captain the Cincinnati Stingers, you go down with your ship a lot. You go down almost
every time you leave port. You start to worry you're a submarine. The Good Ship Stingers
went down again Thursday for the 21st time, having struck an ice berg in Arizona. Two days
earlier she struck an iceberg in Texas. She's gifted that way. And each time she goes
down, Captain Pelyk goes down too - emotionally. Friday he was still down. "I'd
rather not even talk about it." he moan dejectedly "Maybe in a week I'll
talk." The score was Phoenix 7, Cincinnati 1. So Pelyk
asks, "What can you say, anyway? We got beat." For sixth straight away game,
they got beat. They are marvelous at home, 13-5 so far but away from port they are now
5-16-1. "You can't forget that we're a young team," the veteran defenseman says.
"We make a lot of mistakes on the road that we don't seem to make at home." He
can't fully explain this. "To me personally, it doesn't make much difference where we
play. I guess you feel a little more familiar at home than you do somewhere else, but it's
not a big thing. It shouldn't make that much difference. We're just not that good
yet." he decides. "Its a question of everyone pulling his own weight. We can
only get better."
Pelyk is certain they will get better even in his depression.
"Just look at Indianapolis," he says. "Last year they were terrible.
They're like a different team this year. Just one season makes a lot of difference when
you've got a lot of young guys." The game Thursday began auspiciously enough with
John Hughes scoring his second goal of the year at 6:17 of the first period. That put the
Stingers ahead. They should have quit there. Given ample opportunity. Phoenix came back
with a vengeance.
"You know they had lost 7-6 at Minnesota the night
before." Pelyk points out. "I'm sure they were ready to win one." Del Hall
scored two goals for the Roadrunners, his 21st and 22nd of the season and John Gray scored
two more. Cam Connor, Pekka Rautakallio and Gary Lariviere also contributed. It was 1-1
after one period, 4-1 after two, 7-1 after three.
The captain says he issued no particular orders during this mishap,
except he told his people "to please try to keep the puck out of our end. What can
you say?" he asks again. "It was one of those nights. Things wouldn't go
right." But Pelyk is quick to exonerate the goalie, John Kiely. "He just didn't
get any help. A goalie can't play by himself." The Stingers risk falling well behind
East Division leading New England, and Pelyk says, "We need to win three of four
straight." If they don't develop a little consistency soon, he suggests, they'll be
sunk. |
