12U AA

Ice Jets ‘94AA - 8, Alliance - 3: The puck dropped at 4:15, but unfortunately, the Bulldog skaters didn’t show up until 15 minutes later in this NTXHL tilt against the Ice Jets '94AA. The Ice Jets took command at the opening faceoff, and began peppering the Bulldog goalie. Despite making several tough saves, the Ice Jets were still able to find the net four times for a 4-0 lead after one period.

In the second period, the Bulldogs began counterattacking. The Ice Jets extended the lead to 6-0 before the Bulldogs found the net. The two teams would trade goals, and the second period ended with the Ice Jets leading 7-2. In the third, the Bulldogs continued their aggressive play, but could only trade goals again for the final 8-3 margin. The Bulldogs may have come out slow, but they did finish strong. That should give them something to build on heading into their next game.

Houston Hitmen - 6, Alliance - 5: The Bulldogs wrapped up their Houston NTXHL weekend taking on the Houston Hitmen. They picked up where they left off the day before, with hard, aggressive play, and built a 2-0 midway through the first period. The Bulldogs seemed to lose their aggressive instinct after that, though, and the Hitmen were able to get two goals late to even the score at 2-2 after one period.

Early in the second period, a Bulldog forward picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and weaved between the Hitmen defenders and scored on a beautiful shot to put the Bulldogs up 3-2. Once again, however, the Hitmen were able to tie the score, and the second period ended tied at 3.

In the third period, which is normally a strong period for the Bulldogs, Alliance came out flat, and allowed three goals in the first half of the period. To their credit, the Dogs didn’t quit, and scored two goals approximately a minute apart, with the last goal coming with 1:30 left in the game. Alliance pulled the goalie and tried their best, but they were unable to score the tying goal before time ran out.

Alliance - 1, Houston Wild - 0: The Bulldogs got their first NTXHL victory of the season in a most exciting fashion, defeating the Houston Wild 1-0. Early in the first period, the Bulldogs scored to take the lead. That was all the scoring there would be, as both goalies came up big during the game.

The Bulldog goalie ended up with 30 saves, including a breakaway in the second period, and a couple of point-blank slapshots. He was aided by a tenacious Bulldog defense that cleared loose pucks from the front of the net. As if a 1-0 game wasn’t exciting enough, the Bulldogs decided to make it even more interesting by getting into penalty trouble late in the third period. Alliance wound up playing the last 15 seconds three men down (with the extra attacker for the Wild). Once again, though, the Bulldog defense and goalie were up to the task and preserved a hard fought victory.

Texas Attack ‘95AAA - 7, Alliance - 2: It was déjà vu all over again for the Bulldogs, as for the fifth time this season, they took an early lead only to watch it slip away in this NTXHL game agains the Attack '95AAA at Polar Ice. The Bulldogs opened the scoring early in the first, on a rebound goal for a 1-0 lead. Alliance held the lead until with only 18 seconds left in the period, the Attack scored to tie the game back up at 1-1.

It would take the Attack only 30 seconds into the second period to take a 2-1 lead. Shortly after that, they scored a short handed goal to increase their lead to 3-1, which is how the second period ended. The Attack would increase their lead to 4-1 before the Bulldogs scored to cut the lead to 4-2. That was all the offense the Bulldogs could muster, and the Attack added three more goals, the last coming with 3 seconds left, for the 7-2 win.

Stars Selects AAA - 11, Alliance - 2: This exhibition game can be described in a single sentence: The Dallas Stars Select came to play and the Bulldogs didn’t. The Stars attacked early and often, building an 8-0 lead after the first period, while out-shooting the Bulldogs 23-2. The Bulldogs continued to fight and scored a couple of their own in the second period. That was all they could muster, though, and the Stars scored three more in the third.

Ice Jets ‘94AA - 6, Alliance - 3: The Bulldogs came out playing hard against the Ice Jets '94AA in this NTXHL matchup. They took an early 1-0 lead when a Bulldog the crashed the net and knocked home a rebound off a dump-in shot. The Ice Jets would tie it up later in the period, but the Bulldogs would score again to regain the lead at 2-1. A late Ice Jets goal tied it at 2 after one period.

Things fell apart for the Bulldogs in the second period, as the Ice Jets scored twice to take a 4-2 lead after two periods. The Bulldogs wouldn’t quit, and scored early in the third to cut the deficit to one at 4-3. With about 5 minutes remaining, the Ice Jets converted on a break away to restore the two goal margin, and then tallied another with a couple minutes remaining for the final margin.

Montclair Blues - 3, Alliance - 0: Montclair dominated this game from the start. Scrappy Bulldog defense in front of the net and excellent Alliance goaltending limited Montclair to one goal per period in a game that wasn’t as close as the score might indicate.

Florida Jr. Panthers - 6, Alliance - 2: This game started out as a defensive effort and the score was 0-0 after one period. In the second, the Panthers found the net twice to take a 2-0 lead after two. In the third, the Bulldogs made an offensive push and scored twice. Unfortunately, that offensive effort came at the expense of the defense, and the Panthers were able to exploit that to score four times for a 6-2 win.

Florida Flyers - 4, Alliance - 1: Like the Jr. Eagles game, the Bulldogs scored first and had tremendous offensive pressure. However, they were unable to maintain the momentum and the Flyers walked away with a 4-1 win.

Boston Jr. Eagles - 10, Alliance - 1: The Eagles came out and dominated this game early. Alliance counterattacked and actually scored first. The Eagles would tie the game less than a minute later, and continue their domination on way to a 10-1 victory.

DJHA AA - 2, Alliance - 1: The Alliance 12U AA drops a close one, in a NTXHL rematch from 2 weeks ago against DJHA AA. This time, the Bulldogs played with a great deal more confidence, and for the 2nd consecutive game, received very strong net-minding. After trailing the Penguins much of the first period 1-0, Alliance was forced to play short-handed for the final 3 minutes 10 seconds, including 1 minute 14 seconds down 2 skaters. Again, the Alliance goalie was up to the task, and behind some strong penalty killing, kept the Bulldogs in the game.

The 2nd period began as the first ended, with the Bulldogs on the penalty kill. The result was the same, however, as the DJHA power play was turned away again. In fact, the entire 15 minutes elapsed without any further scoring, as both teams skated hard and made few mistakes in their defensive zones.

The third period proved to be much of the same, as the Bulldogs continued to skate very hard with lots of offensive fore-checking and some steady defense. At the 4:35 mark of the third period, the Alliance hard work finally paid off, and a deflected shot ended up behind the Penguin goalie to tie the score at 1-1. The celebration was short-lived, however, as the Penguins were able to answer the late goal with one of their own for a 2-1 lead with only 3 minutes to play. The clock then ran all the way down to 14 seconds before the Bulldogs coach finally got a stoppage in play so he could use his timeout. The Bulldog final assault in the Penguin zone came up short as time elapsed for the 2-1 loss.

It was a real nail-biter for 45 minutes, and the Bulldogs should be very proud of their effort.

Stars Select 94 AA – 4, Alliance – 2: The Bulldogs showed much improvement in only their second competition of the young season, their NTXHL season opener against the Dallas Stars Select Saturday at Farmers Branch. After taking the lead early in the game, Alliance was able to keep the score close throughout the 1st period, thanks to strong goaltending. While being out-shot by a 2 to 1 margin, the kids refused to give in and the period ended with a 2-1 score.

The Stars quickly scored their third goal early in the second to take another 2 goal lead. The teams then swapped Power-play opportunities, with neither able to convert. The Stars quickly scored again on the powerplay to start the third period to take a three goal lead, making it 4-1. The Bulldogs continued to battle, and closed the gap with another breakaway goal that made it 4-2 with 3.5 minutes remaining. The Bulldogs missed an opportunity to close the gap even more with a late powerplay.

Alliance battled back in the second half of the game, but was simply unable to overcome a 3 goal deficit. The Bulldogs got stronger as the game progressed, and kept the shots on goal even for the second half of the game. Overall, this was exactly the kind of improvement everyone was hoping to see from our young but gritty team.

DJHA AA - 10, Alliance - 1: Alliance took it hard on the chin during their first exhibition game of the season, as they struggled with adjustments to the new USA Hockey stick infraction rules when they squared off against the DJHA AA Penguins on Saturday.

Alliance had a strong team effort in the first period that resulted in a close 3-1 margin. The Bulldogs successfully killed a 2 man advantage early in the period to keep the score notched at zero, but then failed to convert on their own 2-man advantage that followed. DJHA took a 2 goal lead, but the Alliance closed the gap by countering with a power-play goal that was initiated by an aggressive fore-check & finished with quick passes in front of the net. DJHA scored its third goal just before the period ended.

DJHA quickly scored their fourth goal early in the second that took away any momentum that the Bulldogs had established in the first period. DJHA continued to capitalize on their numerous power-play opportunities to stretch their lead before the period came to a close.

Alliance continued to battle in the third, but did not capitalize on any of their scoring opportunities. Overall, it was a great learning experience for our young team in their first tilt of the new season.

These boys have worked very hard so far and appear to have great leadership behind the bench. Look out for the U-12 AA Bulldogs down the road.

The Alliance U12 PeeWee AA Roster and Preliminary Schedule for the 2006-2007 season was released today. The remainder of the schedule up until December will be released following the NTXHL scheduling meeting, scheduled for later this month.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Bulldogs Begin Team Building Exercises for 2006-2007 Season...

Many of the Alliance Bulldog Teams have already started having or planning Team Building events and activities to prepare for the upcoming 2006-2007 season.

These teams have found in the past that these types of events help begin new relationships on a positive and fun note, and help start the development of team chemistry that will play a vital role in the team's progress throughout the season.

Pictured at the right is the 2006-2007 Alliance 12U AA PeeWee team having fun playing whirlyball.