Jr. B Moose Come Out Strong at Brewster
Labor Day Tournament

This past Labor Day weekend, The Metro Moose Junior B team traveled to Brewster, New York to participate in the Brewster Labor Day Showcase. The weekend featured 5 local teams battling each other to help prepare for the regular season. Overall the team fared well during the weekend finishing with a 1-1-2 record.
Game 1 was Saturday afternoon against the Seacoast Kings. The Moose would prevail in the game by a score of 5-1. The offense was led by the line of Joe Finocchiaro, Sean McAllister and Brendan Tracy. McAllister led the way with 2 goals and 1 assist. Also getting in on the act was John Quinn who had his first goal of the year with defensemen Matthew Conway, Luke Morrel and Kevin Drudy all chipping in with assists. There were contributions up and down the lineup and the team was backstopped by strong goaltending from Steve Laris.

Game 2 was Saturday evening and would match the Moose with local rival The New Jersey Wildcats. The Wildcats Empire Junior B team is a perennial playoff team in the Empire Junior B league and this would prove to be a very difficult opponent. The game started off slowly for the Moose. They would face their first adversity of the year when they trailed 2-0 heading into the half. Despite a decent effort early on the Moose could not solve the Jersey defense. After the half the Moose came out like a different team. The Moose got on the board finally with a goal from Brendan Tracy with assists going to Sean McAllister and Joe Finocchiaro. John Quinn would get the Moose even with his second goal of the weekend with assists going to Brendan Tracy and Sean McAllister. After some relentless pressure the Moose would finally take the lead on an unassisted goal by McAllister. The remainder of the game went back and forth with the Moose receiving some fine goaltending by John D’Adamo. With just under 5 minutes to go in the game, the Moose took a stupid penalty and Jersey would make them pay by evening the game at 3 with a power play goal. The Moose still had to kill off the remainder of the penalty to salvage a 3-3 tie.

The Moose entered Sunday with high hopes. Game 3 was against another local Empire League team, The Brewster Bulldogs. The Moose would again get off to sluggish start. Brewster seemed really pumped up for the game and took it to the Moose for the majority of the first half. The Moose got on the board with a goal be Sean McAllister with assists going to Danny Kaplan and John Quinn. The Moose quickly responded after a Brewster goal to even the game with a power play goal by defenseman Luke Morrel. The goal was set up by Sean McAllister and Brendan Tracy. The third and final Moose goal was scored by James Shea. The final score of this hard fought contest was 3-3 despite the Moose outshooting Brewster 34 to 22.
The fourth and final game of the weekend would see the Moose taking on their local rivals, New York Apple Core. Apple Core, another perennial playoff team in the Empire league would prove to be too much for the Moose on this day. They dominated the game from the drop of the puck till the end of the game. After playing a very mediocre first half, the Moose went into the break trailing only 1-0 thanks to some great goaltending by John D’Adamo. The Moose would even rally to tie the game at 1 early in the second half with another goal by Sean McAllister with the assist going to Matthew Conway. That was the only scoring the Moose could muster up for the day. Apple Core took control of the game after that and scored 3 unanswered goals en route to a 4-1 victory. Despite the result, Moose goaltender D’Adamo had a very strong game in net turning away 30 shots in the defeat.

Despite finishing with only 1 win for the weekend, the team can build on this experience for the future. There were many bright spots for the weekend including the brilliant play of both goaltenders Steve Laris and John D’Adamo. The offense and defense were good at times and spotty at others, but the coaching staff is working on finding the correct combinations for the season. The Moose’s preseason schedule continues this upcoming weekend with the Troy Eagles of the Metropolitan League coming to Coney Island for 2 games. Saturday’s game is at 4:30 PM and Sunday’s game is at 9:45 PM.