Amsterdam Tigers 4 - 6 Enschede Lions 1: A Winning Season Opener!

Amsterdam Tigers 4 vs. Enschede Lions 1

First Period

The first game of the season for Lions 1 is finally here! With a few new players added to the roster and several weeks of intensive training behind us, we certainly can't blame the preparation!

We got off to a strong start and quickly earned a power play, which we managed to capitalize on. Goos Mulder scored the very first goal of the game in his debut for Lions 1! Shortly after, we scored again to take an early 0-2 lead. After that, our game dropped off a little and we started to lose control of the match. Amsterdam managed to score the 1-2 goal after about 10 minutes.

The game then became more balanced, with chances at both ends of the ice. The period ended with us holding a 1-2 lead.

Second Period

We started the second period strongly again, putting Amsterdam under a lot of pressure and creating some good scoring opportunities.

After some solid defensive work in our own zone, we launched a great attack, played it out beautifully, and scored the 1-3 goal after about five minutes. We kept the pressure on, were clearly the better team, and maintained our momentum.

However, with all those chances, including several 2-on-1 situations, we really needed to capitalize on more of them. Eventually, Alex Kletskiy delivered a beautiful shot to make it 1-4!

Unfortunately, we then gave Amsterdam a chance to get back into the game by taking several penalties. One of them was a 25-minute personal penalty for a headbutt... although opinions were divided on whether that was the right call.

Suddenly, we were down to just nine players with more than a period still to play. But our penalty kill was absolutely rock-solid, and we didn't let anything through.

In the final seconds, Amsterdam took a penalty of their own, and we ended the second period with four skaters on each side and a 1-4 lead.

Third Period

The third period began, and Amsterdam had to push forward. You could see they had come out of the locker room with renewed energy, and they started putting us under pressure.

Unfortunately, we took another penalty, leaving us short-handed once again, and Amsterdam managed to score to make it 2-4.

From there, the game became a real back-and-forth battle. It was an intense, hard-fought game, with both teams giving it everything.

We scored to make it 2-5, Amsterdam responded with 3-5, and then we scored again to make it 3-6!

Amsterdam took another penalty and even had a short-handed opportunity, but thankfully, they couldn't make the most of it. They then created another big chance, but our goalie Mete stood tall and made an excellent save!

We took another penalty ourselves. It didn't look like much, but the officials called it anyway. And sure enough, just two minutes later, we took another penalty, right after finally getting back to five skaters.

On top of that, we received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty because our coach just couldn't stop shouting after already being warned several times.

That left Amsterdam with a 5-on-3 power play, and they managed to score to make it 4-6.

With around six minutes left on the clock, we really dug deep and stood our ground as a team, despite having only nine players available!

Amsterdam kept pushing, but we showed our character right until the final buzzer and brought all three points back to Enschede!

Final score: Amsterdam Tigers 4 - 6 Enschede Lions 1!!! Goos Mulder scored the first goal in his debut match. Welcome to Lions 1, Goos!