Spring Season - Week Four - March 17th

- Week Three saw Yaqeen storm back and draw with Haya 2-2 with a goal in the final seconds.  Emaan just cannot find a way to beat Ihsan as the teams tied 2-2.  Taqwa stunned Sabr with a late comeback to win 3-1.  Finally a deflated Sabr took another loss as Emaan defeated them 2-1.

Three Stars from Week Three:

1st Star: Sheraz Mahmood (Taqwa): 21 saves
2^nd Star: Arif Bijabhai (Emaan): 1 Goal and 1 Assist vs Ihsan
3^rd Star: Adil Patel (Taqwa): 1 Goal and 1 Assist

- Championship hang-over??  It is early in the season but look at the standings, last year’s finalists, Ihsan and Yaqeen have failed to register a win and occupy the basement.  These two teams face off against each other in Week Four as both sides try to over-come their slow start to the regular season.

- Hey!  The 2017 Spring League Scoring Leaders are (Top 5): Waqar Khan, Furqan Salam, Arif Bijabhai, Abu Sharkawy  & Salman Khalid.  Right now, Emaan owns the leader board and owns the league with the best record.  Caveat: They have also played four games so far this season.

- From the above point, it is clear that the moves GM Furqan Salaam made a draft day is paying huge dividends.  One notable omission from TMT (Emaan’s adopted nickname) was Atif Mian, who now rides with Naeem Akhtar and his Haya crew.  Mian started off his career with an I-Slam championship in the spring of 2014, but scouts felt he was still “two years away from being two years away.”  It’s been three years and it seems as if Salam didn’t trust the process and decided it was best for business to cut ties with Mian.  Atif Mian gets an opportunity to show his biggest doubters that the process indeed works as Haya takes on Emaan tonight.  It is assumed that they will all carpool from Cambridge making the ride back awkward for someone when this game is done.

- Who would have thought after Week Three that Salman Alvi (Emaan) would be tied for the league lead in goals.  Notoriously known for having yet to capture the I-Slam Championship, whatever changes he made to his off-season workout appears that this might finally be his year.

- Haya, Ihsan and Yaqeen are still win-less, whereas Emaan, Taqwa and Sabr all have zeros in the loss column.  So far this has been a season of the haves and havenots.

- Sabr must be looking forward to tonight where they get to exact some revenge against Taqwa, a team that they lost to last week.  In that game they outshot Taqwa 22-7, but sometimes hockey can be a cruel sport as in the last two minutes of the game Taqwa escaped from defeat with goals by Yasir Habib & Adil Patel.  Completely stunned and devastated, Sabr appeared to be flat in their 2^nd game of the night versus Emaan, suffering their second defeat of the night.

- Speaking of playing two games in one night, now it’s Taqwa and Yaqeen’s turn. After the rematch of last season’s finals, Yaqeen will have an hour break before playing Taqwa.  Taqwa will have play for 60 minutes straight, first against Sabr and then against Yaqeen.  Last week, this scenario favoured the team that had the hour rest (Emaan).   

- The unusual schedule to start the season has Emaan and Sabr having already played four games while Taqwa has played just one.  Double headers will be the thing to watch this season and a challenge for the other teams in the league to manage.  Through good fortune with the schedule, both Emaan and Sabr have played their only double header this season and will watch the other teams try to manage this quirk the rest of the way.  Sabr had opted to play back to back and it seemed that this would work in their favour as they were in a good groove in their first game but seemed to carry the weight of the loss into their second game where they seemed flat.  Emaan chose to have a break between games and reportedly were sore sitting for an hour but made a point of rolling all lines in both games to avoid burning out.  That approach potentially cost them a shutout as their third line was on the floor in the final minute when Sabr scored to make it a 2-1 game – that said having their third line cut their teeth in pressure situations will bode well for later in the season.

- Building upon the scheduling quirk, the result has Emaan dominating the Leader Board with Waqar Khan at the top of every category (tied for lead in goals) which is an impressive feat not seen before.  His team may not be too thrilled with Khan leading the league in penalties as they need him on the floor not sitting in the box but his impact on the game is clear across all facets.

- Emaan will reportedly be without Umair Ashraf tonight for the second straight game.  Conflicting reports about his whereabouts but his value to Emaan as a glue player cannot be measured.

- Speaking of missing players, Taqwa was forced to replace starting goalie and GM Yasir Hussain at the last moment and were bailed out when Sheraz Mahmood agreed to fill in.  Taqwa had to be more than happy with the result as Sheraz Bhai made some spectacular saves against Sabr and kept Taqwa in it long enough for their offense to erupt in the final two minutes for three goals and the win.