Spring Season - Week Three - March 10th

- Week Two ended with a pair of surprise blow-out games, Emaan took advantage of a disorganised Yaqeen to get a 7-1 win while Sabr demolished last seasons champs 6-0 as Ihsan was missing key players and Sabr took full advantage.

- Last week this column suggested that, “all teams appear to have great balance so it is unlikely to see many blowout games this season.”  Well that notion was quickly dismissed!  With the Week Two results of Emaan scoring a touchdown (7 goals) against Yaqeen while Sabr got 6ix by Drake’s team (Ihsan).  No one could have predicted these results, considering Yaqeen and Ihsan were in the Championship game just a few weeks ago.

-The First Star of Week Two was Waqar Khan of Emaan as he posted 2 goals and 3 assists for a five-point game to lead his team; he also finds himself in a familiar spot as the overall points leader after two games. 

- Emaan did let the shutout slip away by conceding a power-play goal late in the second half courtesy of Humza Chaudhry (Yaqeen).  It would have been a nice exclamation point from Emaan’s perspective to get their goaltender, Yusuf Kapoor the clean-sheet against his former team.  Despite the lopsided score, Kapoor did have some work to do and made some big saves against his former team who went with another goalie in the draft this year.

- It was as if while watching the Emaan-Yaqeen game, Sabr was saying to themselves, “anything you can do, we can do better!”  With that mindset, they outclassed the defending champs from start to finish.  Yasir Malik (Sabr), is the first player this season to collect hats, crowning him the Second Star of Week Two.  As well, unlike Emaan, Sabr closed the deal and secured the shutout, giving their goaltender, Ahmad Mobin third star honours.

- Sabr had defensive and goalie challenges all of last season, the seem to have quickly rectified that through the draft as Ahmad Mobin is on a roll, seizing the second star in Week One and the third star in Week Two.  They also brought in Usamah Rao as a capable two-way center and Jaudat Wasty who will help shore up their defensive core having cut his teeth under Coach K in the past.

-As fate would have it the two dominant teams from Week Two, Emaan and Sabr, will square off against each other this week.  But there is one caveat, both will be playing a bit tired as each team will have played another game before this match up (Emaan faces off against Ihsan, Sabr takes on Taqwa).  As the schedule has it, Emaan will get an hour break in between their two games whereas, Sabr will play back to back.  There isn’t a consensus on which is better as some players prefer a break to rest while others don’t like the break as they feel their muscles tends to tighten up during the layover.  Emaan has an older roster so the risk would seem to be greater for them to tighten up.

-Note: every team will be playing at least one double header throughout the season to ensure we complete the season before the start of Ramadan.  As mentioned above your fitness will be put to the test but also the leadership skills of your GMs being able to distribute playing time in a way that no one is burned out for the second game. 

-Last season, Ihsan never got shutout nor did they surrender 6ix goals.  Their goaltender, Zaid Majoo gave his team an earful during the game questioning their will to compete.  Having never faced this type of adversity it will be interesting to see how the champs respond after being knock down.  As a matter of fact two guys to watch this week will be Majoo and Kaunain Saiyed (Yaqeen), both are itching to put forth big bounce back efforts after a rough go at it in Week Two.

-We held a pickup game last week, where a lot of members from Haya used the extra time to work on their game. During the session, we recorded several interviews (see below), but one interview that you didn’t see was with Atif Mian (Haya) as he stormed out accusing us of being fake news. I-Slam media felt the questions were fair and valid as we probed further into his resentment towards Furqan Salam at having been left off of Emaan (AKA TMT).  To his request we have not posted the interview, but inside sources say he has told his teammates that they better show up for their March 17^th games (Haya vs Emaan) and has even offered to pick up Aazar Zafaar (Haya) to ensure he shows up on time for this game

The aforementioned interviews done last week:
-Saqib Sheikh (Ihsan) talks about his Umrah experience
-Former player entertains business proposal
-Did you guys know that Zaid Majoo (Ihsan) just started to recently play as a goalie?
-We finally get to hear Usamah Rao (Sabr) speak!
-Azim Siddique (Haya) brings championship experience to Haya
-Ahmad Ibrahim (Ihsan) fails to read the scouting report before his game
-Salman Khalid (Emaan) on the similarities of his professional life and his I-slam career

-Taqwa makes their season debut this Friday, but rumours are circulating that they will be without their goaltender, Yasir Hussain and there is a strong possibility that a player might have to go in net as none of the league approved backup goaltenders have yet to respond. Not an ideal way to begin the season.  They are reportedly trying to get Sheraz Mahmood to suit up but no word if Sheraz Bhai can bail them out here.

-A cool fact about Taqwa is that they have the oldest player, Doctor Naveed Mohammad and one of the youngest players, his son, Sahil Mohammad.  If the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, last season’s co-rookie of the year is expected to take another leap towards further developing his game.  
-Ahmad Ibrahim started his birthday celebration last week by playing his game against Sabr...no word if the 6-0 drubbing dampened his mood but we suspect Shisha was involved in lifting his spirit.

- Congratulations go out to Waqar Khan on his recent engagement, his linemate and future brother in law Furqan Salam was overheard referring to his teammate was Waqar Salam.  

- Observers seemed to feel that Yaqeen gave up in their game last week after being down early and that led to goalie Kaunain Saiyed being beat seven times.  Saiyed was supportive of his team post game insisting that they worked hard right to the end blocking shots and trying to make a game of it.  Saiyed commented on the offensive control from Emaan and referred to it as a sense of the opposition just coming in waves and Yaqeen never getting a chance to establish any rhythm.  No word if Yaqeen will look to make a trade but another mobile defenseman may be needed to give the team some balance, their talented and speedy forward were held in check as Emaan kept the in the Yaqeen zone.

- Week Three will have some interesting match-ups as mentioned, an early battle for first, Taqwa's debut and Yaqeen/Ihsan both trying to erase the big lo