Last Tuesday evening at The Porazzo Rink on East Boston’s Constitution Beach the 2013 EBMHL Playoffs got underway in grand fashion. After a long and grueling 4th installment that saw many ups and downs, as well as a repeat regular season champion in Lightning Express, the 6 squads were playoff ready. 5 of the 6 teams are eager to put a stop to the 3 year reign of Charlie Daniels and Chris Grossmann, whose East Boston Yacht Club squad earned a first round bye with their 2nd place finish behind Lightning Express, who also earned the bye clinching the regular season title.
First game of the evening, saw 3rd Place Chiara’s Auto, the early season favorite to take the title home, pitted against 6th place squad The Squire. From the moment the puck dropped, the boys from the Squire were poised to make a very loud statement to the rest of the league, and they certainly did just that behind the fantastic play of Mike Mondello, David Berardinelli, and Chris Prew as well as the fantastic defensive efforts of Sal Santostefano and the goltending of Brad Watkins earning the 5-1 victory over the perrenial favorites Chiara’s Auto and eliminating them from contention. Game 2 we saw 4th place Milano’s Deli take on 5th place Royal Roast Beef, a team riddled by a lack of numbers and a huge season ending injury to the leagues second leading scorer, Darrell Interbartolo, but were still poised to shock Eastie with a playoff win. It was not meant to be this evening for Royal as Peter Hanlon, Mike Burri, and Rob Bulla were not going home losers this evening taking home a 5-2 win over the hapless Royal Rost Beef squad. Setting up a semifinal matchup with the defending champs, EBYC. Tuesday evenings semifinal matchups are as follows: #1 Lightning Express vs. #6 The Squire at 8:00pm followed by #2 EBYC vs. #4 Milano’s Deli at 9:00pm. The winners will square off in the 2013 EBMHL Championship Game, which is now a best of 3 series that will begin on March 19, 2013 at 8:00pm at the Porrazzo Rink. We invite any and all to come on down and enjoy what is sure to be an amazing championship series for the EBMHL Cup. We look forward to seeing you ll at the rink.