by SpiderBraids
Back to the action. A steal from Otto leads to goal number 3, and goal number 4 is from drawing Lars out of the net. Big brother is complaining to Squid: "You distracted me!"
And Reggie Rocket's burning a timeout with just under 13 bucks remaining in the game. During the discussion in the timeout, big brother is saying: "You lame-o's are playing weak. It's like I have to do everything myself!" Sort of like what he complained in the game against the Rockets earlier. Anyways, Otto sez, that, dudes, is the problem. Otto is taking big brother's stick away, and giving it to the Squid, because, as Reggie sez: "That's what got us here. Sam 'Stonewall' Dullard in the net." Lars' reaction: "You guys are born losers." Remember that for after the game.
And here come the Rockets firing on all cylinders as Squid quickly makes three saves. "Attaboy, Sammy! Use that paddle!" Tito, quit it with the canoeing references already! We get it! You like canoeing! So enough already.
Back to the game, and Twister gets it to Reggie, and she puts the hometown on the board, woo-hoo!
Long montage of events, but it all boils down to "Sam makes tons of saves, Reggie assists on a Twister score, and later on, Otto assists to his sister." Hometown is down by just one, with just 12 ticks remaining. They can possibly tie this... Ray reminds Tito that "Overtime is not extra paddling." He doesn't need to, though.
Bluffs puck. Sam blocks. Three ticks. Squid passes to Otto. Otto shoots a dinger...
... and the horn sounds. The puck goes in, but this ain't basketball, folks. The crowd groans. RP fans are either also groaning, or picking up their jaws, which have just hit the ground in unison so loudly, you could hear it in Canada. If this was season one, there would be a screen popping up that simply says what an awful lot of the people watching this show are thinking: "NO FREAKING WAY." No thanks to Lars' sloppy goalkeeping, however, Ocean Bluffs indeed does take it in regulation, and the Rockets have indeed been beaten. With a game with Roenick, Robataille, and Brodeur on the line. The much-ballyhooed celebrity run-in is not happening. Period. Lars' words from when he got changed have never been truer.
Compared to when Otto lost a dirtboarding race and a windsuring race in quick succession, you might expect him to yell "My NHL dream is broken! This is stupid!" (Actually, he'd probably use a different word than "stupid", but we don't want to make this place look even more like Television Without Pity, now do we?) Here though, he takes the defeat surprisingly well, and instead of letting Squid take out the blame on himself for not passing sooner, is apologizing to him for not putting him in sooner. Reggie is mirroring the thought by complaining: "We should have put in the real team first." Or, as Television Without Pity might say, "You gotta dance with the ox that brung 'em." ;p Despite the disappointing and shocking (to the viewers, anyway) defeat, the teammates lift Sammy and chant his praises as if he had single-handedly won the game for them anyway, which no doubt he would have done if they'd gotten to play OT.
So instead of being in an exhibition with Roenick, Robataille, and Brodeur, the gang are having their regular cul-de-sac practice sessions, when who should drop by but... Roenick, Robataille, and Brodeur? Huh?
Robataille asks: "We were thinking that maybe, if it's not too much trouble, we might be able to play a quick game with you guys?" Ditz points out what we just saw, that they didn't win. Roenick, however, points out something else: "You guys played a great game, and what a comeback! One of the best I've ever seen." I beg to differ on this comment: don't you think given the length of his career, he would have been at least on the ice to see other, more successful escape acts? If you ask me, it would seem kind of weird to rank an unsuccessful comeback as being among a personal best. Anyways, Brodeur had also wanted a chance to play against (wait for it) "the one and only Sam 'Stonewall' Dullard." Which makes me wonder, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to have, I dunno, the hometown team somehow pulling it out of the bag in the final and thus getting to play that exhibition, with the home crowd pulling for them? Instead, they're playing in relative seclusion. What an anticlimax.
As the ep ends with Squid blocking a Robataille steal from Otto, there's nothing to take the shock off like this limerick:
The Rockets' inline hockey team
Had a major NHL dream
But with Ocean Bluffs
3 goals weren't enough
And that leaves us, the viewers, steamed.
We're lucky RP's such a popular show, because, given what we had been set up for, it's just not a very satisfying ending. Good night!