Thanks to the outstanding performance by the hometown goalie Michio Hashimoto, the Tohoku Free Blades notched their first victory in only their 4th regular season game in their young Asia League history with a 5-3 win over the upgraded Nikko Ice Bucks team in the second game of the two game series in Nikko. Hashimoto turned away 39 of 42 shots for a well deserved hero of the game, while his counterpart Naoya Kikuchi had a terrible game letting in 5 goals on only 26 shots. Looks like the league might be even more competitive than my initial prediction for the 2009-10 season.
Congrats Blades, and we look forward to more fierce battles in a league with that may have the most parity ever in the short history of AL. Korea-Japan games start this upcoming weekend in October, and this should be very interesting in terms of giving us a clearer outlook on the season.
Japan, Hockey, Baseball, etc. 