The Coolest Game on Earth returned to Cleveland as the Lake Eerie Monsters played at the "Q" Saturday, November 10, in search of their first home win against the Quad City Flames. The Monsters and Flames both sat in the basement of the North and West Divisions respectively, with the Flames holding a 3-7-1 mark to the Monsters 2-7-0 record. This contest was a real chance for Lake Eerie to get into the home win column. The teams appeared to be a fairly even match on paper, but early on it was all Quad City . The end of the first period had the Monsters down 1-0, and they were lucky it that was all. The Flames out-shot the Monsters 14-5 in the first, even though the Monsters had the edge in power plays two to one. Ironically, the one goal Quad City scored came off what appeared to be a skate deflection off the skate of Cam Cunning that probably should have been waved off. Earlier on though, Monster goalie Mike Wall had a huge save on a sweet bad angle shot by Flames Carson Germyn from the corner.

The second period brought out an entirely different Monsters team. Twenty-two seconds into the period, the Steve Margeson scored on a power play knotting the score at one a piece, with an assist registered to both Richardson and Hensick. From there the period went downhill. Lake Eerie was plagued with penalties the entire second period, handing over a total of thirteen minutes of men in the box to Quad cities' nine. The highlight of the penalties was a five minutes for fighting offsetting call between Couture of the Flames, and McLeod of the Monsters. Both landed some pretty good punches, and neither seemed to take control of the fight. The penalties caught up to the Monsters, as Carson Germyn scored right at the end of the second period. Flames went into the locker room leading 2-1 and the Monsters first home win hopes were fading. At least the shots evened up a little this period, although Quad City still held a 17-15 edge in shots on goal and a 31-20 margin for the game. Wall once again came up big for the Monsters, stopping what would have been a 3-1 margin but deflecting a puck that blistered into the crease, then covering it up as it trickled toward the net. Had he not lunged and covered up, it was a certain goal.

During the break, two audience members competed as human bowling balls. They were put on a discus sled and shot out of a giant slingshot toward six bowling pins. Both balls/contestants scored strikes, and covered in snow, received cheers for the audience, an also gave the crowd renewed hope of a victory.

David Jones scored the equalizer in the third period, but the real story of the period was the fact that the Monsters had back-to-back two minute power plays and did nothing on either one. That took the game into a five minute sudden death overtime period, and what a period it was!!

The Monsters poured it on the first minute of the period, only to have Quad City take over momentum and ring the post on a near miss. Right back came the Monsters on a ringer of their own. After this exchange, the rest of sudden death was all Flames, including another ringer that just missed going in. Final result? The game went to a shootout.

In the shootout the Monsters finally succumbed, losing 3-2. It came down to the last shot. The crowd went home hungry for a victory, but tasting defeat. Luckily, hockey fans won't have long to wait as the Monsters host the second of their back-to-back home games Sunday at 5:00 PM. If it is anything like this wild contest, you'd better plan on going.