Locker Room Chatter: Swings and Roundabouts...

It's been a weekend for player movement, with several players now appearing in a new uniform for next weekend-here are the moves and some rumours, and reactions to them...

Ben O'Connor to Edinburgh: As predicted last week, the young British defenceman, who has been very impressive so far this season playing for the struggling Basingstoke Bison, has moved north of the border to shore up the Caps blue-line. This is a superb move by the Caps, because O'Connor is big, fast and ridiculously polished for an 18-year old at this level. He may not turn the Scots' season around by himself, but he will be able to step in and add some bite to the defence immediately. And boy, do the Caps need it after a 4-0 loss this weekend...

KC Timmons to Coventry: This is...interesting. The Manchester Phoenix released him after yesterday's meeting with the Hull Stingrays, and he immediately (well, as of this morning) ended up on the Blaze blue-line, at the expense of a former teammate in David Vychodil. Given that he's switched back and forth between forward and d regularly in his time in the UK, he's certainly versatile, but he's never really stood out in the numerous times I've seen him on the opposition. As a fourth d-man who tends to just quietly get on with the job and do it competently but not spectacularly, perhaps he'll prove me wrong and prove a much better fit than the big-shooting Czech. To some degree this seems to be more tinkering for tinkering's sake rather than any urgent need on the Blaze's part, however-certainly Vych never did anything wrong in his time at the Skydome...We shall see.

Bison dead in the water?: It gets worse for the situation down south-I've been hearing in chatter round the ice-pads that the Hampshire side will be "lucky to survive two weeks" at the current level of spending, which raises the question of whether the EPL's Bracknell Bees will also be affected, since the two clubs are owned by the same company and thus the same directors. The Basingstoke faithful had something to cheer over the weekend as their team forced out a 5-4 win against the Belfast Giants on Sunday, but this, if true, will certainly put a damper on things...