First cock-up, and Blaze radio coverage

Just realised (and I promise this is the last post for today) that I forgot to put the Blaze fixtures in in the Conti Cup...that's two minutes for being an idiot, I think...Anyway-here they are...

Friday: Coventry Blaze v Aalborg (1830 BST)
Saturday: Coventry Blaze v Red Bulls Salzburg (1830 BST)
Sunday: Coventry Blaze v Slavija Ljubljana (1630 BST)

All three games are apparently being covered on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire (available off the BBC site if you're not in the local Coventry area-search for Coventry and Warwickshire) with live commentary and all...Of course, being the friendly person I am, and shamelessly nicking an idea from one of my favourite writers, (Bill Simmons, the guy linked to at right) I shall be doing a running diary of at least the Aalborg game while listening to it. I'm not quite sure whether this'll take the form of blog post after blog post, or one long stream-of-consciousness type thing-I've seen both work. We shall see. But keep checking back while you're getting ready for your nights out on the Friday evening...and you can listen to the game with me-virtually, as I do the same.

For the record, I do have a social life-it just involves a lot of hockey. :)

Until tomorrow...keep your eye on the puck at all times...

Round the Rinks 12th October-EIHL Weekend Preview

And so the first weekly Round the Rinks entry kicks in-with a brief preview of the EIHL weekend action. You'll get a separate Blaze preview, obviously, but this one is for the rest...
The Blaze are in Conti Cup action this week, so their preview is the entry below.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, the tired and rusting old bandwagon that is the Sheffield-Nottingham hype machine has rattled back into action, with people still trying to claim it's the biggest game in UK hockey even though few people outside the two cities actually care about Panthers meeting Steelers. The rivals also face surprise package Manchester at home on Friday (Sheffield) and surprise package number II Edinburgh away on Sunday (Nottingham) as well as their meeting in Nottingham on Saturday. I can barely hold the excitement...
Seriously, though, it should be a decent game, with Nottingham on something of a roll and Sheffield still trying to convince us all that they are still the biggest team in Britain, honest. I'm not even going to TRY to predict the results yet, cause I'm always wrong, but maybe the two rivals should stop hyping up the Saturday game and concentrate on their other opponents, both of whom are far more dangerous than they've been given credit for this season, and both of whom have run the Blaze very close at the Skydome.

Hull have released their umpteenth "(insert player name here) says Stingrays can win this weekend" press release (although given that their games this weekend are Belfast and Newcastle there's actually a grain of truth in that), Cardiff and Belfast are both "on their last chances with the current roster" yet again as they face Basingstoke (twice) and Hull and Manchester respectively. The Bison's current off-ice uncertainties are detailed below, but they could forget them by at least splitting the points with the Devils, who are still labouring to get their full team firing after an eventful off-ice summer with rink woes...Newcastle just have the one game with Hull, and will no doubt be hoping that Belfast have tired them out the night before. There could be a few penalties in that one, because both the Stingrays and the Vipers like a bit of rough stuff. The Giants will just be hoping for a win, any win, in order to stave off the growing criticism from the Northern Irish crowd...

The full fixture list, then. All league unless stated...

Friday
Sheffield v Manchester


Saturday
Hull v Belfast

Basingstoke v Cardiff (Challenge Cup)

Nottingham v Sheffield

Sunday
Manchester v Belfast

Newcastle v Hull

Edinburgh v Nottingham

Cardiff v Basingstoke

Game on. :)

"Set Europe a-Blaze..."-Continental Cup Preview

Phew. Four in one day? Let's just say that my blog production is flowing like Carlson and Calder on a good day...there may be some days where you don't get an entry, some where you get one-and there there's a day like today, where I don't have much else to do, and so you get several.

Well...The Blaze are off to Europe again as representatives of Britain this weekend, and unlike the last trip, I'm not making this one. Damn redundancies. But enough about my job woes-what you lot really want to know is what's occuring in the Continental Cup.

Blaze's opponents, first of all...

Red Bulls Salzburg: Possibly the only team in the competition to actually have their sponsor as their team name rather than just part of it, the Austrian side are the danger team-they've got more money than Vienna has Schnitzel and some players who've spent some time in the NHL, including Rick Jackman, who played for my Pens, and Reinhard Divis, who was in St Louis for a spell. Up front are ex Coyote Frank Banham and ex-Canuck Josh Green, so they've got punch at both ends of the ice. Although-they are only 5th in the Bundesliga, so you never know.
Aalborg: Hosts. The Danes could be a problem-in their home rink they'll fancy their chances, and with a team of players who are all but unknown to the Blaze, it could be an interesting first game against them.
HK Slavija Ljublijana: If you're looking for an in-depth analysis of Slovenian ice-hockey, you're in the wrong place. Trouble is, no-one seems to know anything about Slavija, and their website is only available in Slovene, so it's bloody hard for me to find owt out about them. But, since everyone seems to think they're the underdogs of the group-let's hope they are.

Now, everyone in the UK seems to think there's a bit of a curse attached to British participation in this competition-Nottingham have a bad month whenever they travel to it and then come back, Blaze did in the 05/06 season (well, that season is one that people would rather forget, mainly because it was such a comedown after the treble the previous year rather than the fact that Blaze won nothing for the first time in two seasons-Blaze have in fact only gone three of their eight seasons without winning or getting to the final of at least one competition, if my maths are correct. Paul Thompson has come out with the usual fighting talk in the press today, saying that there's "no such thing" as the curse, Blaze are strong enough etc etc. Hopefully he's right, or you may soon see the tone of these entries change slightly for the worse.

British hockey loses a legend...

Just read on the Panthers site that one of their greatest ever players, Chick Zamick (who played in the 40's and 50's when the Panthers were set up) has died.

Obviously his playing exploits were WAY before my time, but nevertheless, it's always sad when a Hall of Famer (any Hall of Famer) dies...

So-from someone who only knows of your exploits based on the stories of those far older...rest in peace...

Money, Money, Money...

...And so to the meaty stuff.

The trouble with hockey here in the UK is that it is, at the moment, something of a minority sport. And thus teams tend to run on tight budgets. And when they either exceed or simply can't make enough to meet those budgets, we lose teams, which results in a fanbase with nothing to to on their weekends and all the problems associated with losing a team. In North America and Canada you have to be from Winnipeg, Hartford or Quebec to understand what this feels like, I suppose, although there seems to be a fair movement around of ECHL teams-and there's the whole Pens and Nashville problems going on at the moment, which I would comment on if I knew more about them, but that's a separate post. Back to the UK. In this part of the world teams tend to disappear with alarming regularity (in the past few years we've had Manchester disappear and then return, London die, reform and die again, interleague strife (which you'll hear more about, cause it's a running theme here in the UK) and endless rumours of teams dying and then not dying (like Belfast a year or two ago, who were saved from the brink).
We're barely a month into the new season, and already the vultures of rumour are circling again-this time around the Basingstoke Bison. Bison have been around for YEARS, and have always played in the same league as the Blaze ever since the latter moved to Coventry. They've got a knowledgeable bunch of fans, a rink which...well, it's got "atmosphere" even if you could never see the other end from the old away block, and a team which generally has finished around mid-table, plugging away and not doing too badly. In fact, some Coventry fans joke the season hasn't really started until we make the trip down south to see our team play badly and still manage to get a point or two in early September.
Anyway-this season they've signed a competitive roster, with some very well-known (in Britain) players like import (Canadian) Steve Thornton and British international goalie Stevie Lyle. Everything seemed hunky-dory until a week or so ago, when reports started appearing that Bison were in trouble and Belfast and Cardiff (both traditionally big teams who've had a bad start this time round) were after their players, who were supposed to be leaving at any time. Admittedly these reports appeared in the media IN Cardiff and Belfast, so could just be a bit of a cover-up, cause the Belfast fan-base in particular are a bit pissed off at the moment with their team, and screaming for changes. But now there are rumours and counter rumours flying, with the latest being posted on the forums today saying that Lyle has already gone across the water to Belfast. Now this is worrying-Bison are traditionally a well-run and stable team, so just about everyone in the EIHL is hoping that these rumours are unfounded. I'll keep you up to date with news, views and my own personal take on it...but that is all for now.

Opening Face-Off

Morning all.

Given that I spend the vast majority of my leisure time either watching or playing hockey here in the sunny UK (well, in sunny Coventry to be precise, home of the current British Elite League Champions), I've decided I may as well write about it, because while there are plenty of hockey blogs, there aren't that many about the UK scene. So now there will be at least one...I will try to update this blog most days with news from around the UK and my views on it, and you might even get some NHL and DEL in amongst the postings as well, for all you transatlanticans...:)

But anyway-this post is just to get some of the boring introductory stuff out of the way...

My name is Paul Wheeler, I am 23, and I've been watching hockey for about eight years, and playing it at amateur (recreational or beer league level) for seven, ever since the Blaze moved to Coventry from Solihull. I've also spent my year living in Germany two years ago watching the DEL. You can usually find me down by the plexi at the Zamboni end of the Skydome on a game night (hence the web address), although I sometimes move into block 15 depending on the mood-and I travel to every away game I can (although given that I can't drive, this is sometimes tricky).
My teams are Coventry Blaze (EIHL), Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL), Cologne Sharks (DEL), and Germany and GB (international).
I play left wing (badly) and my number is ten.
My favourite NHLers are Evgeni Malkin (legend already), Marco Sturm (favourite German), and I quite like the look of this Patrick Kane kid that Chicago have drafted. So do they, by all accounts...:)
My favourite players outside the NHL are Stéphane Julien (Cologne), Curtis Huppe (Coventry) and Ryan Finnerty (Sheffield).
Best hockey memory is seeing the Blaze win the Challenge Cup against Cardiff Devils, their biggest rivals. In their barn. That was a fun evening. Luckily I was in Germany the following year when they took revenge...
Least favourite players are Theo Fleury (for his chippy game on the ice, not the off-ice stuff) and a whole list of those who've played in Britain, which is probably a whole seperate other post.

There you go-a little info about me. Now, given that there's a lot happening in British hockey at the moment-straight on to the meaty stuff...:)