The Updates: Christmas Special...

Because of the high volume of games this week, I'm saving the Double Overtime covering Christmas and New Year's until New Year's Day/January 2nd, and not doing a Round the Rinks for this weekend, simply because it seems pointless to only preview half the games of a week. So instead you'll get the Double Overtime New Year Special on either Monday or Tuesday (calm down at the back-don't get too excited) which will review Christmas and New Year as a whole for each team.

So what will we do to fill the time? Well, in true cliché style, we'll have a look at what certain figures in the league (possibly) got themselves for Christmas-there will be a review of the season so far appearing on Saturday, and maybe an exclusive look at the EIHL new year's resolutions on Sunday. We'll also take a look at some of the major news stories which have appeared since the last update (and some of the minor ones) now, not least the one that sees Brad Voth at the centre of a witch-hunt from Sheffield fans. Oh, and sometime over the next few days I'll also sneak in the inaugural Breakaway Awards, which will take a look at both the serious and the lighter side of hockey life.

M'sieu, wiz zese Breakaway you are really spoiling uz...as the Ferrero Rocher lady would have said.

Anyway...on to the news items first of all...

Sheffield exclusive reveals Brad Voth also tried to steal Christmas: Leading off with the incident mentioned above-Cardiff's captain is in the dock yet again after leaving Sheffield's Ashley Tait unconscious on the ice with a massive hit/elbow in the Boxing Day game at the Hallam Arena-I personally haven't seen the incident, (as I was in Nottingham) but all hell has broken loose on the forums, with branding irons being heated and Steelers fans condemning the Calgary native as a danger to his fellow players. Depending on who you listen to, it was either a clean but hard hit or a blindside mugging intended to do serious damage. Or, if you read the Sheffield Star, a "hit immediately after Tait passed the puck" which was somehow "incredibly late" at the same time... The supposedly impartial Steelers report describes it as a "vicious late elbow". However, the reaction on the Sheffield site is worth a chuckle-observe this quote from Jeremy Cornish from the Steelers homepage...

"I was on the ice at the time and missed the hit, my back was facing Ash at the time, all of a sudden Ash was down and Munner had Voth, I wish I had got there ahead of Steve. How many times are we going to allow this man (Voth) to get away with this, the league has to deal with it or guys will take it upon themselves to sort this man out"

Trouble is, should Cornish be involved in an incident where Voth is injured now, he's left himself open for accusations of premeditated attempt to injure-which is just what he and others in the league (not least Sheffield and Coventry fans) are accusing Voth of being guilty of on several occasions this season and last in incidents involving Jani Virtanen of Hull among others. Not exactly taking the moral high ground, is it? Especially when we remember (and Cardiff fans certainly do) the outrage of those Sheffield fans when Mike Peron was attacked for apparently trying to break Jon Cullen's back a couple of seasons ago...now THAT was a nasty hit...

The good news is that Tait himself, while suffering a nasty concussion, is apparently recovering well, and should be back in two weeks or so...

Crash, bang...: Marc Levers will be looking for a new nose after deciding to elbow Danny Stewart during last night's game-however, it is interesting that there was very little complaint from Blaze fans nor any reaction from the notoriously short-fused Blaze agitator when Ryan Shmyr put in a big hit on him just before, which saw the Panther come in from behind after letting the Blaze player skate past and drive him into the plexi using a shove in the back-the trouble was that all the complaints that did come were of the "attempt to injure" variety....with all the furore regarding these late hits, maybe people should remember that hits from behind will happen in hockey, and often look worse than they are purely because the players tend to fall to the ice afterwards. A problem at the Skydome and other rinks is you get a lot of people who will condone anything from their players and scream "dirty" the moment their own team is hit, clean or not....it would help to remove a lot of guff from forums if people remember hockey is essentially a contact sport...

...and wallop: Some of you may have got the impression that KC Timmons is not exactly my favourite Blaze signing ever. However, I have been seeing that I may have been just a little unfair to him in my initial reaction-particularly bearing in mind the amount of ice-time the third line are now getting. Then came Sunday night's demolition of Corey Neilson-for those of you who weren't there, Timmons and Neilson came together behind the net, there was a flurry of punches and suddenly Neilson was down, picked up, and down again as KC went absolutely psycho...Perhaps there is a new enforcer in the EIHL-certainly I don't remember hearing of him doing much in that vein for the Phoenix...

However, this new softening doesn't mean I'm liking Troy Neumeier yet...the Blaze are certainly missing the two import forwards out at the moment...

Christmas shirts-cynical marketing ploy or attempt to connect with the fans?: Interestingly, this year almost every EIHL team has produced a Christmas shirt (the Blaze one just consisted of sticking some snow on the numbers) and once again people are paying ridiculous amounts of money for them. With Cardiff also auctioning a Halloween shirt and Nottingham bringing out a third kit, as well as the playoff shirts, am I the only one who gets the feeling that the whole game-worn shirt market is a little saturated in the UK at the moment? Soon it'll be replica shirts which are the true status symbol at this rate...

and before you ask-yes, I do own a gamer-Steve O'Brien from the 03/04 season, thanks to the shirt raffle.

Fools and their ACL's are soon parted..or torn: Regular readers of this page will be falling over themselves right now...I'm about to praise a Hull Stingray. Cole Byers is the reason-or more to the point, his incredible mix of bravery and stupidity is. Barely three months after tearing his ACL in a knee which seemed to sideline him for the season (and has put players in the slightly more wussy sport of football out for a year, Michael Owen among them) the Stingray hardman is back on the ice, through his own decision. To put that into perspective, three weeks after suffering a possible "damaged" (ie not necessarily torn) ACL as part of my own knee ligament injury, I was told "if the ACL is damaged, you won't be skating until April or May, and playing hockey properly won't be an option until July or August". And Byers is back at a much higher level, with only a knee brace for protection. Brave, brave man...especially as, if he gets another whack on that knee, his career could be over at the frighteningly young age of 24. And all this in an attempt to save the Stingrays from finishing bottom? Many will be asking themselves "is it worth it?"

Cole Byers, the Breakaway salutes you...and hopes that you don't live to regret that decision...


Anyway, thanks to computer problems this Christmas mish-mash has appeared a day later than planned...however, the schedule of sorts still stands, so keep checking back over the next few days because there's a good chance there'll be something new on here, whether it be pontificating, a dose of (mostly bad) British hockey humour, or just the plain common-or-garden action reviews...

Meanwhile, keep keeping your eye on the puck...