Flurries of Movement...or "Kerching!"

Jesus-is it Thursday night already? I seem to spend my weekdays either at work or updating this place. But then, it makes the time between watching and/or playing hockey pass quicker-and this "ain't nothing but a G(ood) Thang" as Snoop Dogg might have put it. On we go with player movements a-plenty, and a meditation on budgets...

Lucky thirteen...Coventry and Sheffield needed overtime to settle their CC quarter final after Sheffield won 7-6 in regulation, wiping out the one-goal deficit from the first leg....however, the fourteenth goal of the night and seventeenth of the tie went Coventry's way in the extra period, courtesy of Jonny Weaver, to put the Blaze through. Now we await the draw of the semis...

Third time's the charm...Cory Morgan is once again a Newcastle Viper. As if joining the fire service wasn't enough excitement for the skilled Canadian, he's decided to return to the North East for his third stint as the Geordies' premier scorer for the rest of the season, having missed out on silverware in the Vipers' memorable 05/06 season thanks to a late-season knee injury. Last season he led the team in scoring with 26 goals despite them not making the playoff weekend, and was one of my favourite players to watch in the league. If I were a Vipers fan, I would be buzzing right about now...the Albertan from the romantically-named town of Blue Sky is a class act and will definitely pep up the team considerably in the late-season scramble for position.

Meanwhile, "Pasty" is off the menu in Sheffield...OK, that was unfair. Jeremy Cornish has progressed far beyond the slightly cruel nickname he earned from opposition fans in his time at London, becoming an under-rated, not always visible (unless he's fighting) but always useful cog in the Steelers machine this season. And this is why it's surprising that he's the one suffering as Sheffield make changes, being cut today by coach Dave Matsos despite being one of the more steady performers for the Steelers this season. Critics will point to the fact that he doesn't score enough points to justify an import slot, his crash-and-bang style is a role which can also be filled by many other players, and he can't find fights often enough due to the fact that this is one aspect of the game in which, as other EIHL players have come to know (some by painful experience) he's very proficient indeed. However, I'm not sure Sheffield won't live to regret this-after all, like him or loathe him, no-one who's seen him play can deny that he's one of those players who will give his all for the cause and do whatever he's asked to do every single night. I wouldn't be surprised to see some other EIHL team snap him up on the cheap with a few still looking for role-players...

Ker-ching!: Recently it has been suggested by readers that I'm...well, a bit of a hockey snob. This is because of my distinction between "big-budget" and "small-budget" teams in the EIHL-it appears to have raised the ire of some in the sense that, when it comes to crowds, the differences between the biggest and smallest isn't as pronounced as, say, in the DEL (although I'd consider the difference between 4500 in Nottingham and a few hundred in Edinburgh a pretty big one). I will admit to being guilty of seeing some teams as "bigger" than others-mainly due to the sizes of the crowd. This naturally does lead to the assumption that some teams are run on a slightly tighter rein than others with regard to the pursestrings.
This, however, makes it far more interesting, praiseworthy and yes, enjoyable for me when these "smaller" teams (I am now using the word purely to refer to their attendance, not popularity, relative merits etc) do well-the reason being that I don't actually enjoy seeing teams like Sheffield, Nottingham etc constantly in the hunt for trophies, or fighting out a mini-league between themselves as has been in danger of happening a few times in the EIHL era-this does not make for a stable league. And I can't understand people who will refuse to go to a game just because the opposition is "less glamorous". Hockey is hockey, and every team should be treated with at least a minimum of respect by their opponents and the opposition fans. Mickey-taking is fine but comments like "X and Y have no right to be in this league" are pushing it too far. So from now on the terms "big-budget" and "small-budget" are banned from my posts when referring to EIHL or indeed any other British hockey teams...

In other news-I've just noticed that the year has changed again: It has also been pointed out after my last Double Overtime column that the EIHL does not, in fact, run a playoff group system, nor has it for the past two years. This I was actually aware of, but being a bit slow to change the way I talk about hockey, at least as far as terms go, I still use "group stage" to refer to the part of the playoffs that take place between the end of the regular season and the finals weekend...simply because that was the system when I started watching. One of these days I'm going to have to get with the times in word as well as deed...trouble is with this league that by the time I do that, they'll have decided a group system is in fact their chosen way to run the playoffs...

The post title was cunningly chosen with just this statistic in mind...
Before we leave budgets, however, it is interesting to note that, whatever your view of teams financial resources, there is a view expressed on THF that says 8 out of 10 teams are currently breaking the EIHL "gentlemen's agreement" on wages. Nice to see the lessons of the ISL are being learnt, isn't it?

And finally...Congratulations to Shaun Johnson-a player who has been one of the few players I've seen who has played in in Britain for every one of the eight seasons I've been watching hockey, as he reaches his 1000th professional game (all played for UK clubs) with the Vipers' meeting Belfast...a superb milestone to reach...Pity it ended in a loss as the Giants nicked it three-one to increase the gap back to Sheffield in third place...

I was going to write a long diatribe about enforcers and their disappearance (slowly) from British hockey...but might save that for a post all its own at some point, either at the weekend or early next week. Tomorrow sees Round the Rinks as another weekend draws ever closer in the EIHL...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...