Only in Dreams...

So today, I'm doing my nightly trawl of the forums (although I started it slightly later than usual) and saw the intriguing topic of "if you could have one player from the rest of the EIHL, who would it be?" on one of the Elite League ones...


Naturally, I thought this wasn't enough. So I shall allow myself one player from each team on my fantasy roster. Positions no object-simply my favourite player from each EIHL team-along with reasons why...


Basingstoke: Danny Stewart: The "other" Danny is a real find. Fast, feisty and surprisingly powerful for a smallish winger, the #79 is a penalty-killing, goalscoring, soft-handed, irritating little demon of a player. Shorthanders are his specialty, and he seems to cover every inch of the ice on an average evening. Steve Thornton gets the headlines, but Stewart should get the praise and the first new contract-this 22-year-old has the potential to become a British hockey legend.


Belfast: Roman Gavalier: Every team needs a d-man who simply thinks "they ain't scoring on my shift". Gavalier lives and dies by this motto-he doesn't fly around the ice trying to win the game on his own, nor does he try and smash the plexi with every check. But my, is he a pleasure to watch, just for his effort-you'd need to remove his limbs one by one to prevent him trying to chase his forward down, and even then he'd drag himself along, yelling "It's just a flesh wound!". In a team full of players all trying to prove they're the biggest dog offensively (Ed Courtenay, I'm looking at you in particular), the Slovak is happy to be a yappy little defensive terrier, nipping the ankles of any opposition forward with the puck hard and often for sixty minutes a night. Take your place on the blue-line...


Cardiff: Brad Voth: What?! The Canadian everyone loves to hate is the glue that holds the Devils together. Mess with a skilled forward? Voth'll be there in seconds to "have a word". Need someone to do the dirty work screening the goalie? 6'5 and 235lbs of Alberta-bred muscle is pretty good for that job. What about a captain who'll stretch every sinew for the cause? Voth'll do that too, night after night. Cardiff aren't the same team without him in the line-up. And for that reason alone, he makes the list.


Coventry: Sylvain Cloutier: Anyone who knows me will be wide-eyed, wondering why Curtis Huppe isn't in this spot. It's simple-he isn't Sylvain Cloutier. On any other team, Huppe would be the pick, but he has the misfortune to be on the same team as the greatest grinding centre (and possibly the best centre ever) to take the Skydome ice. Clouts is 6' and 195lbs of pure class. He can hit, he can create, he can defend, he can irritate, and he can score. Often he does all five on the same shift. The Quebecer's intensity was shown to perfection against Romford this season in a challenge game, after Andrej Sporina unwisely tried to rattle the young players with some stickwork. The Blaze captain watched and waited until Sporina got the puck and tried to take him on...Wallop. Perfectly cleanly, the offending Raider was almost knocked right out of his skates...and the message got through. Mess with any Blaze player, and you mess with me. And that, to me, is a flawless example of the way a captain should be.


Edinburgh: Colin Hemingway: Speed and goals. Two qualities which the Caps need desperately in order to be successful playing their game in this league. Hemingway provides both, and is a class above anyone else wearing the shirt when he's on form...Oh...and he's scored over a quarter of the Caps' goals this season by himself.



Hull: Stevie Lee: Watch him hit, pass, buzz around the ice like a mosquito on the skin of the opposition, never back away from bigger, stronger players, and become one of the brightest stars of the Stingrays' season and a darling of the Humberside crowd. Or bear in mind he took on Brad Voth, and forced the Cardiff giant to back away. Realise that he is already one of the best British dmen in the league despite being on a team which regularly faces the full force of opposition attacks for sixty minutes a game with very little respite, and that he is one of the major pieces of that defence, more so thanks to Hull's injury woes. Then remember the most amazing fact of all...he's doing this at an age where he can't even legally buy the man-of-the-match beer yet. I think that merits a place in the squad, don't you?



Manchester: Joe Tallari: Some will pick the craft and guile of Tony Hand. Some the brute force and dominating presence of Brett Clouthier. And some the silky skating and timely blue-line bullet goals of Simon Mangos (the poor man's Neal Martin). But if you're picking the most important player to his team in the league, then you'd have to go a long way to pass the Thunder Bay, Ontario native. As Joe Tallari goes, so go the Phoenix. As for my reasons for including him among my favourites...there are 34 of them this season, five more than the much-more-heralded "king of snipers" Adam Calder, who is his next challenger in the scoring race. Make that 34 and counting...

Newcastle: Colin Shields: The velvet glove of goals which covers the steel fist of the Vipers, Shields is a player you love to hate unless he's on your side. Almost invisible for long periods amongst the blood and thunder of Andre Payette, Derek Campbell et al, Shields is the silent force behind the Geordies' attacking play...And when all that crashing and banging subsides with the puck in your team's net, you can be sure that Shields had a hand in putting it there...

Nottingham: Sean McAslan: Combined with Johan Molin, he provides the Panthers' goalscoring claws. One of the few players in the league who I am always looking for when the puck is in the Blaze zone-just in case the worst happens and he gets it on his stick with a little space and a glimpse of the net behind Trevor Koenig. In that case, there's a good chance a goal will follow soon after. If you're scared of an opposition player every time he gets the puck, then he's doing something well. And in the Panthers' captain's case, scoring goals is something he does very well indeed.

Sheffield: Rod Sarich: A d-man who is equally at home in either zone, Sarich has a slapshot many dmen would kill for, the eyes of a bird of prey and the speed and elusiveness of a gazelle, as well as the killer instinct of a jungle cat when given time to pick his spot from the blue. Neal Martin may take all the praise, but Sarich is almost as good-and his best years are still to come.

There you go. Feel free to comment if I've missed a glaringly obvious player from any team who would be better...and keep keeping your eye on the puck...