Irresistable Force v Immovable Object...

You may notice a slight change to the layout here-that's because I've added a blogroll-a wonderful little thing which allows you to see all the blogs that I have a read of on a regular basis. It also saves me putting a link to them every time I refer to something written-you can simply click on the relevant blog in the Recommended Reading menu on the right-hand-side. Anything to make your visit to the Breakaway more user-friendly...


That's the starter dealt with-now onto the main dish of the day...


The Elite League appears to be getting bigger. Not in terms of exposure (we wish, although there were some strides made last season) but in terms of simple size. Hull have signed their latest meathead in Rick Kozak, a 6'3, 225lb forward who should make for a few bruises if you're an Elite League defenceman next season. Cardiff's last two signings have been 6'6 and 6'3, both well over 200lbs (Doug MacIver in particular looks, well, intimidating) and even Bracknell are getting into the act by attempting to sign well-known human irritant Jeff Hutchins away from the EIHL.


Teams all over the place are trumpeting the need for "team toughness" and fans are licking their lips at the prospect of gloves hitting ice on a nightly basis in rinks around the country. But I can't help feeling that all this hoo-ha over toughness is somewhat missing the point.


Power alone doesn't win games. In fact, I would argue that it's far less a component of the game of hockey then speed and skill-after all, you can be big and powerful, but if you can't get near any of the opposition to use it, it doesn't help much.


This is why the Blaze's signing of Carlyle Lewis and the Phoenix signing Grant Jacobsen are so interesting, and why many hockey fans have been singing the praises of Steve Munn when he plays for Sheffield-these three are tough, powerful lads who have proved they can play a bit too. It's all very well fight fans getting excited about two teams of 6'5, 250lb monsters lumbering around the ice trying to smash each other into oblivion, but if your team wins five fights and doesn't score and the other team doesn't win any but scores one thanks to their 5'7 quicksilver sniper evading the crush for one second in a game to score, then who comes off better?

The EIHL Credit Crunch: I know the above isn't really the greatest post for nearly two weeks of a gap, but the trouble with the off-season now is that most of the exciting stuff has happened. Sheffield have completed their roster (well, the imports anyway) all the big Brits are settled in, and Colin Hemingway is the biggest remaining name out there. Now we're into the intriguing stage of the pre-season, where players slot in and the big signings, not necessarily in terms of reputation but in terms of "players that are vital to winning a championship" in a lot of cases, are made.

Certainly a running theme this off-season has been the big tightening of belts, with most teams (Belfast excepted) tightening the purse-strings massively with re-signings or holding out for quality rather than quantity when it comes to Brits.

Which is why Russ Cowley still being on the market surprises me hugely. Sure, you can believe the Blaze PR's about Cowley over-valuing himself, or you can believe sources close to the player saying that the Blaze treated him shabbily. But given that the Blaze have just signed Barrie Moore (who may be a wily veteran but is surely now on the downslope of his career and trading on one superb British season now that his best friend Neal Martin has left), surely the "wants too much money" defence doesn't hold up if you're then going to pay an import similar money to sit on the third line. Especially when you bear in mind that (and I am quoting the most often-quoted defences from Blaze fans for this move here) "couldn't hit a barn door/selfish" Cowley scored the same number of goals and seven more assists than "great team player/wicked goalscorer" Moore. Assuming the money is roughly the same, who would you take?

Now that Cowley is rumoured to be on his way back to Coventry, doubtless this will be hailed as another "great piece of negotiation". It's not. It's pure luck and a missed opportunity by the other nine teams in the EIHL to sign a Brit who is yet to peak and would have some serious fire in his belly. Instead he'll be left to yoyo between the Blaze's second and third lines and wither on the vine rather than being given the chance to elevate his game to the next level...

And that, from the GB head coach and a team who have trumpeted their pride in British talent long and loud but now ice only one young Brit (in Joe Henry) having released prospects James Archer, Tom Carlon, and James Cooke in the past few years, is a little sad.

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Sticks and Stones...

Yes, I know this was going to be the breakdown of each team up until now (if you're interested, I think the Blaze look pretty much as strong as last year, they'll need padded boards around the Stingrays bench if they keep going the way they are thanks to Rick Strachan's "give a mentalist a job" policy, and Giants look very threatening. As for the others-much of a muchness, although the signing of Grant Jacobsen for the Phoenix stands out-this guy is a BIG lad pounding up the middle and means that Scott Kelman may have some competition for "battering-ram centre" honours in the league this seaosn.

Rounding up the best of the hockey blogs postings first of all: the Firestorm does what many have tried and failed to do and explains yet another EIHA change to the format of one of their leagues, and Five Minute Major goes down memory lane and also provides a decent scouting resource if you're curious about any of their new signings. I'm looking forward to the Mika Skytta reminiscence, though, because someone down here who claimed to know Finnish told me his name was pronounced "scutter"-which is a not-very-nice Coventry word for a, shall we say, "woman of ill repute". Oh, hilarity ensued every time we faced the Phoenix in that season-and because of the above not all of it was caused by Jayme Platt's goaltending...

Anyway-on to the story which has taken my eye the most this week-the frankly spectacular cat-fight taking place between Dan Tessier and the Sheffield Steelers, and being gleefully reported in the Sheffield Star-for your edification, a brief summary with links to the articles-which all started when it was announced that the speedy little centre with an ego the size of Winnipeg (if you believe his detractors) was released a month or so ago by Sheffield.

Meow!: Tessier lets rip to open hostilities. And then comes back for more.

"Knifed in the back"? Isn't that a similar term to the one Panthers fans use when describing his departure for Geneva the first time around? Perhaps if he'd asked slightly less wages from the Blaze in January, the two-quid-a-week extra ticket prices at the Skydome could be used to help heal the wound, funnelled into his pockets.

Hiss!: Steelers reply. Also known as "a fifth defenceman seixing the chance to get himself an article to himself in the local rag and let frustrations out on a better player". Hand me the popcorn...:)

Panic!: Damage control begins as the fans of Sheffield slowly begin to realise that their team has let one of the top-five players of the Elite League era go for a song only months after praising him to the heavens.

You really couldn't make it up, could you?

Here's the funniest part, however-look at the forums and observe all the "holier than thou" postings from fans of other teams (notably Panthers and Blaze, who as rivals will be revelling in this), with the main theme being "we'd never sign a player like that-he's good but now he's gone, and we'd never want him at our club".

I'm sorry, people...but that's an example of grade A, 100% pure male cow faeces from every single one of you.

I'm going to go against the sermonising crowd here and say that, were I a coach, I would take someone like Dan Tessier in a heartbeat. He saved the Steelers season last time out (in fact, he's done it twice) plus he, when all's said and done, is the best purely offensive centre (with the possible exception of Mark Smith) the Elite League has ever seen. If you'd asked anybody who watched British hockey regularly which player was the Steelers' biggest threat to their team, they'd have said Tess-he can create, he can score, and he can win games by himself. Sure, he may be aware of it, but what sportsman isn't?

I really do hope Tess stays in the EIHL-just to watch the U-turn by whichever teams' fans sign him as the points start racking up. It'll make a hairpin look like a sweeping bend, and will bring a smile to my face with every "well, we didn't like him, but now he plays for us so he's fantastic" post I read...

And on that note...keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Sound and Fury

"...for what are these, except tales
Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury
Yet signifying nothing"

William Shakespeare: Macbeth

He was a prescient bloke, was William Shakespeare. Sure, the doomed Scottish king quoted above may have been talking about life in all its glory rather than the world of hockey forums, but those four-hundred-and-something year-old words could just as easily apply to the average day on THF or any fan forum on the internet as to the last musings on life of a king haunted by the lies of three witches...

Let me explain before I lose you completely. And possibly defend myself a little, before we sink so far into literary allusions and metaphors that this post literally disappears up its own five-hole.

Hockey forums are the bane of my life-yet at the same time they're some of the most compelling places to spend some time. All hockey-fan life is here, from the cynical lifelong fans to the club apologists (and my God, have you seen some of those if you've ever hung around a Blaze forum) to the people who will flog a dead horse (usually Brit-quota related) until the bones of their argument have literally crumbled to dust, to the people who think that they're hockey sages just because they once stood next to the kitman's wife in a pub.

Seriously-just have a read through them sometime. Stuff that you would laugh out loud at if someone said it in a rink is dissected as fact, arguments flare like wildfire, and just occasionally you get someone connected with a club sticking their oar in and either fanning the flames or coming over all haughty whenever that amazing new signing is hinted at thanks to sources which range from the player themselves to a drunken bloke in the chip-shop opposite the rink.

Sounds laughable, doesn't it? And yet hockey forums are truly wonderful things. They provide one of the few places on the planet where British hockey fans can talk about their sport with other British hockey fans, form friendships, laugh, cry, and air their views with almost no fear of repercussion (unless you're stupid enough to use your own name, as I can attest to). Players can be torn to shreds by some 13-year-old kid who's only seen one game in his life, they can be built up purely on the basis on one moment, and as for the mob-mentality you get from these things-Andrew Sharp will get a job in British hockey based almost solely on how notorious he has become on these virtual soapbox derbies (come on, Romford fans-surely you're not telling me it's based on ability)...

And yet, essentially, every single word on a hockey forum is unimportant. It's an opinion. And this is something that appears to have been forgotten as the status of hockey in the UK has grown from utterly un-noticed to "do they play that here?", peaked briefly in the early to mid 90's and then dropped away again, with some people getting more than unnecessarily het up by either their status on a forum or even quoting an opinion post on them as a reliable source. Hockey forums, or at least some of the people who frequent them, just might be taking themselves a little too seriously and spending more time reading about this beautiful game of ours and trying to build up street-cred on them then actually watching the game they're talking about in the first place. Examples from the past season...

Every time Andrew Sharp sneezed, there seemed to be an eight-page thread on a forum somewhere split between those who loved him and those who thought he was the Antichrist. Same with Brad Voth. It's a game, people...if you spent more time watching it then pontificating about how you thought it should be played then maybe your posts would be worth reading.

I fully except that I may be shooting myself in the foot in the eyes of some people-especially as I'm using a blog to tell you this-and most of the stuff written on here is purely my own opinion. The difference between me and some of the people who are making forums such a drag nowadays is: I don't expect you, the reader, to agree with me. It would be nice if you did, but if you don't, and you let me know, then so be it. And that is the attitude which seems to be slowly disappearing among hockey fans today, manifested by the change in Internet forums. And so now we come to the point of my post...

Hockey fans are a great bunch of people, in the main. I've become acquainted with many in my time watching, either in person or as a name on a forum or an email thanks to this blog. Sadly, there is a growing element at some teams who hold the attitude I've criticised early in this column-and that attitude is harming all of us. There's been much discussion recently about how clubs can move forward and promote the sport, and I've written at length on here about the need for clubs to constantly listen to what their fanbases are actually saying, get them involved and cease simply talking the talk about being "family clubs" as some are doing at the moment while jacking up ticket prices and adopting an attitude of "rake in the money and sod the experience". Trouble is, the attitude of some on the forums (and indeed some of the rubbish poseted) is ginving them a loophole to use-if asked why they don't listen to the fans, they can simply say "well, look at the forums-no-one knows anything but they'll still shout away".

What the sport needs is more people who are knowledgeable about the game, knowledgeable about their team, passionate about it, but willing to listen to other's opinions (and I include myself in that, so feel free to disagree with anything in this post via the comment button or the email address on the right, and I'll happily debate it with you). Judging by the forums and the spreading number of British hockey blogs out there (all of which are of very high quality indeed, particularly Five Minute Major, the F Block Blog, and the longest running of them (and the original inspiration for this one) Check to the Head, as well as the Firestorm Blog in the EPL as a promising addition), there are enough people ou there to really foster the spirit of debate on forums-hopefully this will spread and sifting through places such as the Elite Forum will become a pleasure again rather than a chore. But either way, forums are still great entertainment...

Moving on now-I've decided that rather than document teams signing by signing, the next post on here will be a team-by-team breakdown of ins and outs, together with a word or two on how each team looks to be shaping up as we reach the midpoint of the off-season (yep, it's been almost two months since the end of the season already, folks). Given that I am away this weekend, that may take a few days to appear. In keeping with the one-a-week timescale I've set myself for the summer, it should be on sometime next week. Until then, keep keepign your eye on the puck...

Something about Stephen?

Apologies for the long wait between posts-there's been a lot on recently, including a little football tournament in Austria some of you might be interested in also...but we're back now.

This post was just going to be a quick catch-up, much along the lines of all the other postings you see throughout the summer-but quite frankly there have been so many signings throughout the league in the past week or two, and comment has been made on so many other forums, which I assume the majority of you wonderful people also read, that there's not really much point doing so, so instead I'll concentrate on just one-the Manchester Phoenix signing Stephen Murphy.

Before we begin, let's get something straight. I have enormous respect for anyone who plays between the pipes. As someone who spends the majority of his time while playing hockey on the other end of a shot (ie trying to ping one in at them) I have some idea of how to play hockey. And given that I try and spend time screening them and have delivered more than a slash or two to a legpad in search of a loose puck in my time, I can imagine that it takes some real skill to play goalie successfully at any level. My only experience of playing the position is messing about at the end of practice and completely failing to stop any shot. I prefer to try and score goals rather than stop them. But even so, I have a little idea of what makes a good goalie-they stop pucks consistently.

Which is why the success of Stephen Murphy and the fact that he's so highly rated in Britain baffles me. When he first burst onto the scene with Fife and Dundee in the BNL, the hype (relatively) was massive-here was a young British goalie who was consistently performing at a level which seemed ridiculously good to those watching-and admittedly the fact that he was only 18 just added to it. And then, in the 02/03 season, the first signs that the young Scot was mortal appeared-put pressure on him, score an early goal, and the wall began to crumble.

Despite this, he earned himself a contract in Sweden. Here was a chance to better himself at a higher level-the great Continental adventure was on. One season in the Swedish second league, eight games at Bracknell in the BNL and back to Edinburgh in the starting goalie slot with much fanfare as "the best British goalie"-all this while consistently appearing in the GB squad behind Stevie Lyle, before going back to Scandinavia and then onto Manchester.

My question, though, is simple. What is the big thing about Stephen Murphy? My argument is simple-he's British.

Hear me out here. With the import limits, any advantage that coaches think they can get, they will take. And because of the ridiculous import limits in the EIHL (that's a whole other post, but put simply, my view is "get rid of 'em") a Brit goalie who can start and do a decent job is considered an asset because it gives you an extra import outskater. And they believe Murphy is.

But, what use is that when you're conceding an extra goal or two a game? Murphy's defenders say that he never gives out rebounds-that's because the puck is in the net more often than not. With stats that have a large amount to do with playing on some of the best teams in the league (playing for Fife and Dundee, he was consistently around 92%, before playing for Edinburgh, where he had a save percentage of 88% having supposedly reached a new level. Stevie Lyle, in a better league, earned himself a save % of 90 in Italy before going to 89 in Britain.

In my view, you're better off going with an import goalie than a Brit every single time, particularly in Murphy's case-I don't think I've seen him have a truly dominating goalie performance since about 2003. I just hope Manchester have a great d lined up...

Russ Cowley leaves Coventry:..speaking of overpaid Brits, here we have one whose club think he was, and have thus let him go and already started the justification in the press (today's Evening Telegraph quotes Paul Thompson as saying that the winger was asking for more than he was worth, while sources close to the player claim that the Blaze have treated him shabbily and Adam Calder is also less than impressed with his club over the issue). You'd have thought with every single fan having to pay an extra couple of quid a ticket this season with a price of fifteen quid, as well as the sell-sell-sell dynamic which appears to dominate the clubs dealing with the fans at the Skydome bearing some fruit (so we're told), there was room for some negotiation, but apparently not).

Later this weekend, hopefully Sunday, we'll be returning to the business of keeping up with the summer comings-and-goings and more rumours, but until then, keep keeping your eye on the puck...