Double Overtime, December 15th

On we go into another weekend review. And be warned, this could get quite...well, if not heated, then at least a little controversial. Let's start with the simple stuff...

Just call him the Natural (hat-trick): Bruce Mulherin had something of a good weekend for Manchester, socring against Coventry in the Skydome and then following that with a natural hat-trick in his second game of the weekend against Basingstoke on Sunday. Not bad for someone who's played four games in five nights, that.

And while we're considering the Phoenix...Saturday's match against the Blaze more than lived up to the somewhat overblown billing I gave it on Friday...a storming game saw the momentum swing first one way and then the other, including two goals for the away side in the space of thirty seconds to bring it back from 3-1 to 3-3. Pick of the goals was that man Mulherin, with an absolute beauty of a wrister over Perras's left shoulder for the Phoenix's second. However (thankfully) the Blaze just about prevailed, mainly thanks to a pretty special goal in its own right from Sylvain Deschatelets, drifting round the back of Murphy's net before threading the puck through a gap roughly the width of a gnat's wing bigger than the puck which Murphy had left at his near post. And not a single bit of fisticuffs in sight. We'll get to that later.

Come on-surely X Factor wasn't that good?: Incidentally, there were a ton of empty seats in the Skydome on Saturday. Which is a bit sad, really...although at least now no-one can kid themselves that the credit crunch is biting in Coventry as much as everywhere else...

Little Giants: Meanwhile, in the battle of the pre-season favourites, Nottingham came out on top. Convincingly. I'm not entirely sure what was wrong with the Northern Irish side, but they looked lacklustre both in a game they won 4-3 on Friday (mainly thanks to the Panthers throwing away a 3-1 lead they looked pretty comfortable with) and on Satuday when the Nottingham side seemingly responded to a rocket up the rear end in beating them 7-2.
A team of talented individuals the Giants definitely are. Whether they are a talented team, however, is still something of which I'm not convinced.

At least this season they're "heroic" losers: Hull lost 3-2 in Edinburgh-not a bad scoreline considered they travelled up with two d-men and a player who'd barely even practiced with them as a third (new signing Richie Thornton). The Capitals, meanwhile, can finally give themselves some Christmas cheer, a little early, but well-earned nevertheless...after all, it's not exactly been the best of times for them recently...

The whole "heroes" thing, meanwhile, is wearing a bit thin down in Basingstoke:
Three goals scored over the weekend, shut out on home ice, and eight goals conceded in Manchester on Sunday. It seems the magic of the Bison Ten, whatever they've been using in the water bottles down there in Hampshire, may be starting to run a little low...

Win the battle, lose the war: Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Vipers finally managed to get their hands on Sylvain Deschatelets after the bad-tempered last meeting of these two teams at the Skydome, and duly took revenge. Well, sort of, anyway-there However, the Blaze took the two points with a 4-2 victory,
which, generally, is what people care about...

And now...

Somehow, somewhere, it's Brad Voth's fault: Cardiff and Sheffield met on Sunday in South Wales for the first time since Ryan Finnerty gave us his unique interpretation of stand-up comedy in the Sheffield Star, topped off by forgetting that this game actually existed. Of course, Steeler fans said that this was pure PR and not likely to stoke things up to an unacceptable level next time the two teams met. It was just a bit of harmless hype, after all.

Somewhere, that memo got lost in the post, because, on Sunday, this happened.

I accept that the footage is not of the best quality, so, the sequence of events runs something like this...

Doug MacIver (Cardiff) lines up opposite Jody Lehman, which rings alarm-bells straight away because a) there's two seconds to go, b) Lehman had apparently been winding up the Devils crowd and players all game, c) the Devils #64 is known for throwing a punch or two when the need arises, and d) he normally plays on D, not on the wing. As the puck drops, he goes after Brad Cruikshank, who turns away. As this is broken up and MacIver is being skated off the ice, having made a move towards Lehman as the Sheffield goalie leaves the ice (the game having ended) Andrew Sharp leaps the Steelers bench and attempts to slash MacIver across the throat.(35 seconds in) He misses and hits the linesman, and all hell then breaks loose.

Interestingly, throughout this melée, Finnerty is nowhere to be seen-it's Joey Talbot who eventually pairs off with Jay Latulippe. Strange, as you'd have thought a bench clearance is the perfect time for settling scores...

Silence is golden: So, having seen that, how would you react to one of your team doing something clearly dangerous and setting that off-as either a fan or a player?

I'm guessing, at best, you'd opt for silence, at least in public.

Well, not in Sheffield...

Dave Matsos: ""The whole night was heated... we were told to leave the building through a rear exit, once the game is over it's over but some folk just wish to carry things on."

Excuse me? This from a coach who's just had a player jump the bench and stick an opposition player in the neck after the final hooter? And you're complaining about it being a bit heated? It's hardly going to be a friendly tea-party, is it?

Ryan Finnerty: "The boys love Sharpy, he is a good kid and he is trying to play his part with the team, what happened at the end last night was unfortunate."

Well, you could have just taken on Latulippe like you said you were going to...then maybe Sharpy may have thought twice about playing this particular part...

Unfortunate? What would you have called it if the slash had connected with its target instead of a lino's visor?

"Sharpy loves being a part of the club and every guy on the team enjoys having him around, as a group of guys we are 100% behind him"

I bet you do-it means you aren't against him. That way, you don't have to worry about sucker-punches, swung sticks and the like.

Jody Lehman: "We are a tight group and Sharpy is one of us, he is a young guy who saw his team mates in trouble and jumped in to help"

Ever heard the phrase "pick your battles"?

"things got a little out of hand"

Or, as the refs called it, 2+2+2+5+game+game+game+match+match, for 121 total PIM's for one player, in one incident.

I'd love to see Lehman's definition of "out of control" then...presumably he also believes in the phrase "it's all fun until someone loses a limb"

The upshot of all this is that Sharp has, at minimum, a four game ban. That, presumably, means Sheffield will have to find someone else to fill the gaping hole of...oh, about a minute of ice-time that will result. And one can only wonder at the press-releases to come.

Anyone who thought there was a lot of ink wasted on Brad Voth v Randy Dagenais earlier in the season will not have seen anything yet...

There we go...there's the weekend (sort of) reviewed. And only an hour later than I thought it would be. This one, however, will run, and run, and run.