Return of the Prodigal, and Round the Rinks

First, a bit of news...and it's a big bit...



Dan Tessier signs for Sheffield. Again.



Oh, goody. The little centre is and has always has been one of the best players in the league to watch, and I defy any hockey fan to say they wouldn't want him on their side. Even you, Panthers fans...



I refuse to get into the wage-cap debate this signing will no doubt provoke on hockey forums everywhere...at least not now. Suffice to say that Wednesday's game against the Panthers will now be just a little spicier than usual...



With that out of the way for at least a short while, on with Round the Rinks-which may seem confusing at first as I'm trying the new strategy of grouping teams together when they play double-headers, and there are two this week...



Basingstoke: Nottingham and Hull await for the Bison, in a weekend where they'll be grateful just to be putting a team out after being down to two (two!) fit d-men. All the laws say that this should be a hard and ultimately fruitless weekend in Hampshire, but then, all the laws said they should never have been able to score ten goals against Edinburgh last week with just ten skaters. And we all know what happened there. With the Stingrays back on form (well, for them) Sunday's trip to Humberside will be a little harder than it has been at times this season, but by the same token Panthers will not be relishing their trip to the Silverdome either. Surely the Bison can't beat the odds twice in a week?

Belfast: Manchester and Nottingham are the oppostion, as the Giants swing into another home-and-away weekend looking to put some serious pressure on Coventry at the top of the table and continue their impressive win streak at the same time. These two games are eminently winnable...except both the Phoenix and the Panthers are more than capable of pulling out a win. Several teams at the top of the table will be hoping they do...

Cardiff/Coventry: We'll take these two together, as it's a double-header of one of the most passionate and keenly-contested rivalries in the league. Blaze are coming into this weekend the stronger, as Cardiff are still in the midst of an injury crisis which means Phil Osaer is only slated to play one game this weekend (in Cardiff on Saturday) as he begins his return from a knee injury. However, nothing would please those in South Wales more than to put a bump in the road of the Blaze's seemingly relentless chase to be the first team to defend an EIHL title successfully. Nothing is ever certain as regards the results of these games, but one thing that's cast in stone is that both games will see a tooth-and-nail scrap between two teams who well and truly want to win at any cost...

Edinburgh/Sheffield: Another double-header sees two teams equally desperate for points face each other, although they currently lie at opposite ends of the table. Steelers need the points to keep in touch with Belfast and Coventry at the top, while Caps need the points to open up a gap on Hull at the bottom and close in on Basingstoke, who currently occupy the last remaining playoff spot. With the Bison weakened by injuries, and the Caps on something of a run of good form, they will fancy their chances-and may consider using Adam Stefishen as a battering-ram now that Steelers have lost their main policeman in Jeremy Cornish...

Hull: One game for the new, slightly-improved Stingrays-Basingstoke are the opponents, and Humberside is the venue on the Sunday night. Hull will fancy their chances against a weakened Bison, but would do well to be cautious after the Bison destroyed the Capitals when the Scots perhaps got caught looking ahead...A win would be a huge tonic if they can maintain their focus, however...

Manchester: Belfast are the Phoenix's only opponents this weekend-being the team to stop the winning run of the hottest side in the EIHL will certainly be motivation enough for the side who seem to delight in being the banana-skin that the top teams slip up on. Having already won in Northern Ireland this year, there is considerable reason for optimism in the North West, and the Angry Budgies will have several fanbases keeping an eye on them and hoping they can derail the Giants Express on Sunday night. I certainly wouldn't bet against it...

Newcastle: The Vipers don't play this weekend-probably a good thing as any good results would be lost in the furore surrounding a footballer deciding to return to his former club...However, the signing of Cory Morgan will add a small but not-unnoticed reason to be cheerful for those on the North East who prefer pucks to balls. If he has any sense, Rob Wilson will be using this weekend break to work out just how the new players will fit in in preparation for a hectic run-in...

Nottingham: Basingstoke and Belfast are the opposition for the Panthers, who still harbour hopes of climbing the table despite there being no sign of the promised PC Drouin replacement. With Dan Tessier going to Sheffield ahead of the Challenge Cup Final first leg on Wednesday, the Panthers need a four-point weekend this time out in order to give them the best possible lead-in to the first chance of silverware of the season. Both the Giants and the Bison will provide tough obstacles to getting it, however...

And that's your preview....let's play hockey!

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...