Double Overtime, 18th February

And so we go with another weekend review...

Basingstoke: Not the best outcome to the "weekend from hell" for the Bison-three games, and three losses. You can blame fatigue for some of this, and you can definitely blame the fact that the team have had to play four games in five days for a lot of their current woes, but you can't blame injuries so much any more-the Bison Ten are slowly growing in number...

Belfast: Two wins for the Giants, and yet you still get the sense their season continues to fizzle a little. A win against Basingstoke is praiseworthy, a win away to Manchester equally so, but I sense they've left themselves too much to do as far as the chase for the league title goes...

Cardiff: Fourteen straight league defeats for the Devils. Sure, injuries don't help (and if any team can claim to have been unlucky with injuries this season, it's the Welsh) but at some point even wounded teams have to step up and start winning, and the Devils just can't find a way to do that at the moment...

Coventry: One game, two points, and the march towards yet another league title continues apace. All is well in the Midlands despite the continuing absence of Jonathan Weaver...

Edinburgh: The Caps are getting closer to that elusive playoff spot, but a loss to Nottingham on Sunday couldn't have come at a worse time. Five points out of the playoffs now, with time fast running out, it looks like a season of so near and yet so far...

Hull: A one-goal loss to Manchester is bearable. A 10-1 hammering by Sheffield the night after is the act of a team who've simply rolled over and died. If the team name were Horses and not Stingrays, then someone would have shot them by now-they're firmly rooted to the bottom and playing like a team with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads...Not even the most die-hard of Hull fans are believing the press releases any more...

Manchester: Can anyone stop Joe Tallari? The Ontarian simply cannot stop scoring, and he is one of the major reasons the Phoenix are where they are. This weekend, one win and one loss follow the usual pattern of a Phoenix weekend, but even in losses Tallari keeps scoring. The Phoenix are now settled in the playoff spots-it's just a question of whether their top gun can claim the scoring title away from Adam Calder and stop the Blaze sweeping league honours...

Newcastle: The Vipers win both (sorry-managed to misread the Basingstoke score from Friday when checking back through swiftly, hence the earlier error). They're staying strong in the run-in, but with the scrum for playoff places being what it is, they need to keep doing so for at least the next month...

Nottingham: Beating Sheffield 6-1 will have them dancing in the streets of the East Midlands, winning down in Basingstoke considerably less so. However, you get the same number of points no matter which team you beat, and thus, as far as the league goes, there's no difference between the wins. Four points for the Panthers will be very welcome at this time of the season, as they keep chasing Challenge Cup glory...

Sheffield: Hell hath no fury like a Steeler beaten by their rivals. The 6-1 loss to Nottingham will have stung. In fact, it stung even to the point where they moved out of 3rd gear for a Hull game, and hit them for ten. With Blaze winning and gaining another game in hand on them, however, those two meetings between the two sides just get bigger and bigger...

That's your weekend review for this week...midweek games this week see Blaze take on Manchester and the Challenge Cup decided between Sheffield and Nottingham.

Check back tomorrow evening for your usual mix of comment and controversy...