Double Overtime, 24th March

And so we bid goodbye to the 2007/08 league season, not with a bang but, in the vast majority of cases, a whimper. There were, however, a few notable results in amongst the end-of-season easing-off that habitually occurs when a team has nothing left to play for...so we'll look at them individually rather than running through the teams...

Sheffield 1, Edinburgh 2: The Capitals made sure that they didn't go down to the last game with this fine win at the Hallam Arena to seal their playoff place a day early, and make a few people in Coventry a little less sure of their chances of making the final weekend while they were at it. Colin Hemingway (who else) was the hero for the Caps, scoring both goals to finish the season on 38, and make Sunday's game against Basingstoke irrelevant. However, irrelevant or not...

Edinburgh 11, Basingstoke 7: Eighteen goals in a game is still notable, especially when two of them are scored by a starting netminder. Curtis Cruickshank ventured forward and played as an outskater in this game, much like Jason Cugnet for the Devils in the playoff third-place game a few seasons ago...by all accounts the game was played in good spirit as the Bison had some fun to finish their season...

Nottingham 2, Manchester 4: In amongst all the end-of-season easing-off, it's refreshing to see a team who genuinely wanted to state their playoff intentions early, and the Phoenix certainly did that with this win at the NIC...

Hull 6, Manchester 2: ...trouble is, it appears that Hull also wanted to prove a point in their last game of the season-it's amazing what you can get out of players when they realise they might be playing for a contract.

Slough 3, Milton Keynes 2: What? An EPL score on what is traditionally an EIHL-centred blog? Yup-but this game was notable not so much for the score but for events that occurred even before the game began. According to reports from those who were at the game, MK's Kurt Irvine went for Slough's Paddy Ward with a stick in the warm-up...and all hell then broke loose, with the police being called and questioning Irvine, Ward and Slough's Nicky Chinn (who had jumped in to defend his team-mate). The incident is currently being investigated, so that's about all the info there is out there at the moment...

Coventry 2, Newcastle 4: Not so much notable for the game itself, which was a typical end-of-season affair, but simply for the fact that this win gives the Vipers a 100% record at the Skydome this season (three league, one exhibition) when playing at full strength, which is a pretty impressive achievement...

That's pretty much all the interest from this weekend, at least as far as the EIHL goes. The EPL playoffs are in full swing, though, and the road to Coventry looks like a tricky one for most teams-there will of course be a preview of the finals weekend in two week's time. First, however, the EIHL playoffs begin, with the quarter-finals all now set thus...

Coventry v Edinburgh
Sheffield v Manchester
Nottingham v Cardiff
Belfast v Newcastle

There will be a preview of each playoff matchup (you can't really call it a "series" when there's only two games) later on in the week. Tomorrow, however, we consider the reaction to the Irvine incident detailed above, assess each EIHL teams' strengths and weaknesses going into the playoffs, and look at the rumours floating around already as the whispers begin to fly around the league...

Until then, keep keeping your eye on the puck...