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...