Game On...

And so we're now officially off and running in the new season...and here is a brief stream-of-consciousness reflection on the events of last night at the Skydome.

Goal of the night: Sylvain Deschatelets: And it took the epic time of...seventeen seconds. Opening face-off, puck back to Ben O'Connor, skate, pass to Calder, dumped round the boards after a bit of passing back and forth, Carlson to Deschatelets on the left circle, followed by a nonchanlant flick (well, that was the impression, even though the puck was travelling as it went over Euan King's shoulder) and there you go-the Blaze Skydome account 08/09 is opened...

Applause-worthy moment: Stephen Lee firing a beauty of a slapshot past Steve Fone from the blue-line-not quite goal of the night but a fine strike in its own right.

God, the referee's new suits are ugly...there's no photos as yet but just have a gander over the weekend. Kappa tracksuits for the EIHL era...

Comedy moment: Puck crosses the GB zone, is received by the defenceman (who wore number 22-annoyingly there were no names on the back of the majority of the GB shirts so I couldn't remember who was who). As he curls round to receive the puck he's met by the sight of 6'3 and 235lbs of Canadian in the shape of Carlyle Lewis, moving at great speed towards him and about ten feet away, yelling "heads up!". Reason prevailed as Lewis both eased off and pulled out of the hit so no contact was made, but the yell of "go and change your pants, 22" as he left the ice for a line change seconds later pretty much summed up the youngster's reaction-if the look on his face was any judge then the boards narrowly missed being jet-washed with the contents of his rapidly-evacuating bowels...


Bravery Award: Bowns (again, I didn't catch his first name thanks to being in a bit late and not having a game sheet) marking his arrival in the game by taking a stinging Kelman slapshot full (as in "nosebreakingly full") on the mask, before doing it again from Weaver seconds later, and smiling ruefully each time. Well, they say goalies are a little "different" to the rest of us...Or Sam Oakford for a cheeky (and quite nasty) slash on Lewis' legs in the third period. He'd managed to somehow melt into the ice when Lewis took a casual look over his shoulder and grinned, though.

For the record, the final score was 6-2. As for judging the Blaze team-let's save the "first impressions" thing until after the weekend-the Blaze looked like they were playing well, well within themselves-and the U20's, while playing hard and no disrespect to them, were brushed aside with very little fuss.

More pluggery: The British hockey web community has two new additions...both Manchester way. The Phoenix Podcast and the Pyre look like two more excellent sources of opinion, debate and general hockey writing..particularly the Pyre's latest post on the wagecap issue, .so feel free to visit them now they're duly linked on the sidebar...

That's the quickie done for now...tomorrow morning it'll be time for Preseason Round the Rinks...