Double Overtime, Jan 5th...

First one of 2009, and naturally, we begin with a little music for our first item...

"It's the little sparks that fly and then land like dynamite, It's just, it's just the little things, pure incidentals..."

Alisha's Attic "The Incidentals"


Let's get Coventry v Sheffield out of the way early. This was, as predicted in Round the Rinks, an absolute barn-burning, siren-wailing stormer of a game, with two moments of real controversy, a goal-judge with an itchy trigger finger and won in dramatic fashion by a sublime piece of finishing from Jeff Legue.


It was also a game of little things. Inches, sometimes less. Like, for example, the inch-or-so thickness of tape on the end of Jody Lehman's stick handle which meant that Jon Coleman's absolute howitzer of an overtime shot, after he was given space from the sublime passing from the Blaze powerplay unit, steepened its rise by a fraction and went high over the bar and not into the roof of the net, where it had been heading. Or, thirty seconds later, the margin by which a desperate dive from Jon Weaver to keep the puck in the zone deflected its path out, perfectly onto the stick of an onrushing Legue, who duly did his thing thanks to the ice-water flowing in his veins.


There's more. The difference in distance the puck had travelled which meant that Scott Kelman's deflection of a centering pass went zinging into the inside of the post and out rather than into the side of the net, despite the goal-judge telling all and sundry that it was in (however, given that in the third he put his light on when the puck had barely entered Lehman's crease, never mind the net, his judgement this night was, at best, questionable)
The margin by which Lehman overslid across his goal to knock the net off as Adam Calder gleefully banged what he thought was the equalizer into the empty net, causing it to be washed out. The margins by which Lehman somehow deflected shot after shot wide late in the third as Blaze made the league-leading defence look completely lost, playing with verve and passion which had been sadly lacking in Nottingham the night before.

The distance under the bar into which Scott Basiuk placed his bullet slapshot to put the Steelers 2-0 up after only four minutes.

And, ultimately, the distance between the bottom of JF Perras' pads and the puck as it was slid under him beautifully for the Steelers' overtime winner. A small gap, but it could have huge ramifications on the title ambitions of three clubs.


Home is where the heart is: If you doubt the importance of playing on home ice to teams in the EIHL, then this weekend should, once and for all, have settled it. Particularly if you were in Nottingham on Saturday to see the same Blaze team which did themselves and the game proud on Sunday (aided massively, it has to be said, by a superb Steelers road performance) then the Panthers playing with as much drive and pomp as their Midlands rivals have become known for, roared on by the NIC crowd, would have done it.
Failing that, how about the Steelers so nearly throwing it away against Hull before dragging out an overtime win in a dress rehearsal of their game at the Skydome the following night, or Belfast outlasting a determined effort from Manchester? Both teams winning their home legs of the KO Cup semi before Newcastle edged out Edinburgh on penalties?

Being a cynical sort of fan, I often doubt the whole "fans can be the sixth man" rhetoric trotted out before every big game. Just occasionally, though, you wonder whether the cliché merchants might not have a point.

Wince of the Week: You know that "inches" theme earlier? Well, it seemed Danny Stewart was inches from doing himself a serious mischief at one point on his comeback weekend. Some players would ease themselves back into the game, possibly not go in quite as hard on a check or two...not the Blaze's "little ball of hate" (if you object to me calling him little, then look up the reference by Youtubing Pat Verbeek). Trouble was, it nearly cost him dearly when he sought to make Rod Sarich better acquainted with the Skydome plexi and lost an edge as Sarich moved...cue a sickenng thump as he flew, horizontal in mid air and face-first, into the boards where the Steeler had been a second before. As fans nearby leant over expecting to see a crumpled heap on the ice, he was already up and heading back toward the play...
Ease your way back in? That's for cowards...:)

And by the way...Manchester 4, Nottingham 2. Up to fifth, three points behind the top four and on something of a run. Just saying...

Obligatory Stingrays mention: Three point weekend, including a point in Sheffield? Maybe the New Year has rung in a new run on Humberside...

Now, if only the "Chaventry" and "Squeelers" stuff worked as well: Has anyone else noticed that since the whole Team Hollywood affair, the Panthers appear to be back to the team everyone thought they'd be at the start of the season? Can someone arrange for an opposition coach to mention "Chaventry" in a press-release, please?

Petty name-calling. Motivation at its best....

Much more, and they'll be calling them the Shawshank Panthers: Corey Neilson has clearly been encouraged by the public redemption going on in his team's goal at the moment, as he signs Corey Leclair to be his next reclamation project after the American was released by Coventry. Given that Panthers fans were giving the same negative feedback about Jon Coleman when he went the other way, and given that that particular American d-man has now become something of a fan favourite at his new club, Neilson will be hoping lightning strikes a third time in this season's EIHL...

Newsflash: Anglo-Welsh relations "tense" after weekend: Basingstoke and Cardiff don't like each other that much, it seems. Another incident-packed game at the Silverdome, including a six-man brawl late in the game, meant that they managed to break a combined total of 200 penalty minutes...can't they just be friends?
On second thoughts-it's more fun this way.

And there you go-that's your weekend reviewed...