Bank Holiday Double Overtime...

A few quick reflections on EPL weekend on this Bank Holiday-apologies for the lateness of the post but-well, Bank Holidays are a time for taking it easy. :)

The EIHL season review will be up tomorrow evening...

The "best league in British hockey"? Hm...: For all those (well, they are a minority, but a loud and annoying one) EPL fans on THF claiming that this is a far superior league to the EIHL...

No, it isn't.

For a start, the combined might of EPL fandom couldn't fill the Coventry Skydome, while the EIHL filled the far bigger NIC over two days...and before we get the "most of those were Sheffield and Nottingham" argument-a third of the blocks in Coventry were taken up by MK and Peterborough fans...

That's not to say the games weren't enjoyable-the Guildford-MK Lightning semi in particular was full of controversy, passion and noise from the crowd-mainly due to the quite frankly insane Lightning fans, who travelled in large numbers and weren't exactly shy in announcing their presence. However, given the choice between seeing that every week and seeing EIHL...I'm going to take the Elite League every time...right up until the point where the EPL becomes the most sustainable option for British hockey as a whole.

The Loneliness of the Volunteer Goal-Judge: With apologies for referencing a classic of English literature in a hockey blog, I had to write a little about being roped in as a goal-judge (with no experience) this weekend, given that Guildford "scored" to win their semi-final at my end with thirty seconds or so to go. People wonder how hard it is to flick a light on when the puck hits the net, but following a little rubber disc zipping around between players and with bodies constantly shifting around in front of you is bloody hard work concentration wise-particularly when you have about half a second to decide whether a puck has hit the crossbar or the roof of the net. For the record, I thought Vaclav Zavoral's point-blank shot was into the roof of the net and back down...and was somewhat surprised when it was washed out without even a thought of asking why the light had gone on...but that's referees for you...

"Invicta"-somewhat appropriate, really: The team from Kent, proudly carrying the Latin for "unbeaten" as their team name, and their opponents from Sheffield took part in the game of the weekend in the ENL cup final...outshining their more illustrious competition with a superb 4-4 draw and game settled only on penalty shots...

Frankie says-the best team won: For the whole weekend the MK fans were running on some sort of 80's theme, with many slightly-more-home-made versions of this iconic t-shirt (with "Relax" replaced by "Go Lightning") floating around...but their colour and quite-frankly-horrific silver playoff shirts lost to the far more polished and reserved Phantoms, who left their talking to be done on the ice, and in Latvian international Maris Ziedins had by far the most impressive player of the weekend as they completed the EPL triple...

I know it's a little short, but that's your brief reflections on the EPL weekend...check back tomorrow for the first part of the all-new, all-improved-from-last-season EIHL season review (taking in Basingstoke, Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry and Edinburgh, with the other five teams to follow on Wednesday as we work through the EIHL season, best players, best moments and all in a week). For an idea of what to expect, here's a look back at the 07/08 season review... this season will be bigger, better and more comprehensive...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...