Double Overtime, September 14th: Scream, Aim, Fire...

"When there's no-one left to fight
Boys like him don't shine so bright
Soon as i see the dusk settle
He's out on the town trying to find trouble"
Jamie T: "Sticks and Stones"

Well, that was a weekend and a half, wasn't it? Especially if you were in Hull or Cardiff. Saying that, though, there were a couple of tasty games outside of those England-Wales hostilities, the like of which probably haven't been seen in Cardiff since two quite important men by the name of Henry IV and Owain Glyndŵr, and their respective mates, had a mild disagreement over who ruled the country in the 1400's...

However, that all comes later-let's look at the other games first. The calm before the storm, if you will...

It's the end of the world as we know it!...:...well, at least you'd believe it that way if you have a gander at the Blaze forums-the Coventrians have (shock) started the season with two losses, both against Nottingham...the win against Sheffield has been all but forgotten and if you believe the forums, Corey Neilson, dressed in full hockey kit, has already gone galloping through the city centre on a pale horse with three of his mates.

God only knows how bad it'll get if Blaze lose, say, three in a row. I'm already getting in the tinned food and preparing for the widespread panic in the streets outside the Skydome.
RUN FOR THE HILLS!*

(*note to those Coventry fans, and there are a lot of them, who take every word said about their team literally. I may or may not have been exaggerating the upcoming apocalypse. No, really.)

Just imagine...if you'd stayed awake for ninety more seconds, Steelers...: The Sheffield v Belfast double-header produced some of the best actual hockey of the weekend, at least in terms of closeness, with both teams nicking two points in each others' barns. Saturday saw the Steelers win on penalty-shots after a 2-2 draw after sixty-five minutes, and Sunday looked to see them cruising the same way, 2-1 up thanks to goals from Joe Talbot and Randy Dagenais, with ninety seconds to go...

If you're a Steelers fan, or Kevin Reiter, or indeed any other Steelers player, look away now.

Belfast proceeded to score three goals within a minute, including an empty-netter, in order to take the game 4-2, and they did it with the same line. Surely three goals for the same line (or four-fifths of the same line) in one shift, within the space of sixty seconds is a feat which hasn't been done often, if ever. The Hot Line in question was Tim Cook-Mike Jacobsen-Evan Cheverie-George Awada-Craig Peacock, with Colin Shields also getting in on the act for the empty-netter...I assume he got lucky on a line-change or something...

Either way, that's a hell of a feat, and if you're a Giants fan you must have just about come back down to earth now. If you're a Steelers fan, you're probably still wondering where your two points went, because that is a bona-fide smash-and-grab raid, right there...and ensures that the Giants take a three-point weekend when the Steelers should have taken four...

What's that crash? Oh...it's just the Panthers fans coming back to earth: The Panthers bandwagon hit its first jolt on the way up North on Sunday, meanwhile, as Newcastle, a team many have tipped to finish last, did them over, 5-3. All the scoring by the Vipers was done by two players, with Mike Berry scoring a hat-trick...

We're now officially into "how long can he keep this going" territory:...and Matej Kralj continuing his "score at least once in every game he plays against another British team" (if you'd kept up, you'd know why I'd highlighted "British") run going with another two. That makes Coventry, Cardiff, and Nottingham so far...not a bad first three...

In fairness, they probably just sneaked him in in Dominic D'Amour's underpants bag: Meanwhile, back onto Nottingham, they've raised something of a furore by signing Johan Molin to cover for the injured Kevin Bergin and, well, not telling anyone until he stepped onto the ice for warm-up on Saturday night. It's amusing to read the "how dare they" comments when you bear in mind that a) any other team, including the Blaze, would do the same thing if they could, especially if a player as skilful as the little Swede were the player in question, and b) it's not that easy to do anyway, so everyone must have collectively been looking the other way.

Nottingham, for re-signing one of your biggest stars and also managing to keep the return of one of the most skilful players in the league a complete secret, the Breakaway salutes you. Good work.

(now don't do it again or people from Coventry and probably Sheffield will be upset and throw their dummies out the pram, conveniently forgetting that the rules allow them to do it to, should they wish, and that's not nice).

And now...the main attraction of the evening...

"Wow, that escalated quickly"...: With apologies to fans of Anchorman, it seems that the Hull-Cardiff games were the place to be if you wanted to see anything out of the ordinary (who whispered "what, Hull winning a game?" at the back there? Behave yourselves-Rick Strachan's gone now) this weekend. Saturday night in Hull, a game the Stingrays won 4-2, was tasty enough, with lots of chippy little moments, but on Sunday...well...

What does 284 combined penalty minutes, including four players thrown out (Adam Knight for Hull, Scott Romfo, Brad Voth and Mike Hartwick for Cardiff) and a whole lorryload of Devils fans condemning Hull as "thugs" on forums tell you?

It must have been "interesting".

According to match reports, Brad Voth and Adam Knight went at it behind the benches (Knight trying to tear out plexi to use as a weapon if you believe the more hysterical ones) after being thrown out, Curtis Huppe fired his stick javelin-style into the Devils bench, which was apparently unprovoked* *(by anything other than the minor fact that Max Birbraer was waving his stick around the benches at head height, but not with any intent, obviously) and Scott Romfo and Mike Hartwick, for their part, went bat-doo-doo crazy, as did Sylvain Cloutier. And it was all sparked due to a vicious hit on Jeff Glowa earlier in the game, an act which apparently wasn't settled in sufficiently violent fashion at the time...

We'll have to keep an eye on this to see what penalties are handed out, but it appears that the Devils don't half like stoking up rivalries with teams up Yorkshire way early in a season, they've got form for this, after all. Remember Randy Dagenais, Jay Latulippe and Andrew Sharp?

There you go...that's your weekend reviewed...