The Breakaway British Hockey Blog

We've Moved!

2011-05-19T17:17:00.003+01:00

Yup...it's been a year. Sorry, people. Real-life got in the way.

And so we've moved. The Breakaway is reborn. Bigger, and better, and moved.

This place will serve as an archive of when I was young and a little less cynical, but from now on, we're here.

Songs of Ice And Fire
Come say hi. And thank you for keeping an eye out here, too.

Hopefully you'll like the new place as much as this one.

A Call To Arms...

2010-03-10T12:28:00.002Z

"This is a call to arms
Gather, soldiers...
Time to go to war...
This is a battle song
Brothers and sisters
Time...to go...to war..."
30 Seconds to Mars: "Vox Populi"

Hello, everyone. Is anyone still out there?

Yes, I know it's been three months. I know that you probably thought the Breakaway had died. And I apologise. It's been a rough few months for me what with losing my job and various other events in the real world, which have meant hockey (or at least writing about it in the style you've come to know and love) has been the furthest thing from my mind.

But now it's playoff time. Now the season is reaching its business end. And, like the first signs of spring, it's time for a new era on the Breakaway, too. It's back.

And to celebrate this new era, I will be making my debut appearance on hockey-related radio this weekend, too, as I'm off up to Manchester to take in some EPL hockey between the Phoenix and the Sheffield Scimitars. All being well, I'll be on the Phoenix Podcast (which you can access through the Phoenix website) talking about all things hockey-related...and also something which I'll be doing for Sport Relief.

What? You want me to tell you now?

OK. I have been silent for three months, after all. You need to get the buzz back. So here we go...

I'm condemning myself to Blaze fan hell for the rest of the season.

For the rest of the regular season (i.e for tonight's game against Sheffield Scims, Saturday in Manchester, and the remaining three home games against Sheffield, Edinburgh and Belfast, I will not be sporting any Blaze colours. Oh no. I shall be wearing (shudder) a Nottingham Panthers jersey.

You read that right. A PANTHERS JERSEY!

The very thought of this makes me throw up in my mouth. After all, anyone who knows the slightest bit about the Elite League knows that Blaze and Panthers get on about as well as Cheryl and Ashley Cole these days. So I wouldn't be doing this without a bloody good reason.

And here it is. Sport Relief. More specifically, the Shirt of Hurt campaign.

It's summarised here-but simply, it's "wear the shirt of your favourite team's biggest rival:

http://www.sportrelief.com/whats-on/challenges/shirt-of-hurt/donate

Basically, the idea is that I wear the shirt, post pictures on here of me doing so, and people donate to Sport Relief.

You can do so by giving the money online at this page: http://www.mysportrelief.com/breakawayblog...and I can track it through the amount...

The target so far is £500...let's see if we can beat that.

Game on, people...

Missing in Action...

2009-12-28T16:09:00.001Z

Hey all,

Sorry there's been two weeks of inactivity. What with the lead-up to Christmas, losing my job and also writing for the Blaze website now too (click on coventryblaze.co.uk and have a look for Wheeler's Words on there) the Breakaway has been neglected a little. Come the end of this week/New Year it should be building back up once the seasonal madness is over and done-there should be a post up here on New Year's Day previewing the coming weekend.

Until then, a belated Happy Christmas and keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Double Overtime, December 15th

2009-12-15T08:00:00.001Z

And so, off we go for another skate round the rinks...

And yet, somehow...: It really wasn't fun being a Newcastle fan on Friday, as Belfast went straight through the Vipers defence like a hot knife through butter on Friday, winning eleven-three. Only two players failed to get a point, and Evan Cheverie got six by himself...however, of those eleven goals and after I've been talking him up recently, Jeff Szwez merely finished the scoring off...but then, when you win eleven-three, it doesn't matter who scores...

The score is almost incidental, really:...All hell broke loose on Saturday in Cardiff as Derek Campbell and Brad Voth exchanged punches in a vicious scrap after Voth collided with Coventry goalie Peter Hirsch-the highlights are now available on the Devils' website for you to draw your own conclusions on who won, but the game itself was a stormer:

...but, in case you're curious: Blaze won 4-3 with the game-winner coming from Greg Chambers, who is slowly becoming something of a talisman himself for the Blaze just as he was for Basingstoke-his strike for the winner saw him travel half the length of the ice before firing past Stevie Lyle...Oh, and Hirsch had the last laugh, stopping 42 of 45 shots in the victory compared to Lyle's 18 from 22

It's a bit early in the season, but it's still a four-pointer: Saturday saw Edinburgh beat Sheffield 4-2 up in Murrayfield despite both teams having the exact same number of shots (28)-which probably gave Kevin Reiter some consolation over in Newcastle after his replacement, Andrew Verner, continued to suffer the odd wobble in net. Notably, Neil Hay scored the Caps' third...a Hay goal is a rare event but couldn't have been timed better in this case as it made sure the Caps kept their lead and ahead of the Steelers in the league table to boot, at least for 24 hours...

Not a redemption, but at least a regaining of pride: Newcastle, meanwhile, returned to the North-East to take on Nottingham at Whitley Bay, and went some way to regaining pride with a 3-2 loss to high-flying Nottingham, Kevin Reiter stopping 35 shots...

It's not a win, but any point will do: Hull, in their only game of the weekend, once again failed to win away from home as they travelled to Nottingham, but at least they pushed the Panthers all the way to penalties, with the game ending 3-3 before Johan Molin netted the winning penalty for the home side with the only goal in the shootout:

After feast, comes famine: Well, relatively speaking, anyway, as Belfast found Edinburgh much harder to break down before winning 3-1 on Sunday night in Murrayfield...more proof that, while the Giants may be offensive powerhouses, they, like any other team, will struggle against a determined defensive effort...something which they know a lot about in Scotland...

Three for Legue:...and six for the Steelers as they took advantage of a tiring Coventry at the Skydome on Sunday night in clinical fashion, refusing to panic when falling behind and never really looking troubled after coming back from 1-0 down to 3-1 up in the second, finally winning six-four. Star of the night was Jeff Legue with a hat-trick, although Peter Hirsch still managed to produce one of those "Oh my God!" moments even in defeat with an amazing last-ditch glove-save from Doug Sheppard-the Steelers forward had earlier shown his skills weren't too shabby either with a beautiful stop-and-go move on a breakaway which would have resulted in a goal but for a last-ditch desparation dive from Hirsch across his crease. Something for everyone in Coventry, then, and all in front of Sky, too...

That's your weekend reviewed-sorry it's a little late...

Round the Rinks, November 20th

2009-12-11T08:00:00.001Z

And so, we're off for another weekend in the EIHL. I know there have been signings, but they'll be mentioned in the course of the preview...

FRIDAY:

Belfast v Newcastle: With Sean McMorrow hopefully well and truly recovered from his encounter with a Renault Twingo, the Giants take on the Vipers in a tricky tie for them which will, naturally, be available on www.giantslive.tv for those who wish to watch. With Jeff Szwez chomping at the bit to continue his scoring exploits, the Giants look more and more dangerous-although if any team can stifle high-powered offence, the Vipers could be that team judging on recent form, particularly with Sheffield's on-loan Kevin Reiter looking to prove a point in net...

SATURDAY

Cardiff v Coventry: Ryan Finnerty is the Devils' latest signing, but it's unclear whether he'll be in the country to make his debut alongside his great friend* Jay Latulippe at the weekend. This top-four clash is one to make the mouth water a little though, particularly with both teams on form.

*(irony may or may not being used here)

Newcastle v Nottingham: Aristocrats vs upwardly-mobile in the North East, as the Panthers look to get back to winning ways after their derby loss last Sunday undid all the good work from Saturday. Newcastle, meanwhile, are coming off a road trip from hell in the trip to Belfast, so tiredness could be a factor in the Panthers' win. So could Johan Molin, who returns in a brief cameo this weekend deputising once again for Kevin Bergin. However, in the Vipers' favour they are playing in Whitley Bay, the fine old North East barn which they've turned into something of a fortress this season...

Edinburgh v Sheffield: Both teams will fancy their chances in this one-the Capitals playing the first of a double-header home weekend at a rink which they, too, have turned into something of an intimidating place to visit this season after a few seasons of troubles, while the Steelers need this win in order to claw back some ground on the teams above them, of whom, coincidentally, the Caps are the nearest, above them only on whatever arcane system the EIHL is using this season to seperate teams on equal points.

SUNDAY

Edinburgh v Belfast: Scotland plays Northern Ireland in the second game of the weekend at Murrayfield, and the second game to be covered live on the Caps Webcast, accessible via www.edinburgh-capitals.com for the princely sum of £6 for both games. The last meeting between these two saw a crushing victory for the Giants, but over the Scottish border, the rules are a bit different. If the Caps can conquer their own self-doubt and grab an early lead, then things could be interesting here...

Coventry v Sheffield: This is not a match in which you can expect to see any quarter given or asked, nor is it one that traditionally would be described as involving a "struggling" team. But as we know, that's still, technically, what the Steelers are, while the Blaze are, at least as the weekend begins, top of the EIHL. You can smell the burning from the Steelers' wounded pride from here...they will be up for this one. Unfortunately, so will the home side, backed by a big crowd...this may not reach the heights of last Sunday's game, but it could be another warm winter Sunday at the Skydome nevertheless.

Nottingham v Hull: The Panthers return home with arguably the easiest game on paper of the weekend, against a Stingrays side who are struggling heroically to win away and have just released James Sanford from their defence. If the Stingrays pull off a shock here, then not only will there be joy in the rest of the league but howls of anger from the NIC stands. This is not a game Corey Neilson's men will entertain any fear of losing-anything less then a win is simply not an option if you're of a black-and-gold persuasion...

There you go-there's your weekend previewed...

Double Overtime, December 7th

2009-12-07T18:55:00.000Z

On we go...straight into another look back at the weekend...

Even though you know it's acting, you get the feeling you won't see Sean McMorrow run over often: The Belfast Giants were on Top Gear yesterday...watch from 52:30 here for the segment, which, as well as containing proof that hockey players are not born actors, does contain the sight of Sean McMorrow doing the worst "oh my God, I'm been flattened" fall known to man. The sport looks good though, and I surely can't have been the only one hoping, just for comedy purposes, for the Belfast hard-man to stand up and over the not-inconsiderable-in-stature Jeremy Clarkson with a killing stare on him, just to see the face on the Top Gear legend...

Speaking of the Giants...

Player of the Season already has a front-runner:...and it's Belfast's Jeff Szwez. Despite having a nearly-unpronounceable name, the big Ontarian forward has been in phenomenal form recently, continuing his goalscoring run over the weekend with a contribution of three goals in Friday's 8-2 win against Edinburgh to take his total to 16 in 15 games. For comparison, the league's top scorer, his linemate Colin Shields, has 21 in 29.

It's obviously far too early to predict such things, and I'm sure Belfast fans wouldn't want me to jinx him-but surely David Beauregard's scoring record from last season couldn't be under threat already...could it? If I were a betting man, I'd probably stick a few quid on it being so...after all, what are the odds?

Yorkshire pride seems to be a decent motivator: Sheffield, meanwhile, did their chances of salvaging the season no harm at all with a four-point weekend despite the absence of their coach Dave Matsos, who was at the bedside of his seriously-ill son, beating Hull 5-1 on Saturday with a hat-trick from Brad Cruikshank, and outlasting Newcastle 5-4 on Sunday after penalty shots.

And, in further good news for South Yorkshire hockey families both real and imaginary...: George Matsos, too, is showing strong signs of recovery according to the latest reports in the Star today...which is a wonderful bit of news...

Three games, two points:...for the Edinburgh Capitals is seemingly not a great return, until you bear in mind that two of those games were trips to a seemingly-unstoppable-at-the-moment Belfast at Fortress Odyssey, followed by a similarly tricky trip to Fortress-by-the-Bay in Cardiff on Saturday. After those two, playing a Hull side who'd not won away in ten tries back at Murrayfield must have been something of a relief...

"We're gonna need a bigger bag of press releases": Hull, meanwhile, are fast running out of things to say during the week after their eleventh loss on the trot away from home...

Just to prove they can be beaten: Belfast played an uncharacteristically quiet offensive game against the stifling systems of Newcastle at Whitley Bay on Saturday, and grit beat flair as the Vipers left with a 2-1 win before losing to Sheffield the following night...

Honours even. Or, at least, hostilities in stalemate for now...: The derby double-header between Coventry and Nottingham, meanwhile, saw both teams thrill their home crowds by winning, Nottingham with a clinical 6-2 performance at the NIC on Saturday (with three of the goals in the last four minutes) and Coventry with a not-so-clinical-but-hugely-thrilling 6-4 win at the Skydome on Sunday, which included a contender for scrap-of-the-year between Derek Campbell and Dominic D'Amour...have a watch of Sky on Friday if you missed it, and look out for an absolute hammer-blow of a Campbell uppercut too-the fight ended in a draw but only thanks to D'Amour seemingly being able to take punches as well as he throws them...

They're two assists he won't be claiming: Lost in the sound and fury, maybe, was the fact that the Panthers went to the box twice in quick succession after the Panthers' opener, and both times Greg Chambers profited...the first goal seeing Chambers feed off the energy created by the Campbell-D'Amour fight to dangle his way beautifully past Dave Clarke and shoot high-glove past St.Pierre, and the second, after Clarke had petulantly slashed the Canadian, a crisp finish from between the circles...both times you could argue the Panthers sniper was most culpable...

And just in case no-one has noticed: The Devils are still quietly amassing point after point...both Cardiff and their style-twins, Newcastle are still lurking just behind the top three, waiting for a slip to capitalise on...

And there you go...that, in a nutshell, is your weekend.

Round the Rinks, December 4th

2009-12-04T16:15:00.003Z

And so we're back from Finland, having not actually seen any live hockey thanks to being in Estonia on the day HIFK played at home (well, unless you count a barn-burner of a game between Leksands and Boras in the Allsvenskan, which was showing on the satellite of the sports bar we frequented on Sunday night, and for which I annoyed the rest of my group who were watching the Arsenal-Chelsea game)-and we return to the sobering news that Dave Matsos' son George has been taken into hospital with pneumonia. Obviously, the Breakaway sends its best wishes to both George himself and the Sheffield coach, and hopes that the little one pulls through with no ill-effects...

But, there is still a weekend of hockey to get through...and here's what's coming up in the Elite League...

FRIDAY

Belfast v Edinburgh: The first of three games in three nights for the Capitals sees them travel to Northern Ireland in the very real hope of being one of the few teams to take points from the Odyssey...the game is of course available on www.giantslive.tv for those of you who wish to watch-and it'll be worth a look with the offensive talent on show on both sides...

DOUBLE HEADERS

Coventry v Nottingham: Outside of a few loud-voiced PR men in South Yorkshire, and perhaps despite the protestations of Panthers fans desperate to keep tradition alive, this East v West Midlands meeting is now viewed as the biggest derby game in EIHL hockey (and, by Simms and Moran logic, thus the biggest derby in the universe). There has fast evolved a sense of genuine hatred between the Blaze and Panthers over the past few seasons, and the atmosphere is always, shall we say, "heated" when these two teams meet. As the Blaze PR for this weekend puts it..."we don't like them, and they don't like us". Certainly, for fans of either team, making a trip to the other's rink, or even the other's city, is no longer just a simple away day. Now, more than anything else, it's a trip behind enemy lines...

And this weekend, it's a double-header. That means twice the aggravation, twice the dislike, and twice the opportunity for controversy.

Bring it on. And may the best team win. As long as that team is from the West Midlands. :)

SATURDAY

Hull v Sheffield: The Yorkshire derby, meanwhile, sees two teams near the bottom of the league fighting it out for bragging rights. With Hull slowly getting back on track, this result is by no means a foregone conclusion either way...

Newcastle v Belfast: Two more teams who share a healthy dislike for each other meet in Whitley Bay, with the Giants hoping to take advantage of the Vipers' unfamiliar nettie in Kevin Reiter, and the Vipers hoping he'll pull off some of the same magic which got him noticed in Basingstoke last season. This game will see speed meet grit, and we'll see which comes out on top...

Cardiff v Edinburgh: Two of the surprise teams battle again, with the Devils hoping to keep up the pressure at the top and the Caps to give themselves another two out of a possible six points they can earn this weekend. It won't be easy in the Tent By the Bay, though...

SUNDAY

Edinburgh v Hull: Finally, the Caps return home to finish off a marathon weekend, with arguably the easiest of their three games-the Stingrays, however, coming off a Yorkshire battle the night before, will be well-placed to take advantage of any tired legs, and for that reason alone are worth taking seriously...

Sheffield v Newcastle: Final game of the weekend to be previewed, this battle at the Hallam sees the two teams in the reverse of their positions last season-and a win for the Vipers will not be well received by the South Yorkshire faithful. However, it'll widen the gap between Newcastle and the bottom three-and make for yet more optimism up north...

There's your weekend preview...keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Round the Rinks: Up, Up and Away

2009-11-27T08:00:00.000Z

The Breakaway is off on its travels today. Yep-I'm off to Helsinki to hopefully watch a bit of SM-Liiga hockey in the course of my trip with uni friends-either Jokerit or HIFK being the home team. Annoyingly, the Helsinki derby is on Thursday, one day after I come back on Wednesday night.

Naturally, this means that you'll get no Double Overtime this week (not that that'll be a change from recently *blushes*) but we will take a look at the weekend now...and if I can find a decent Internet cafe, then you may get a bit of SM-Liiga coverage too. You'll definitely get a reflection on it when I get back.

A quick run-through the week, then...

"Team Tax-Dodger", they were called. But they can sure play...: Last night I went to the GB Universities v Coventry Blaze game at the Skydome, which, up to five minutes before faceoff, looked like it was going to be little more than a particularly well attended scrimmage. However, once the students, made up mainly of ENL and a few EPL players, hit the ice, they made a particularly good account of themselves-Chris Colegate of Nottingham Lions standing out along with Tom Squires (definitely a name to watch) of Sheffield. The Elite League side, who iced their full team with the exception of Peter Hirsch and the injured Tom Watkins, looked like they were playing well within themselves in a 7-4 victory in which Joe Henry got 3+2, but it was a fun night nevertheless....

Now let's look at the weekend:

DOUBLE HEADERS:

Hull v Belfast: This isn't the weekend Hull want-don't expect them to break their long losing streak if you're not the type of person who bets on long-shots. However, at least there'll be laughter in aid of a worthy cause as the Giants are all sporting comedy (and grown, not stuck-on) moustaches in aid of prostate cancer, as part of the "Movember" promotion. The Giants really are on top form at the moment, and in Jeff Szwez they have arguably the best player in the league. This could get ugly...

Coventry v Newcastle...and so could this one. Cardiff destroyed Newcastle 8-3 on Wednesday night at the Bay, and so the Vipers are wounded and looking to bounce back against a team who have taken rich pickings from them so far this season-the Vipers have won one and lost one of their games in Coventry thus far and lost both in the North East. They're always powder-kegs, these games-although perhaps less so this season after Rob Wilson moved to a style in which...well, actual hockey has been played by his team...

SATURDAY:

Edinburgh v Cardiff: After the thrills and spills of last week at Murrayfield, you could forgive the Caps crowd for being satisfied with a dull-as-ditchwater 1-0 win for their team, with the goal going in off a defenceman's backside in the final minute. However, one doubts this game will be dull. It will certainly be a different style to the freewheeling fun of last Sunday, with the Devils playing a completely contrasting style to the speedy Caps...it'll be interesting to see if the Capitals, on a run of some note recently, can tame the Devils and build some momentum of their own in the process.

SUNDAY

Cardiff v Sheffield: This could be where the thrills and spills move to...from the Scottish capital to the Welsh capital in a week, for a meeting of two teams with...well, a little history between them. The Steelers still can't get themselves going, but with this being their only game of the weekend you'd think they'll be fresh and raring to go. Then again, with things in Sheffield being the way they are currently, maybe the last thing the team need is time to dwell and insecurities to take root, recent wins or no recent wins.

That's your weekend previewed-I'll see you on Thursday...good luck to all teams this weekend...

Double Overtime, November 23rd: Storms and Fury

2009-11-23T19:00:00.000Z

And so we're back again...a little later than usual after I, on a whim, decided to brave the tempests in Cumbria, along with a few hardy friends, and head up to Edinburgh for the game against Coventry on Sunday. And boy...was I glad I did-you'll see why later. First of all, though, let's come right up to date, and stay with the Capitals, with a thank you to Dave Simms:

On behalf of Edinburgh, Scotland and the whole of the rest of the Elite League, thank you for proving that, just when we think your PR releases reach rock bottom, British hockey is not afraid to start digging.

How so?

How about the GB press officer, and de facto spokesperson for ice-hockey in this country, going on the BBC, in the person of BBC Sheffield and calling the Capitals "a village team, from a third-world country" in response to their two-one defeat to the Steelers last week?

This is ice-hockey, not professional wrestling. Making ridiculously overblown statements and taking classless pot-shots at the opposition appears to be well and truly on the rise after the whole Cardiff-Sheffield and "Team Hollywood" silliness last year...and though I should be thankful because it gives me something to write about, the fact that I'm actually able to think rather than just repeat stuff blindly makes me think that it's just making British hockey look like...well, wrestling. Which is universally mocked for being scripted, over-the-top and watched by ignorant rednecks.

Obviously, this is not the case in truth (well, at least the "ignorant rednecks" bit...you get all types of people watch wrestling just for the fun of it)...but then, no-one's pretending that it's a serious, professional sport. The GB ice-hockey set-up is-or at least trying to present itself as such. Which means the best thing those in charge can do is tell Simmsey to, for God's sake, shut up...the marketing of the sport is travelling in a direction where it'll be seen as some sort of show rather than an actual sport, and those who watch it as the same stereotype as wrestling.

At this point, those from South Yorkshire will no doubt come up with the argument that "it's just Simmsey being controversial"....

WARNING-THE INSULTS WITHIN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH ARE EXAMPLE ONLY, AND ARE NOT A VIEW GENUINELY HELD BY THE BREAKAWAY: (had to put that in, because you know someone, somewhere, will think it's serious):

However, they will presumably not take kindly to the inevitable moment when Gary Moran uses the same excuse to walk out centre-ice at the NIC before a Nottingham-Sheffield derby and call the away support a bunch of "inbred, flat-cap-wearing whippet-fanciers who live on a bomb-site. And that's "fanciers" in the illegal way, if you know what I mean" (big exaggerated wink, huge cheer from Panthers fans)

See? You're cringing even at the thought of it, even if you're a Panthers fan or just don't like the Steelers...

Why? Because it's ignorant and offensive. Just like Simmsey's comments. And even more stupid given a) his position and b) there is such an emphasis by clubs on marketing to families and stressing the enlightened atmosphere which allows fans to mix? And if he's allowed to offend an entire country, and this trend is allowed to continue, how long before someone says something in the press that simply can't be taken back or apologised for? And how long before British hockey is seen as nothing more than entertainment for those without a brain in their heads and aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator?

The answer? Not that long...

On to the weekend review:

FRIDAY/SATURDAY SNAPSHOTS:

Strutting like Peacocks: Belfast have found one of the signings of the season so far in Craig Peacock after his breakout year with Peterborough last season...the young forward was instrumental in the Giants 6-3 win on Friday night against Nottingham...

...and with good reason:...and again on Saturday in their 4-0 victory at the NIC...even though Jeff Szwez grabbed the goals along with Brandon Benedict and Colin Shields. However, it seems that Sean McMorrow was again the hate-figure, playing his usual style on both nights and raising hell with a vicious check from behind on Saturday which saw Mario Larocque thrown out along with the Giant as he sought retribution. However, it can't be denied that Giants tactics, hated though they may be, were very effective indeed this weekend-to sweep the Panthers aside in such fashion means they can truly now be considered to be the dangerous team everyone thought they'd be...

Yorkshire bragging rights are quite important, you know...:...as witnessed by the joy shown after Sheffield's 4-1 win over Hull which moved them, finally, off the bottom of the EIHL table.

It may have been cold, but the welcome was red-hot: Meanwhile, in Coventry, all the attention was on returnee Ben O'Connor in the Blaze/Capitals game at the Skydome-a game which gave little hint of the epic to come the following night as the home team out-lasted a very speedy and skilful Caps side for a 6-3 win. Worryingly, though, Tom Watkins suffered a nasty hit from Simon Lambert which saw him out cold on the ice...he didn't travel north the following day.

In the battle of the uglies, the one whose make-up doesn't run wins:...and in this case, it was Newcastle, who ground out a 2-1 win against Cardiff up in the North East, It doesn't sound like it was pretty, but it's two points...

SUNDAY SNAPSHOTS

It's not going well, this whole "hate the north" thing: Sheffield, meanwhile, failed to build on Saturday as they were the Vipers next victims...4-2 on Sunday night, and once again they're only above Hull...

Not bad for a village team...while Edinburgh, with three games in hand, sit above them. More on that to come....

It might not save them, but it's a start:...incidentally, the Steelers-Vipers game was watched by 4,000 fans in the Metro Radio Arena...

If away form was a horse, Hull's would be staring down the barrel of a twelve-bore already:...as the Stingrays lost again down in Cardiff, with the Devils being the third team to complete a four-point weekend....

8 hours of high water, ten minutes of hell:...That sums up the lead-up to and opening to the game in Edinburgh last night, at least if you're a Coventry fan. Peter Hirsch conceded five goals in a nightmare opening spell, and then either pulled himself or was pulled, depending on who you ask.

...followed by fifty minutes of hockey heaven: Either way, the Capitals couldn't believe their luck as they raced into a five-goal lead, and even two replies from Adam Calder as Tom Murdy settled things down at the other end couldn't dampen the joy. Two further goals in a relatively quiet second period meant that, at 7-2, the game seemed dead and buried. Even more so when Luke Fulghum was thrown out for abuse of an official...

Then came the most extraordinary third period the Elite League will see this season. Suddenly, with the Caps cruising and even their own fans making the joke that only an Edinburgh team could throw this away, they very nearly did. Six goals in fifteen minutes, five of them for a Coventry team who'd looked dead, buried and dispirited only minutes early and one in particular from Jon Weaver which sent Cody Rudkowsky's water bottle to the great sink in the sky through its sheer power, meant that when Dan Welch scored an empty-netter with 90 seconds to go for 8-6, there was still time for Danny Stewart to bring the Blaze within a tipped shot, deflection or ricochet of overtime and you could hear the thump of racing hearts from Murrayfield out in the middle of the Forth. The Caps celebrated at the end like they'd won something more than just two points, while the Blaze players could finally hold their heads hight in defeat. Even in the bar afterwards, there was an atmosphere of disbelief as people tried to process what they'd just seen...

The six-hour drive back through the driving rain had never seemed so worth it...those who were there on Sunday night, on a night of Biblical weather, witnessed their own perfect storm...

There you go-there's your weekend review.

Double Overtime, November 9th: The Only Way Is Up...

2009-11-09T19:02:00.002Z

...especially if you're from Sheffield. Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.

Right, now we've got the mean-spirited digs and gloating out of the way, let's move on to the review of the weekend...

Oh, all right then..one more mention: Of course, we couldn't really start this review without looking at the current plight of the Steelers-after losing 6-3 to Nottingham in the "Biggest Derby In The Whole Universe, Even The Bits We Haven't Found Yet" ((c) D.Simms and G.Moran) on Saturday, the South Yorkshire faithful are finally beginning to turn on their team in proper teeth-grinding fashion-after all, the loss to Newcastle beforehand could have been glossed over with a win in the BDITWUETBWHFY on Saturday in the NIC. However, it wasn't, and so one of the most successful clubs in British hockey are currently sitting 12 points off the lead and 10 points off fifth place. As you can imagine, this has not gone down well...

Rope...check. Petard...check. Hoisting...being done as we speak: Meanwhile, the major controversy of the week comes from over the Irish Sea, as reports are circulating of a fan attacking referee Michael Hicks and Coventry captain Adam Calder during the Belfast-Coventry game on Saturday night. This instantly brings to mind the furore kicked up by Belfast and other fans over Theo Fleury being shouted at very loudly at the Skydome a few seasons ago, and the widespread damaging of Blaze fans' reputation that caused. Strangely, there is relative silence coming out of the Northern Irish city this time-indeed certain forum posters are even trying to focus the whole issue on Calder defending himself by lifting his stick in the air while children were within ten feet of the end of the blade. One assumes, therefore, that that minority (and it must be emphasised that it is a minority-most Giants fans are coming out in full condemnation of the alleged punches) of posters trying to at least justify such a stupid action would be the soul of courtesy if struck on the top of the head while doing their job.

And if you believe that...there's some "Sheffield Steelers: EIHL Champions 09/10" t-shirts I can do you a great deal on...

For the record, the Blaze won the game 2-1 on a Calder penalty-shot called after Evan Cheverie threw a stick to prevent a scoring chance for the Blaze captain...

One game (or even eight) still doesn't make a season...a lesson the Nottingham Panthers, complete with new defenceman Mario Larocque playing and Nick Toneys sitting out (and reportedly not being happy about it) followed up delighting their fans on Saturday by...losing to Newcastle on Sunday, thus sacrificing their top spot thanks to Coventry's win against Hull.

And, speaking of the Vipers (and Devils)...:...they're both fast becoming teams worthy of some serious respect this season...the pair of them appear to have turned "winning ugly" into something of a matter of pride. On Sunday night they both pulled off superb 2-1 wins against arguably more skilful opposition (Nottingham and Belfast respectively) with Newcastle also, as previously mentioned, turning over Sheffield on Friday...

Burns after Skating: On Sunday night in Coventry, meanwhile, Stephen Burns showed himself to be one of the most under-rated players in the Elite League-despite his team losing 5-2 in a chippy game which saw both Adam Knight and James Sanford lose their heads in the face of physical play on both sides earn themselves fighting majors against Derek Campbell and Danny Stewart, the Canadian showed leadership skills belying the fact that this is only his second pro-season, throwing hits all over the ice, blocking shots and hitting everything with a dragon on its chest-some in the crowd even swear he was lining up Scorch, the Blaze mascot, in the pre-game skate. The man is an absolute machine, and would have earned man-of-the-match honours even without counting the fact he scored both goals for the Stingrays...

At least they won one...: And the weekend had started so well for Sylvain Cloutier's team, too, as they beat Edinburgh in a hard-fought scrap by the Humber on Saturday to pull themselves off the bottom and send their more illustrious Yorkshire neighbours to the bottom of the pile, as well as handing the Caps a defeat in their only game of the weekend...

Capitals show their pride...:...due to Edinburgh's home game being against Nottingham on Tuesday-a game which sees the Caps mark Remembrance week with a fine gesture, allowing all serving members of the Armed Forces in for free tomorrow night at Murrayfield. Superb work, especially coupled with their much publicised support of the Help for Heroes veterans charity...

And there you go...that's your weekend review...

Round the Rinks, November 6: Wrong Side of the Tracks

2009-11-06T16:00:00.000Z

Yes, I know there has been nothing since the last one, for which I apologise. Busy times at Breakaway Towers...including finding out half your workplace will be being made redundant in January, has meant that sadly, the priorities have seen the blog drop quite a way, for which I apologise. But we're back now...

Let's look at the table, then. So, we have the usual suspects at the top-in no particular order, they're Belfast, Nottingham, Coventry, Cardiff...

Hang on a minute...where are Sheffield?

Look. They're 7th, after two losses to Belfast.

This weekend, then, could see the point at which the clock officially starts ticking on Dave Matsos...if they don't pull themselves out of the mire soon, then there will be trouble.

Let's look at the games...

FRIDAY

Sheffield v Newcastle

SATURDAY

Sheffield v Nottingham

Belfast v Coventry

Hull v Edinburgh

SUNDAY

Coventry v Hull

Newcastle v Nottingham

Cardiff v Belfast

After tonight's curtain-raiser between a struggling Steelers and a stuttering Vipers side, which is of interest mainly to see who can pull themselves out of a miniature slump, Saturday is the "big" day this weekend, with Coventry facing Belfast in a battle of the title-chasers at the Odyssey-this rivalry is always good for a scrap or two, especially with Sean McMorrow around and the high-flying offensive style of both teams. Back across the Irish Sea, Hull battling Edinburgh in a race to see which of these teams can find their groove-arguably the game is important for completely different reasons as the Capitals hope to push on up the table and the Stingrays to stop their slide down and away from the rest of the league. There's also a fairly important game going on at the Hallam, but far too much energy has been expended talking about this one by the teams involved, so we'll just say...if Nottingham want to really compound Sheffield's problems, now is the perfect time to do it.

Sunday, meanwhile, sees Coventry hoping to continue their run against Hull and continue to remind Sylvain Cloutier of how intimidating the Skydome can be when you're not in a Blaze shirt any more, Newcastle in a chase to bring the Panthers back down to earth as the aristocratic Midlanders take a trip to the heartland of blood-and-guts hockey, and Cardiff aiming to stymie yet another high-powered offence with their highly effective muck-and-grind style of play, which has served them so well already this season.

The Belfast-Coventry game, as per usual, is live with our friends on GiantsTV, and is well worth a watch if you're not at a game that night...

And that's your one-minute weekend preview...

Turmoil, Lies and Slander...

2009-11-03T00:37:00.001Z

...well, nothing quite that bad. Just an extraordinarily busy Monday, there was no Double Overtime.

It will be up this evening instead...

Short and Sweet Round the Rinks

2009-10-30T18:13:00.002Z

Due to having a laptop that might fail at any minute, we're going simply to have a quick look at the weekend this time round...I know it's a bit depressingly short, but reference will be made to midweek, honest...

DOUBLE-HEADERS

Sheffield v Belfast: This could be another torrid weekend for the struggling Steelers-they're up against a Belfast side who won 4-0 in midweek, have the hottest scoring streak in the league right now in Jeff Szwez, and, by the way, have barely reached the potential their roster promised over the summer. The Steelers, meanwhile, are mired in recriminations, have dropping attendances and a siege mentality forming in the dressing room as players try and work out who's next to be cut.

But, saying all that, there's still a nagging little voice in the back of my mind...

Perfectly set up for an upset, really, isn't it?

Nottingham v Edinburgh: This pairing, meanwhile, could well see a split, as well as Edinburgh finally announcing their presence on the scene in similar emphatic fashion to their six-two win over Sheffield in midweek. After now being knocked off the top the Panthers need to keep momentum going-this weekend will not be taken lightly, otherwise the East Midland fanbase will be howling with protest almost as loudly as the Caps fans scream with joy...

SATURDAY

Newcastle v Coventry: Last time these two teams met, the Vipers took the Blaze for everything they had at the Skydome, playing a relentless grinding style which simply didn't give their skilful opponents any time to play. Up on Metro Radio ice, and garbed in their horrific Hallowe'en jerseys, they'll try and do the same. However, this is a different Blaze team to that of early October, and so the result is well and truly up for grabs...

Hull v Cardiff: More fireworks could be in prospect as a banged-up Stingrays side take on the streaking Devils for some Hallowe'en Havoc in Hull. With nothing to play for but pride, Hull coach Sylvain Cloutier has spoken of the Stingrays' need to get back to winning ways on their own ice, and this game, with Hull and Cardiff's simmering rivalry and the Devils flying high, would be a hell of a way to get that journey off the ground...

SUNDAY

Newcastle v Hull: These two teams meet for the first time this season in the North-East. Last season, this game wouldn't have merited more than a passing glance in the calendar, but with the Vipers clawing to stay near the top of the Elite League pile and the Stingrays trying to get off the bottom, it's a classic upstairs-downstairs battle...even if there'll be more graft than glitz on show.

Coventry v Cardiff: The friendliest heated rivalry in British hockey begins again at the Skydome, with Cardiff now a team to be seriously reckoned with. The Blaze, too, will have their own ideas as to how to dispose of a Devil that's outstayed its Hallowe'en freedom, and in front of two sets of passionate fans, no quarter will be given or asked for...Hallowe'en may be Saturday, but be prepared for a thriller nevertheless..

There you go..one weekend previewed...

Slightly Sickened Midweek Musings...

2009-10-28T16:30:00.003Z

"Vultures circle around
Feathers float, wings flap, beaks pound"
The Distillers: "Dismantle Me"

From the Breakaway's sickbed, a slightly-fevered stream of consciousness for a Wednesday evening...

Anyone in South Yorkshire who isn't panicking now doesn't really understand what's going on:...You can't hide it any more, Sheffield. No positive press release on the planet will drown out the screams of alarm coming from the Steel City. You have serious, serious problems, and everyone knows it.

Yes, you lost six-two to Edinburgh last night. That's fair enough...after all the Caps are a very fast-improving team and appear to have unearthed an absolute gem in Simon Lambert, who is already looking like this year's successor to Colin Hemingway and Mark Hurtubise-he's scoring at over a point a game so far after coming in relatively unheralded from the CHL.

But the major point about this loss is that you let Andrew Sharp score...as soon as that happens, and even bearing in mind the fact that by the laws of averages a puck is bound to hit his rear end and go in at some point during the season, you've got problems. The defence look unsure of themselves, Kevin Bolibruck is a shadow of his former self, Joey Talbot looks, quite frankly, uninterested, and Stephen Wood has a massive shot on him but not much else. As for Andrew Verner...the best nettie in the league does not, under any circumstances, make a habit of letting in six goals on 25 shots.

It's disorienting looking at the table and seeing Steelers sixth. Even more so when you bear in mind that Edinburgh, one point behind them now, have played half the number of games they have. After this weekend, if results go right, the Steelers could legitimately be bottom. And then watch all hell break loose.

I wonder if Dave Simms is regretting his "little teams aren't worth it" speech over the summer yet, now his giant of British hockey is slowly being brought down with a bang...

Just think of it as "violence to stop violence":...Those of you who follow the EIHL may have noticed the recent upsurge in the number of fights involving Sean McMorrow, after the early season saw few players willing to take on the big Canadian. This, apparently, is due to him now acting like an old-style gangland enforcer demanding "favours" for protection-the word going around the league is that he's spending warm-up having words with those he thinks might drop 'em on the opposition team, and saying "fight me, or I'll go out and run the living hell out of (insert star player here)". It smacks to me of a somewhat drastic way to earn your money-after all, there's a barely concealed threat to injure in there...but if it works, then so be it.

But then, with the merry-go-round working overtime, maybe he has cause: It seems this year is already a bumper year for team changes. Hull and Belfast are the biggest offenders, but only two teams (Cardiff and Coventry) have exactly the same roster as they began the season with. So-here's a question for you to ponder as you keep an eye on tonight's games in Nottingham and Cardiff (more on which this Friday)...are people more willing to pull the trigger, or is there, for whatever reason, just a weird coincidence floating around this year?

And finally...: I really don't have a joke here-because there isn't one. It's just a bit...well, watch it yourself (warning-adult themes). Theo Fleury, easily the player to produce the biggest amount of controversy during his time over in Britain, has appeared on ESPN talking about a secret that's haunted him all his life, and his well-documented drug abuse. And I defy you, if you've given him a yell of mickey-taking or anything during his time over here, not to feel a little...well, bad about it.

Theo Fleury on being abused during his junior career

Wow. That might explain a little...

That's your stream of consciousness for a Wednesday...

Join Us...(We Have Cake!)

2009-10-26T21:43:00.002Z

"Gotta meet the plane so I can get my monkey
Teach him to be cool, but a little bit funky"
Butthole Surfers: "Dracula From Houston"

There's no monkey...but hopefully, minimalistic and bare though it is, there is a little more funkiness in the world...the Breakaway has followed the lead of Five Minute Major and now has a Facebook fan page!

So come join the army...and feel free to slate or praise as you will...after all, this place ain't gonna get any better unless you tell me what I'm doing wrong...

Don't forget Double Overtime below, as well...

Double Overtime, October 26th: Welcome to the Red Light District...

2009-10-26T18:48:00.002Z

"We can start the fire, that will light up the night...
We'll watch it burn together on our respective sides"
Underoath: "I've Got Ten Friends & A Crowbar That Say You Ain't Gonna Do Jack"

The weekend just gone in the EIHL was, definitely, not a weekend for goalies. The pucks hit mesh with monotonous regularity around the league, with the highlights being Cardiff's 9-2 thrashing of Newcastle on Saturday night, Edinburgh and Sheffield sharing an eleven-goal thriller with the Caps winning 6-5 on penalties at the Hallam...and Cardiff then coming out on the wrong side of eleven goals as they lost six-five to Nottingham on Sunday...

Which means, I suppose, that the rest of us should feel cheated. But the points help to numb the pain...: This weekend also saw a few teams who stayed back on planet Earth, with Coventry having a relatively pedestrian four-point weekend, scoring only ten goals over the weekend yet winning both games, including a dominant performance on Sunday against a Sheffield team who, despite already rejigging themselves quite extensively (a theme which we shall return to later this week, by the way). The Blaze now finally look like they're clicking...

If this were the nineteenth century, then he'd already have been burned for witchcraft: ...aided enormously by the stellar play of Peter Hirsch in net. Here is a goalie who seems to consider a weekend wasted if he hasn't produced that rare category of save known as the "HOLY ****!" save, named after the reaction it inevitably provokes. He only got the one game this weekend as Tom Murdy was given the start in Hull on Saturday, but it took him only nine minutes for this weeks' example-a stunning flinging up of the stick hand while face-down and prone on the ground mid-roll and the net wide open in order to divert a Matt Hubbauer blast over the bar when the puck had rebounded straight to the Steelers forward in a melee. Much more of this and he won't need a plane ticket home-he'll just take a quick walk over the North Sea...

When you're letting in two hat-tricks, then maybe it's not the best night for your man-coverage...: Newcastle, on the other hand, and more particularly Michel Robinson, will be the toast of...erm, Cardiff this Monday, after Mark Smith and Brad Voth scored hat-tricks against them on Saturday night in a 9-2 win. Couple that with a home loss in Whitley Bay against Belfast on Sunday, and you have to wonder whether the Vipers are running a little dry on venom at the moment...

While one star falls, another rises...: Meanwhile, Belfast, aided by new signing Jeff Szwez (seriously-the only player with less vowels in his name to play in Britain is Chris Szysky, and that's only if you don't count "y"...) have earned themselves another four-point weekend, shutting out Nottingham on Saturday before the aforementioned win on the Sunday...

And, if you weren't convinced Michel Robinson had a bad weekend...: Sean McMorrow earned himself 1+1...

Speaking of the biggest Giant:...he and Kevin Bergin are building a nice little antipathy to each other-once again they scrapped off the opening face-off on Saturday, meaning that they've now exchanged pleasantries of the most hostile kind in every Nottingham-Belfast game so far this season. Stuff the "Matej Kralj scoring v every British team" streak we followed earlier this season-this rivalry could become the stuff of legend. Well, excited conversation, at any rate.

Something stirs behind Hadrian's Wall: Edinburgh, led at breakneck pace by Simon Lambert, are raising a few eyebrows now they've caught up with the preparation-two penalty shoot-out wins this weekend, in Sheffield and at home against Hull, mean that they are already off the bottom of the league and only one point behind Sheffield despite having played only half the number of league games...win even half of those in hand and suddenly, they could be in the top four...

Meanwhile, this weeks crisis in Sheffield:...There really is something wrong with the Steelers, but it seems no-one can put their finger on it. Certainly on Sunday night, they looked...well, the best word I can think of is ordinary. Their aura of being a "big" team, at least on the ice, is well and truly missing...6th in the league, 8 points behind the top 4...maybe the changes aren't finished at the Hallam just yet.

Hull's PR machine continues apace: You'd think, with the departure of Rick Strachan, that the relentlessly-upbeat press releases I used to mock so mercilessly are finished-Newcastle, in fact, have been the closest to mockery this year (leaving aside Mick Holland in Nottingham-anyone can shoot fish in a barrel, after all, especially when you get gloating, self-hyping stuff like this .) But Hull are back in the game with a truly wonderful effort of praising mediocrity (if the best postive you can find is "we tried hard" then you ARE trying too hard in the PR stakes) from Konstantin Kalmikov after their OT loss to Edinburgh gave them their solitary point of the weekend.

Doesn't that press release just scream "damage control" to you?

And, speaking of damage control, here's where I should stop...

There's an article in the works for Wednesday about the high turnover of players so far this season and possible reasons for it, as well as a mini-Round the Rinks for the midweek games this week due on Wednesday, ...until then, keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Round the Rinks, October 23rd: Scream of Anger

2009-10-23T19:00:00.000+01:00

"You can burn it all
Rally around the table
If you want to just argue out
The last scenes of us"

Fightstar: "Paint Your Target"

The Elite League is in trouble. And this time, it's fact. There are documents doing the rounds on all the forums showing that the company that owns it haven't filed any accounts since they took the league over. If they don't file them this time round, then the company gets wound up, and shut down.

Meanwhile, we have Newcastle fans being told that, if they don't travel with their team to Whitley Bay, in the numbers of 1500 at least, then the Vipers won't survive. We have Edinburgh's owner, Scott Neil, sending out a press release basically admitting that the Elite League is becoming more and more expensive. And we even have Todd Dutiaume, Fife's coach, admitting that the Flyers should be playing at a far higher level than that of the SNL, except for the fact that they don't want to join such an unwelcoming and complicated league...

British hockey in its current form, in any league form, is unworkable. And it's nothing to do with import limits, Brits' wages, wage-caps or lack of them, or even the lack of the junior systems.

It's about pure human ego.

We are constantly told that those in power have the best interests of the sport at heart, That it's always somebody else's fault that the EPL and EIHL can't mix, or that the clubs don't talk, or that no-one can agree on import limits.

Bollocks. It's the fault of every single owner. GM and, for all we know, tea lady in the sport. Equally.

I know that I'm only seeing this from the viewpoint of a slightly-jaundiced fan, but it seems to me that any time you get something like this happen, there seems to be far less time spent on actually working out a solution then there is in saying whose fault it is that one wasn't found. Sarky press releases, claims of misplaced pride, and God only knows what else-in fact sometimes you think that the only person who hasn't been blamed for negotiations breaking down is, well, Brad Voth...

Maybe what the top league in Britain needs is what's coming-a meltdown.Maybe the fact that the top league in the country is seemingly about to go up Brown-Stuff Creek without a paddle, yet again, and most likely leave the biggest clubs in Britain in serious danger of being without a league to play in (you can't seriously see them accepting a drop to the EPL given the Arctic relations between the two of them, can you?) would be the best thing to make those running our sport realise that you don't just run a hockey team for the ego boost, or volunteer to be on the governing committee in the hope of getting hold of a free junket or two...you do it because you want to keep the sport which is a massive part of thousands of people's lives running in a way that doesn't make even hockey's most ardent fans think the off-ice side of British hockey is an absolute, genuine rib-tickler of a bloody great joke...

Now for the weekend preview:

SATURDAY

Hull v Coventry: A one goal defeat in the Skydome last time these two met and another new import coming in on defence for Hull means that this could be a close one, especially as both teams, for different reasons, need to win, and win convincingly...

Belfast v Nottingham: This is a close one...and should be a hell of a game to watch on GiantsTV-two teams who have already proven themselves to be offensive powerhouses, the Giants doing so only last week, in fact, meeting in a run-and-gun battle which will see two very tired goalies by the end of it...

Cardiff v Newcastle: Don't expect pretty hockey in this one. That's more likely to be over in Belfast. This game will be all about which team can work the hardest. And frankly, at the moment, until the final hooter goes, it's a toss-up.

Sheffield v Edinburgh: Half a team plays half-awake, as injury-hit Edinburgh play a Steelers team who, quite frankly, haven't reached their potential this season. They have another chance this weekend to convince their fans that maybe, an injection of new blood is all they needed.

SUNDAY

Nottingham v Cardiff: Revenge will be the only thing on the Panthers' minds after their 6-2 drubbing at the hands of the Devils last week. Cardiff, on the other hand, will happily settle for "same old, same old" this time round...

Coventry v Sheffield: The Skydome could be a warm place this Sunday. Coventry v Sheffield is always a crowd-puller if not a crowd-pleaser, and this game should be a tight, hotly-contested addition to that group...especially with two fervent sets of fans going head-to-head off the ice as well as two fiercely-competitive coaches on it...

Edinburgh v Hull: The battle of the nearly-men takes off again-"nearly" in the sense that both of them are perhaps one player short, still, of challenging the big boys based on the early evidence, but the scrap will be all the more ferocious as both teams try to scramble over each other on the way up...

Newcastle v Belfast: This game is a classic example of the aristocrats versus the blue-collar, at least in styles of play. On the surface saying that the Vipers can win this is about as clever as, say, a racist attempting to defend his beliefs on Question Time. However, this is not the Vipers team of old, and the Giants, for all their razzle-dazzle, are vulnerable...

And there's your weekend preview...

Double Overtime, October 19th: Rumours of War

2009-10-19T20:00:00.000+01:00

"How long can you hold your breath?
While you hold mine again and wait
Just to watch you perform the great escape..."
Moby ft. Azure Ray: "The Great Escape"

We're not even out of October yet, and already the EIHL is in trouble. I should have known it would be a bad weekend from the moment my computer failed on Friday just as I tried to post Round the Rinks...hence the lack of it for a second successive week...

Well, that might be something of an overstatement-after all, there are still eight teams in it and even those paragons of virtue in the EPL aren't exactly raking it in-as perhaps evidenced by Manchester's raising of their own walk-up ticket prices by one pound recently. However, the latest whispers going around have Newcastle struggling again, and rumours of trouble in Edinburgh are made at least semi-official by a downbeat statement from Scott Neil, which you can read and draw your own conclusions from here.

Anyway...that is perhaps a topic for another post-we're here to look back at the weekend, and so we shall...

"Best" d-man in the Elite? Maybe "mouthiest" was the adjective you were looking for: James Sanford, brought in to steady the ship in Hull and expected to play a big role in Saturday's game in Coventry, particularly with Pavel Gomenyuk missing, was a shining example of how not to do so as he managed to earn himself a misconduct barely five minutes into the game-by disputing an off-side call. Poor, James, poor. At least sit for ten minutes for something worthwhile, like a goal...

Speaking of goals...or more accurately goal-judges, aren't they supposed to be neutral? We had a bizarre incident in the same game (which Blaze won 5-4, by the way) where a centering pass went right across the net, Tommy Sandahl appeared to collide with the goalpost sliding across to block the resulting shot, was piled into by James Hutchinson and the net went flying about half-a-second before the shot was released (wide). No goal. And no goal-light. The whistle goes, the home crowd roar, thinking the puck has hit the net...and, after a pause of at least two full seconds...on comes the light. It was quite rightly disallowed, but that was possibly the finest example of twitchy-finger-syndrome in a long line of examples at that particular end of the Skydome-it's bad when referees tell you they're specifically told NOT to ask that particular judge's opinion at dicey moments...

...and should-have-been-goals: On to Sunday now, and a bad-tempered yet spirited game in Nottingham which saw the Panthers come out on top against Coventry, regaining pride after being absolutely mullered 6-2 in Cardiff the night before. However, but for a bizarre Luke Fulghum miss, in which he received a pass from maybe a foot away with Kevin St.Pierre hopelessly out of position and somehow scuffed his shot wide, or an unbelievable Peter Hirsch glove-save on Saturday night in the final seconds, a Coventry team who won one and lost one could have either been celebrating four points or ruing getting none. It was that kind of weekend in the Midlands...

But, just to show that it happens to everyone: Nottingham, who were woeful by all accounts against a silky-smooth Devils team on Saturday, thus creating the perfect storm for a tanking, played like genuine title contenders on Sunday night-it appears "backlash" is not just a word but almost a motivational tool in Corey Neilson's world...

It's not a bad way to make a debut, really: Steelers had two new players in their line-up this weekend, as Matt Hubbauer registered goals on each night and an MOM on Sunday, and Stephen Wood, who looks to be the next Steve Munn, only a bit bigger, landed from America and was immediately given the responsibility of leading the defensive unit. He didn't do too badly as the Steelers won twice against Newcastle, and picked himself up an assist in the process...

Welcome, Belfast...we were wondering when your stars would turn up:...and they duly did against a luckless Hull, who were hammered 8-2 on Sunday night. The Giants completed a goal-fest of a four-point weekend which began with a 9-2 hammering of Edinburgh on Friday night...which was the cause of much joy over on the GiantsTV webcast...

Although, I'm not sure which is stranger....Me watching part of the cast but somehow completely failing to miss being mentioned (well, the Breakaway was, anyway-and even though I missed it it made my Friday when I found out, so thank you to both the GiantsTV bunch and those who are now possibly reading as a result) or Sean McMorrow getting MoM despite failing to get on the scoresheet in any way, shape or form...I've heard of "doing the things that don't get noticed", but come on, that's ridiculous. Maybe he just makes REALLY good period-break oranges...

(and yes, I am fully expecting him to beat the hell out of at least one Blaze player before scoring a hat-trick on his first visit to the Skydome now-peace, hockey gods, it is but gentle mockery...).

And how about those Devils, anyway?: Like their New Jersey namesakes, they appear to be revelling in a style of play that's ugly but, seemingly, very effective-the aforementioned beating of Nottingham was followed by a win against Edinburgh on Sunday...and yet no-one appears to have really noticed that they're quietly becoming a very effective hockey team...

I know it's a bit short...but there's your weekend review...

Double Overtime, October 12th

2009-10-12T14:54:00.002+01:00

"And all, all the fear and all the anger falls away"
boysetsfire: "Handful of Redemption"

This weekend was a good one-and teams finally seeming to get themselves on track was a fairly common theme in the Elite League. I rip into both Belfast and Coventry on Friday, and both of them promptly go and get themselves four-point weekends...and, in Blaze's case in particular, finally look like the type of team their fans hoped they would be.

It seemed something of a perfect metaphor this morning that, as I walked back from town after far too long a night (it's OK-there was a perfectly good birthday-related reason for being out, and I took today off work in anticipation of such an eventuality), the sun broke through the clouds over the Skydome and bathed it in the kind of dawn light you normally only see in postcards. For several teams in the EIHL, maybe the clouds of the early season are starting to drift away.

Anyway-on to the weekend review:

If nothing else, it's got to be in the running for quote of the weekend: On Saturday night, I was drifting around after the ENL game in Coventry when I ended up sliding into conversation with a fellow Blaze fan who'd not made the trip up to Sheffield. He was checking the scores on ih-update when he noticed that Sean McMorrow had had a fight with Brad Voth after fifteen seconds, and mentioned this and how he thought that Belfast's enforcer seemed an utter waste of money. This led him very quickly, and almost out of nowhere, into an inspired reworking of "Tomorrow" from Annie. Unfortunately, some of it is probably too...well, controversial to print here in full. Well, that and I can't remember some of it for sure. But it was possibly among the most surreal moments this season will produce as he just broke into an off-the-cuff song...the first verse went something like

"You'll get a shift soon....McMorrow!
Even though you're rubbish and your skating...lets you down
Cause you're just a goon...McMorrow!
And your stupid pens, they make the Giants fans...all frooowwwwnnnn...
McMorrow! McMorrow!
We love you, McMorrow!
You're a guaranteed pow-er-plaaaaaayyyy!"

Of course, the Giants won in the end (and did the same on Sunday night in Cardiff, after penalty shots) which takes something of the sting out of the mockery, and after that first verse, the song lost its lustre somewhat as it descended into swearing...but even so, that song will be in my head the first time the Giants come to town...

"That big red button there. The one marked "PANIC!". Press it. For the love of God, press it now!": Sheffield are officially in the doldrums. A 4-1 loss to Coventry on Saturday night in which they were described as "lacking in ideas" and "simply not good enough" from those who travelled, says to me that the Steelers now have some real problems-and makes me wonder how long before changes are imminent. Sheffield has never been a town to accept mediocrity, after all....and a 4-1 win in the Yorkshire derby against Hull on Sunday came too late for Jeff Hutchins, who has been released today despite scoring in that game. Matt Hubbauer is his replacement...

Heckle of the Weekend: Nottingham, 3-0 down in Coventry. Kevin Bergin receives the puck in open ice with a free shooting lane at Peter Hirsch's net as the goalie is out of position...and miscontrols the puck, allowing a Blaze defenceman to nip in and take it. He then misses an attempted big hit by several feet, Blaze head up ice...and Dan Carlson scores. Next shift, he drifts slowly round behind the back of the Panthers net as a whistle goes, followed by Corey Neilson, who is serenaded with a brief but loud chant through the plexi, to the tune of "We're Gonna Win the League" of..."You should have kept Molin! You should have kept Molin! 'Cause Bergin's utterly useless, cause Bergin's utterly useless, cause Bergin's utterly use-less....ya should have kept Molin!"
Bergin's glare told everyone behind the net exactly what he thought of that one...

Statistics? They prove nothing: Further proof of this was seen in the same Coventry-Nottingham game, as the Blaze recovered from an early setback (well, Jason Robinson did after being fairly convincingly beaten in a fight by Dominic D'Amour) to annihilate the Panthers' game plan in the second period, scoring three unanswered goals and two more, including a killer knife-through-the-heart goal from Greg Chambers just as two goals from the Panthers had threatened a frantic finish by pulling it back to 4-2. The best player on the ice? Dan Carlson, who, it had been muttered recently, including on here, had looked somewhat out of sorts offensively this season. Not on Sunday, he wasn't...two goals and being almost uncontainable is a hell of a way to answer any critics.

And just by the way, if you look for the term "offensive shootout" in the dictionary you'll find "see Blaze v Panthers": The shot count in this game...36 on Peter Hirsch, 43 on Kevin St Pierre. Yikes.

This could be one to watch: Edinburgh and Newcastle, in a pair of battles in the frozen North, split a weekend which saw fights, match penalties, a pair of close games and ANDREW SHARP SCORING!

Hold on, I just had to re-check that. Yes, Sharp scored. It's on the stats and everything.

But anyway...the games themselves were spirited affairs, hard-fought between two teams who may, now, be starting to believe that they're not there just to fill the lower playoff places....

Just going back to the shot counts...: It appears that, on Sunday at least, the defences around the EIHL took the night off. The least number of total shots fired in a game yesterday was seventy-two in Cardiff (38 to 34 in favour of Belfast). And they say that the Elite League is boring...over one genuine goalscoring chance a minute is a fairly decent average, really...

There you go-there's your weekend review...

Round the Rinks, October 9th: Dust, Straw, and Feathers

2009-10-09T08:00:00.000+01:00

"Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers."
Lord Byron.

He may have been mad, bad and dangerous to know, but it seems that Byron, in between writing some quite-good love poetry and future exam fodder for Eng.Lit students everywhere and/or fornicating with everything in sight, could have pretty much summed up every hockey season, or at least the period between August and November. Crazy things happen as teams are settling in for the season proper after the opening skirmishes...and it is usually, come the end of the season, of little consequence. However, that doesn't mean it isn't interesting...look:

Tell your statistics to shut up. Or at least whisper-you're scaring the Coventry fans: A stat for you: as of today, the top scorer in the league, Nottingham's Jade Galbraith, has scored 20 points. This is one more than the Blaze top line of Derek Campbell, Dan Carlson and Adam Calder combined.

No, really. Please shut up: Not only that, but the much-vaunted "best offensive pairing in the league" of Carlson and Calder have four goals between them in the same time. Looking down the league, we see names you might expect who have scored more than ACDC combined, proving that at least offensive trends are the same: Colin Shields, Galbraith, Sean McAslan, Mike Berry, Wes Jarvis...

Hold on a second...

Yup, the massive Cardiff defenseman, not exactly known for scoring goals or...well, a soft touch around the opposition's net, has seven already.

I will now light myself on fire. Or, as they say in teen-flicks nowadays...."ooooh, snap!"

Well, no-one can say he's indecisive: Hull have signed a new player this week-James Sanford joins from the ECHL to shore up the blue-line, showing that Sylvain Cloutier is not afraid to make changes, or at least threaten them, early on...

I appreciate that things on here, at least post-number wise, currently have about the same expectation-reality relationship as Ed Courtenay's view of the EPL at the moment (I am told by my Manchester friends that he's not exactly looking overjoyed to be in Manchester, nor over-exerting himself in the effort to tear the EPL apart)...at the moment I'm having something of a AC/DC-esque slump in numbers post-wise thanks to not having Internet time at work and busy evenings...however, I hope this will change as the slump ends shortly. Work is being done behind the scenes. Honest.

Now for the weekend preview-I have noticed the comments but I'm going to answer them in a post I've got in the works-particularly the one from Yotes regarding Molin...

So, first the double-headers:

Edinburgh v Newcastle (Newcastle home leg at Whitley Bay): This could be fun. Two teams who are already raising eyebrows meet (almost)-home-and-away. The Vipers get their first outing in the "character-filled" (read "old") North East hockey temple of Hillheads Rink in Whitley Bay, and the Caps get a chance to avenge their defeat at Hockeyfest, while at the same time get their own season up to the same speed as everyone else's now the Gardiner Cup's out of the way...

Belfast v Cardiff: The Belfast leg of this pair will be live on GiantsTV, and it's an intriguing weekend as we have two teams for whom the word "inconsistent" would be a compliment-both their engines are turning over, but not at all running sweetly like that of Nottingham and Newcastle's. They will both be hoping that this weekend is the hockey equivalent of a jump-start-both teams need to find themselves some rhythm-it's only thanks to the greater struggles of others that they currently find themselves third and fourth...

The rest of the weekend sees a Rubik's Cube of fixtures, as Sheffield play Coventry while Nottingham play Hull on Saturday, before the two away teams return home and switch opponents for the Sunday.

There's all sorts of storylines here...not least the meeting on Saturday between two teams who are under-achieving quite spectacularly so far this season...who'd have thought a Sheffield-Coventry game would see fifth playing sixth, even this early on?

Then, of course, there's the ever-growing rivalry of Blaze-Panthers on Sunday (and these games are getting nastier and nastier over time) with the Yorkshire Derby as the supporting act...if the Stingrays win that one, there could be muttering growing ever louder in South Yorkshire.

Blaze-Panthers, meanwhile, is nothing short of a legalised, localised, bloodless war now-there is genuine hatred amongst Blaze fans for their East Midlands rivals-a feeling which is, at least while the two teams are in action against each other, seemingly reciprocated. Buckle up for this one, folks...this weekend could get controversial in a hurry...

There's your weekend preview...

Double Overtime: Hockeyfest Edition.

2009-10-05T18:11:00.003+01:00

"Never too late to stand your ground - Revolution begins!"
Arch Enemy: "Revolution Begins"

Last weekend saw a revolution, a whole new way of watching hockey. A weekend which I will remember for a long, long time for the earth-shaking amazingness of a sight that turned the whole world on its head.

A Newcastle team played a whole game without once resorting to goonery. And won.

And, in other news, Hockeyfest took place up in Sheffield.

Let's take a look at the weekend.

Winning ugly is the new beauty:..it seems, as for the second time in successive weeks a team came to the Skydome, was universally derided by the home fans for playing an "ugly" style of hockey, and proceeded to play the much-vaunted Blaze roster right off the ice. After Cardiff last week, this week saw Newcastle play a similar high-energy, hard-charging style (with Mike Berry particularly prominent) which the much-hyped silky skills of the Blaze seemed unable to break through...a 5-2 victory was just reward for the travelling side..

Now that's the kind of injury we'd like to have: Kevin Bergin-who let's not forget it was announced last week would be replaced with Johan Molin on the Nottingham roster for Hockeyfest due to carrying an injury-seemingly made a mockery of his own team's medical staff by scoring two goals, fighting Sean McMorrow and assisting on one other as the Panthers beat Belfast 6-2 on Saturday night. Clearly, the man has a superhuman pain tolerance. After all, no-one is saying that Nottingham may have (gasp) overexaggerated his injury to gain a potential advantage on Sunday, surely?

Return flight from Sweden: £200. Week's wages: £400 (est). Flying several hundred miles, and then only playing 40 minutes of hockey, including missing a sitter, while the team who brought you back in specially are thrashed 6-0 by their most-hated rivals (whatever they try to claim about Sheffield): Priceless:...although of course the fact that Bergin not only happened to be only injured enough to miss Hockeyfest, but that his replacement also happened to be far more suited to four-on-four hockey, at least in theory, was little more than a fortuitous coincidence. Honest.
Either way, this blatant manipulation of Elite League rules didn't work out well for the Panthers, as Coventry, even faced with Molin, were simply unstoppable after their capitulation against Newcastle the night before, putting six past Kevin St.Pierre while conceding none in their quarter-final.

Tick, tick, tick...:...goes the time-bomb in Sheffield. Saturday's dour 2-1 home loss against the fast-improving Cardiff Devils was, reportedly, watched by a crowd of only 1800 hardy souls. The team are now down to sixth in the league, and even their win in Sunday's Hockeyfest may only be papering over the cracks at the moment, particularly as other teams are improving steadily as they begin to gel. There are hopes in South Yorkshire that the win over the weekend will finally drive some belief into what has been a strangely subdued Steelers season.
But, if it doesn't, then there could be some serious ramifications for British hockey as a whole...what happens if the lean times continue in a city used to only the best?

And, continuing the theme: Belfast, too, are a team which, while not in trouble, aren't exactly providing the pyrotechnics that their fans expected-much more of a damp squib. Sean McMorrow can't find anyone to fight, Pierre-Luc Faubert isn't living up to the hype so far, and only Pat Bateman and Colin Shields are scoring reliably. Like the Blaze, they had real trouble against Newcastle-a side who, by all the wisdom of pre-season (including mine) shouldn't be doing as well as they are with a team full of blue-collar workers, but seemingly lacking the scoring flair of the Elite League aristocracy. With the season now running into the darker nights of autumn after starting in the glowing hopes of late summer, reality may be kicking in in Northern Ireland too...

Then, there's Coventry:...another side who are having to work hard to win round their fan-base at the moment-the Blaze are a team who seemingly are still searching for their identity. If anything, they remind me at this early stage of a traditional Nottingham side...full of talented parts which, by all the laws, should already be meshing into a sweet-running machine. Somewhere, though, like Belfast and Sheffield, there is dust in the gears-they come up against the tiniest bit of grit and almost seem to grind to a halt, just as they did on Saturday in front of a first stunned and then progressively more restless crowd...

So, was it a success?: The general consensus from Hockeyfest seems to be "this, if used properly, could be huge". A day which saw reviews ranging from "a nice diversion" to "absolute genius" from those friends I've spoken to, it's certainly opened a few eyes amongst both traditionalists and the newbies as to just what can be made of the sport in this country. Granted, it's nowhere near perfection yet, but, like Newcastle's form this season, it's a hell of a start-now everyone just needs to work out the best way to keep it going...

And there you go...there's your weekend...

Double Overtime, September 28th:

2009-09-28T19:20:00.000+01:00

"Your last words to me: "tonight's the night..."
But redemption is harder than it looks"
Aiden: "Die Romantic"

Here we are for another Monday evening, after a weekend that saw distressing rumours, some high calibre hockey, a bit of McMorrow Muppetry and...oh yes, a Steelers-Panthers game too, just in case you missed it (which was considerably easier to do than previous years-both teams have appeared to work out that British hockey as a whole isn't THAT interested in what these two have to snipe at each other after all)...

Let's dive straight in. And, for the first time this season, we'll try and get the Cardiff scores right.

"It's a tragedy, the like of which we've never seen. You must mourn, sir. Don't you see? You must mourn!": That Red Dwarf quote was referring to the end of a few thousand boxes of curry, but this weekend saw the end of something else seemingly inconsequential until you actually notice it's not there any more: Vipers Eastern European star Matej Kralj's scoring streak against British hockey teams is over, after a ten-game run, as he was held pointless in both their 6-3 loss to Coventry and their 2-0 win over Sheffield.

In fairness, though, even the win was somewhat overshadowed...: by a horrific-sounding incident involving Jeff Hutchins. The Steelers player was hit (cleanly, by all accounts) by Ryan Mahrle on Sunday night, and cracked his head hard off the ice as he went down. Reports had him suffering everything from a "mere" concussion to swallowing his tongue and needing an emergency tracheotomy...it appears that these were exagerrated and the Steelers centre, while bruised and reportedly severely concussed after spending 15 minutes unconscious, has now been given the all clear by doctors to leave hospital. Even though Hutchins is not popular with opposition fans as a hockey player, you never want to wish that on a fellow human being. The Breakaway sends best wishes for his recovery...

The reaction is fair enough-but you'd think SOMEONE would have noticed: Somewhat more impressive/worrying is the fact that all four of the other Steelers players on the ice were so keen to go after Mahrle that they reportedly skated straight past the unconscious body of their team-mate in order to do so. Righteous anger or a slight lack of team bonding...you decide.

See-saw goes up..: Four more points for the surging Nottingham Panthers mean that they're giving their fans more than the usual potentially-false hope this season with their 5-2 win in the Hallam Arena on Saturday night and pulling out a gritty win in Hull on Sunday...

See-saw goes down:...conversely, the gloom only deepens for their Sheffield rivals, as dropping attendances and a lacklustre start to the season mean that it's grim up north at the moment...

And, while we're on the subject:...you'd be forgiven, if you're a Blaze fan, for not knowing which team is going to turn up, as the perennial title-chasers from the Skydome once again won one away before losing one at home...

And, in the War of the Muppets: it seems that Sean McMorrow can take the moral high-ground-his Belfast team won 6-2 against Andrew Sharp's Edinburgh, with McMorrow himself reportedly dismantling Sharp in a scrap-there must be footage of this somewhere...

Sheffield and Nottingham-take note: In more Gardiner Cup action, the reports of the Toronto Marlies-Hamilton Bulldogs final are glowing-apparently this is a rivalry built more on hatred than hype thanks to the Toronto/Montreal rivalry of their "affiliated" NHL clubs-and the game well and truly reflected this. And we didn't have to suffer ten days of posturing in the build-up, either.

"They don't give points for artistic impression": One of the quotes of the weekend is at left, in response to a Blaze fan friend of mine bemoaning Cardiff's physical play and classic exhibition of shutdown hockey which saw them beat Coventry 6-4 on Sunday night-it perfectly sums up the way Cardiff won. Ugly, but, judging by the reactions of Devils fans, oh-so-sweet.

Maybe it did calm down a bit after all:: Finally, a quick look at the Cardiff-Hull game on Saturday-a 4-1 win for the Devils which was considerably quieter than the same fixture two weeks ago. Whether it'll stay that way is something we'll see throughout the coming season...

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

Round the Rinks, September 25th

2009-09-25T19:30:00.000+01:00

Very simple tonight cause I know it's late...the Gardiner Cup will be dealt with in a seperate post, probably on Sunday. Here's your weekend in two minutes:

SATURDAY

Newcastle v Coventry: This one is interesting-mainly because, up until now, the new-look Vipers have proved themselves the equal of most of the traditional powers in the league, while Coventry, one of those powers, have, whatever their fans may tell you, looked somewhat less than convincing-a team of great individual skill who just aren't quite moulding to the level that, perhaps, previous teams have. The Vipers, meanwhile, have bonded like chewing-gum to the sole of your best shoes-quickly and strongly. This game will be a game which, depending on the result, will send several different messages out to the league-and for that reason, it's worth keeping an eye on.

Cardiff v Hull: And so the rivalry resumes with the dust barely settled from the last time these two met at the bay, and more bad blood than you'll ever see in the whole Twilight saga. And unlike the uncannily-popular fantasy series, there'll be no pussy-footing around and long soulful stares at each other from these two characters-they'll just leap straight for each others' throats and hang on tight.

Sheffield v Nottingham: Oh, look, it's the second instalment of "the biggest rivalry in Europe". But stifle your yawns if you're not a fan of either team, because this is an intriguing meeting which may show more than ever if the balance between these two has shifted in the other direction this season, with Nottingham setting the early pace and Sheffield having what, for them, has been a seriously lacklustre season opening. With bragging rights well and truly on the line, let's see which team wants it more this time out...

SUNDAY

Edinburgh v Belfast: Time was, you could predict this result as a Giants win with no real problems. However, this season...not a chance. This one could genuinely go either way-the Caps, even missing Doug Christiansen, look like they could be a match for a Giants side that gave a five-goal headstart to the Blaze last weekend in their own rink, before disposing of Hull with minimal fuss in midweek-which Giants will turn up this time?

Coventry v Cardiff: The second-biggest rivalry in the EIHL starts again, as the Devils make their second trip to the Skydome looking to avenge the defeat in pre-season. This time, points are on the line, after all, and the Devils are back to near-full strength, only missing the suspended Brad Voth, although they may possibly be missing a few through injury. It'll be a hard-fought game, however, and if the Devils can nick a win, then they'll be up on cloud-nine, while the Blaze will plunge down again as their fans get restless...

Hull v Nottingham: The Stingrays won this one last time out. The Panthers will fancy their chances at revenge, however, thanks to suspensions and injuries-it could be a long night for Tommy Sandahl in the Stingrays net...

Newcastle v Sheffield: Another home-game for the Vipers, who'll be facing either a euphoric and fired-up Steelers side fresh off a victory against their rivals, or a team thirsty for revenge and wanting to get back on track. Either way, they'll be a tough and willing opponent against a team who will (hopefully) have been pushed hard against Coventry the night before. These are the kind of games, even in September, where you start to see the emerging character of a team-if the Vipers take a four-point weekend this weekend, then the MRA can rightly begin to gain the tag "Geordie Fortress". We shall see...

There you go-a lightning weekend preview...

AND FINALLY....

For those of you who follow the EPL, but can't make your team's game, there's now a live-score service at www.eplupdates.co.uk, which launched last week to hardly any fanfare but great success (over 200 people becoming fans on facebook in the first week). It's well worth a look...so have a nosey by clicking here.

Double Overtime, September 20th

2009-09-21T20:00:00.004+01:00

"You know, a heart of gold won't take you all the way"

Papa Roach: "Lifeline"

And so, in we go for another review of a weekend which had some fun, rivalries renewed, and a statement of intent from north of the border...

So, that one hasn't calmed down some after all, then: Sheffield and Cardiff shared the honours in a fiery double-header, roughing penalties a-plenty and a scrap between Matt Towe and Jeff Hutchins on Saturday in Cardiff's win being followed by a niggly game on Sunday which saw the Steelers come out on top, although with somewhat more ease than the 5-4 penalty shot win the Devils came away with on the Saturday, mainly thanks to a superb Jeff Legue hat-trick in their 6-3 victory.

Meanwhile, in Coventry, Thommo is on his bench, and all's right with the world again:...thanks to a two-win weekend for the Blaze, although they did their level best to let Belfast back into the game on Saturday, much to the chagrin of the crowd watching the live stream in Crosby's back at the Skydome-Pat Bateman scoring a hat-trick in a losing effort has to be one of the efforts of the weekend. That was followed on Sunday by a hard-fought 4-2 win against Hull on Sunday which saw the Blaze huff, puff and eventually blow the Stingrays house down, although as we'll see, that came with a bit of luck...

The scoreboard only says that you score, not how you score them..: a fact which Blaze forward Joe Henry will be more than grateful for this morning, after his man-of-the-match performance (an award which would have been well deserved even without his score) was capped off by probably the easiest goal he or any Blaze forward ever score, as a shot from Weaver hit Tommy Sandahl's pads, then Henry's skate as he was already turning away looking for the rebound, and dribbled in without either player knowing a huge amount about it. It was also the game-winning goal, which means that, somewhere, the hockey gods have a sense of humour sometimes...

As far as season openers go, that's one of the better ones they've ever had: Edinburgh finally entered the fray this weekend, and started off with a two--hatrick performance (Scott McKenzie and Simon Lambert the men having dream debuts) and three more for good measure as they tanked Hull 9-2. Owen Fussey and Chris Allen also opened their accounts, while Darius Pliskauskas hit the other. However...

Wince of the Week: Doug Christiansen-one game, one slightly misjudged check, one shattered kneecap and a damaged pelvis to boot. Ouch. Best wishes to one of the more likeable big, nasty power forwards of the British game as well as a fast-improving coach-let's hope that this doesn't derail a promising Caps season...

But then, they didn't do badly without him: On Sunday night, however, the Caps very nearly pulled off a win that would have really put the Cap amongst the pigeons, losing 4-3 to Nottingham in overtime thanks to Jade Galbraith, after Owen Fussey had pulled it back from 3-1 to 3-3 with two unanswered third-period strikes. Murrayfield will not be a nice place to go this year if you're playing for the opposition, it seems.

He's still going, people: Matej Kralj continues his scoring run-he didn't hit the net himself against Belfast after scoring the night before, but he did get himself an assist to extend his point-streak another weekend...and his run against British teams too...However, the Vipers themselves only earned themselves two points from a possible four, after another hot player, Jade Galbraith, led Nottingham to a 4-3 win in Saturday's top-of-the-table clash.

Well, it seems he's trying so far: Jade Galbraith, points-scoring leader with 6+6 from six games...not a bad way to convince your crowd that you're making an effort this time...

And, just for those who thought he was losing his touch: A quick drop to the EPL shows a Manchester result of 7-4 against Basingstoke. A close, but fairly unremarkable scoreline in the course of the season-until you bear in mind that four of the Phoenix's goals were scored by one man, that man had had one training session and been in the country 24 hours, and barely knew what his new team-mates looked like, with the possible exception of two...

And people said that Ed Courtenay would take a while to adjust to playing hockey again. Be afraid, EPL goalies. Be very afraid.

That's your weekend reviewed...apologies it's a little late...

Time and Tide...

2009-09-21T12:40:00.000+01:00

..wait for no man. Sadly, not even me.

I am producing the weekend review slowly in between doing my normal job today...it should hopefully be up around 5:30 this afternoon...

Round the Rinks, September 18th.

2009-09-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

"To the game and getting out of this hick town! Thank God there's a sport for middle-sized white boys..."
Patrick Swayze as Derek Sutton, in "Youngblood"

It would, frankly, be remiss of me not to start this column without mentioning the death of Patrick Swayze, not because I'm a closet Dirty Dancing fan or anything like that, but because one of his finest moments is in one of the best bad films ever, and naturally, it's about hockey. "Youngblood" is one of those films every hockey player has seen, every fan has probably seen, and every one of them can fire a quote off where necessary (the only hockey film which comes close to the original Slap Shot for this.) It's interesting, though, that it's held in such high esteem that people forget how horrific it is if you're watching it with any semblance of having your brain engaged.

Why? It has Rob Lowe as a superstar junior forward, Swayze as the "mentor who gets viciously taken out for the big emotional/serious/provide a villain" bit, Keanu Reeves as a French-Canadian nettie (that sentence is in italics, just because it's hands-down funny to think about). Oh, and the plot runs something like:

superstar American hockey junior goes to play in Canada, gets beaten the crap out of at camp but makes it due to his skills, making an enemy of the headcase who beats him up (who by the way, will return later). Then there's much "normal" season stuff, sex etc, before the team make the finals and superstar's best mate gets his career ended by the headcase (costing him an NHL draft place in the process), who just happens to have signed for the team that Lowe meets in the finals. Lowe runs off, finds it inside himself to fight and somehow becomes a snarling power-forward in two days, comes back for the final game, scores twice (including one slow-motion goal to equalise in the final ten seconds of the final game, in which he goes twice around the net without being hit once, even though he's been being abused the rest of the game), and then, five seconds later, is tripped by the headcase on a breakaway, and scores a penalty shot to win the title. Oh, and just to top it off, rather than celebrate the win of a national championship, he instead has a stick-fight with said head-case, and beats the crap out of him, before disappearing with the girlfriend. Who's the coach's daughter.

And Swayze was a massive part of it. As well as Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Point Break, Roadhouse and the best movie of the Cold War era, Red Dawn.

His death after a long fight with cancer is far too soon. R.I.P, Derek Sutton.

And, seamlessly linking to the weekend preview-let's use the best-known Youngblood quote to get things going...if you don't know which bit this is from, you need to broaden your knowledge of the culture of this great game, cause it's been shouted at rinks all over the world ever since the movie came out in 1986, and any true hockey fan knows exactly in which situation to use it...

"Ya wanna go, pretty boy?"

Hell yeah. It's preview time...here's your EIHL weekend...

DOUBLE HEADERS

Cardiff v Sheffield: Am I the only one thinking these two games could get a little feisty? After all, we all know what happened last season between these two teams, and the dust has barely settled from last weeks Battle of the Big Blue Tent in South Wales...you can bet that neither side will back down, so it wouldn't surprise me if on Monday morning we're speaking about a fair bit of controversy as Sheffield try to get themselves up and running and Cardiff try to keep the momentum ticking over...

SATURDAY

Hull v Edinburgh: Hey, the Capitals are here! Thanks for turning up, lads...fashionably late as always...but seriously, this game will be an interesting one for the entire league, being the first sight of Phase 3 of the Christensen Revolution. With players like Owen Fussey, nettie Cody Rudkowsky and Chris Allen all new to the UK and all highly-touted due to their pedigree, it'll be interesting to see just what happens against another team going through something of a revolution in the Stingrays...

Belfast v Coventry: Live on Giants TV if you can't make it over there, this is a game which the Blaze need to win, not only to get themselves going but also to calm their jittery fanbase down a little-Blaze fans as a whole panic early and are always llooking for ways to run their team down amongst themselves on forums, so the last thing you want to do is give them any ammunition...

Nottingham v Newcastle: Revenge is the key for the Panthers in this one, after losing up in Newcastle last week. But far more than that, a win will keep their excellent start to the season going, while one for the Vipers will make even more people sit up and take notice of the North-Easterners. Of course, if you're a neutral there's always the sub-plot of "can Matej Kralj keep his scoring run going" to keep you amused also...

SUNDAY

Coventry v Hull: Sylvain Cloutier returns to his old stomping ground, but if he leads his Stingrays team to a win, then the welcome will never be quite as warm again-particularly if the Pissed-Off Plaice have the same approach to winning friends and influencing people as they did in Cardiff. If the Blaze win, meanwhile, then even a loss against Belfast may be, if not forgiven, at least temporarily forgotten...

Edinburgh v Nottingham: The Caps open at home against the Panthers...two free-wheeling teams meet in a game which will show, even this early in the season, if the Scots have made another leap forward from last season, or whether they still have some work to do...

Newcastle v Belfast: The Vipers keep having to prove themselves too...Nottingham last weekend is followed by the Giants this weekend, with the Metro Radio Arena crowd hoping for the Vipers to be on the winning side again. Another four point weekend and we may have to start taking all Rob Wilson's pre-season rhetoric about a more skilful approach much more seriously. Meanwhile, if the Giants don't take at least two points from the weekend, it'll be something of a surprise-especially as their defensive unit is looking like it could be one of the better ones this season...

There's your weekend set out in full...now roll on Saturday and let's get on with the best two days of the hockey week...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Midweek Musings and Linkyness...

2009-09-16T08:00:00.000+01:00

"Run away, run away, I'll attack

Run away, run away, go chase yourself"

30 Seconds To Mars: "Attack"

"It is impossible

To never tell the truth
But the reality is,
I'm getting away with murder"

Papa Roach: "Getting Away With Murder"

In we go on some midweek musings...starting with Cardiff v Hull:

And so, for those of us who wondered what all the fuss is about:...and with thanks to the F-Block Blog for the original posting (I don't think it's footage they took due to the Welsh accents close by, but fair play to GS for finding it), here is the Battle of the Big Blue Tent, in (almost) full...it starts just as the scrap between Brad Voth and Adam Knight that kicked the whole thing off is ending:

Several interesting points about this...

Firstly, Adam Knight heads directly for Brad Voth after getting off the ice (1:00 or so in) and they go for each other behind the benches (although that fight's screen by the Cardiff players hopping up onto their bench)...although given that there were travesty penalties handed out left right and centre, we can consider that one dealt with...

However, more interestingly, you can clearly see Curtis Huppe (Hull's #93) launch a stick into the Devils bench with some considerable force, hitting Tylor Michel, before hopping down off the bench (1:19 into the clip)...and somehow, he gets away with it...

Sylvain Cloutier then tries to get through both doors, being held on the ice on one side and blocked by Mark Richardson on the other. Max Birbraer is throwing punches over the plexi (left hand side, next to Devils #25, Phil Hill, around 1:54), and several Devils players nip round the back of the plexi to back Voth up...Adam Knight, meanwhile, has disappeared, as has half the Hull bench...eventually, though, it all calms down...

To my eyes...Huppe is gone for a while, as are Knight and Voth. The scrum on the ice isn't helped by Adam Knight challenging the Cardiff bench at the start of the clip too...however, given that Voth has a 12-game suspended ban handed over him after Sheffield screamed that he was a big, evil nasty man who can sucker-punch a player (Randy Dagenais) while the player being punched is staring at him, it'll be interesting to see how bad things get...

Meanwhile, in the more "legal" side of physical play: It's interesting how, this season, there appears to be a more of an edge to games...roughing penalties seem to be more and more frequent, and yet we're not seeing such "legal" epic moments as a perfectly-executed hip-check as often...indeed, there's currently a thread on THF asking if the hip-check is dead...

So, is hitting down, or are the referees just calling hits that are perfectly clean, I wonder?

And, in today's commercial/linky spot: You should know by now that, if the Breakaway finds a blog it likes, it'll plug it. The latest one, and yet another from Manchester, is The Triple Deke...more of a factual stop for EPL news than a "giggle in your lunch hour at bad British hockey jokes" one, perhaps unsurprising given that the writer, Kyle, is an aspiring journalist, it provides the Nine O'Clock News counterpart to Five Minute Major's "Mock The Week" take on the Phoenix scene (FMJ's "Idiot's Guide to the EPL" is a fine series all by itself, whatever league you're in, by the way)...if you're the kind who likes attempting to shoehorn Manchester hockey blogs into a category, that is.

Also...The Angry Budgie now does college football too, although sadly, it's the Florida Gators...but don't let that stop you...it's worth a read if you like the American version of football too...

Slightly further north and west, we have The Outpost, which is already legendary thanks to Kez setting Belfast fan forums into an apocalyptic rage with some forthright views on the Elite League...have a read. I'm not saying I support either side in the argument, but it's kind of like watching a bear fight a pack of dogs...the dogs keep coming, and still the bear keeps fighting them off with a style and wit all of its own...

The Giants Webcast is back!: Also, if you can't make the trip to Belfast...Giants TV is back! And now with an all-new look, broadcasting Giants games live over the web for those who can't travel. You can find all the info here-shiny, isn't it? First game is this weekend's clash with, coincidentally, Coventry...

I know this post is a bit, well, chaotic, but this is mainly due to waiting for the EIHL to sort itself out over the Battle of the Blue Tent so we can have some real news to report...

Luckily, they have some sort of time limit on doing so thanks to games continuing this weekend, so I await news with bated breath, especially as the Stingrays (or Pissed-Off-Plaice as someone up here nicknamed them the other day) are in Coventry this Sunday...

If you're very lucky, there will be a new Frozen Dreams in the next few days...otherwise, its Round the Rinks time on Friday...and possibly reaction to the EIHL disciplinary board decisions, if we're lucky enough to get them publicised...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

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

2009-09-14T23:12:00.002+01:00

"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...

Round the Rinks: September 11th

2009-09-11T17:30:00.000+01:00

"Well, I don't know where I'm going, but I sure am getting there..."
Five For Fighting: "Easy Tonight"

It's still early in the season, but the EIHL is now properly off and running, and with the other leagues starting this weekend, it's not just EIHL fans that can finally say that hockey is, officially, back...the doors are closed, the seat-belt signs are off and we're settled in for the long ride to either Nottingham or Coventry in April.

It seems I've still got a bit of summer rust to get rid of, though, as the errors keep continuing...Cardiff v Newcastle was in fact a double-header at the Metro Radio/Telewest/whoever the sponsor is this week Arena, rather than one at each rink...

Let's hope that I get this preview a bit better, shall we? Checked, re-checked and then checked again for luck (much like a player meeting Jason Robinson in front of the opposition net) it's time for this week's lightning skate Round the Rinks...

DOUBLE-HEADERS

Hull v Cardiff: Two teams who both hope to reach the next level this season meet in an early battle for position on the greasy pole which teams have to climb to the top of the EIHL-with the Stingrays starting with a loss and the Devils splitting a pair of one-goal games up in Newcastle, both need that little extra boost, even this early in the season, that a win will give. People say that early-season results aren't a barometer of success as a whole, with many a side starting well and dropping off (or starting badly and roaring back into contention late on) but try telling the players that-this pair of games could be looked back on as making the difference in position between the two sides come April, and so you can bet that two evenly-matched teams will go at it hammer and tongs on both nights...

Sheffield v Belfast: For fear of being compared to Dave Simms, I'm not going to use the "clash of the titans" angle on this double-header...however, it can't be denied that these two teams will expect to be challenging for the title come April. For that reason, games like this take on a special importance this early in the season-no matter what the competition, the psychological boost that can be gained by beating one of your major rivals is valuable whatever point in the season it comes-a four-point weekend for either of these teams will go a long way to reducing any apprehension they may feel playing the other, as well as putting doubt into the minds of their vanquished opponents...

SATURDAY

Nottingham v Coventry: Speaking of doubt-the Blaze will be heading to Nottingham in a combative frame of mind, looking to avenge the loss at the Skydome last Sunday-they need to bounce back quickly otherwise, even this early in the season, the whispers will begin among the Skydome crowd. Nottingham, meanwhile, are on something of a run at the moment and will be hoping that their four-pointer last weekend can be built on in front of their home crowd-beating two of your major rivals, one of them twice, in the space of a week has to be a good way to start the season and stop the butterflies...

SUNDAY

Newcastle v Nottingham: This game, meanwhile, is one that has traditionally been exactly the type of game the Panthers will stumble in. The Vipers are a different team to any that have previously come out of the Geordie homeland in the past few years, and the question is whether Nottingham (who somehow rehabilitated Michel Robinson's career last season) can win these games as well as the big ones-something which has held them back in recent seasons. This game won't go a long way to finding out, but if they win it may allay a few more of the doubts among the more cynical of the Nottingham faithful...

And there's your weekend preview...

Midweek Musings: On Hockey and Sports Adultery

2009-09-09T18:27:00.003+01:00

"But if it wasn't for you, We wouldn't have all these multiple crowds.
How am I supposed to choose, which one I belong to?"
I Set My Friends on Fire: "Things That Rhyme With Orange"

I have something of a problem at the moment. I'm contemplating one of the (supposedly) most unforgivable sins in sports fandom, which is supporting two sports teams, playing the same sport, in the same country. Perhaps my only saving grace is that they're not in the same league.

You may have noticed, reading back over the past two seasons (yes, there must be one of you out there who's followed it that long-believe it or not the Breakaway is now into its third full season) that I have something of a soft-spot for the Manchester Phoenix. This is partly due to the fact that the Breakaway is good friends with several Manchester blogs, not least Five Minute Major, and partly due to the fact that, as I've written several times, the Phoenix seem like the ideal template for running a hockey club, and partly because...well, I just like them.

Obviously, with Manchester and Coventry both being in the same league, there is no way up until now that I could have been a fan of both, and Coventry won for fairly obvious reasons...but now, unless you've been under a rock for the past few months, you'll have noticed that the Phoenix have moved to the EPL. And signed a former Blaze player, none other than Andre Payette, while the Blaze have signed ex-Phoenix Luke Fulghum (personally, I reckon we in Coventry got by far the better end of the deal, but there we are)...

And so, as of now, I'm declaring myself openly...coming out, if you will.

My teams in Britain are Coventry Blaze and, as of now, officially at least, Manchester Phoenix. And thus, expect to see a bit more EPL content, or at least links to it, on here as I keep an eye on them from afar...

A perfect season was never an option, but to fail at the first weekend just smacks of carelessness: In other news, I have to apologise to the whole of Wales. Especially the portion of South Wales that watches hockey.

After Monday's post I received a very polite email from Gareth Jenkins, a regular reader and Devils fan who, after saying some very nice things about the blog in general (which I won't reproduce here as modesty forbids, but thank him for), points out that I made several errors in both Friday's and Monday's posts...not least completely forgetting that Cardiff was in Wales.

The full list of errors I'd somehow managed to make and now will correct are:

a) Getting the day wrong of Newcastle's 5-4 win against Cardiff (this occurred on Sunday, not Saturday)
b) Completely omitting any mention in either Round the Rinks or Double Overtime of Cardiff facing Newcastle at the Big Blue Tent on Saturday night (a game which, by the way, the Devils won 4-3 on penalties, so you'd have thought it was a pretty difficult game to miss)

and finally, in possibly the only EIHL error more horrific this weekend then Kevin St.Pierre letting in a goal from the opposite blue against Coventry, in the Sky game...

c) I said that Matej Kralj had scored against every "English" team he ever played against (the word should, of course, have been "British" or, avoiding offending national pride at all, "from the EIHL".

Many thanks to Gareth for not immediately organising a Welsh lynch-mob in order to come raging up to Coventry and show me the error of my ways (in fairness, it would have probably been deserved if he had done), but instead very nicely and calmly pointing out that I'd relocated the Welsh capital on the other side of the Severn Estuary as well as completely ignored the opening game of one of the Blaze's biggest rivals in my preview...I apologise to the Devils and their crowd and shall attempt to avoid making such amateur errors in future...:)

And that, short but sweet, is your Midweek Musings...

Double Overtime, September 7th,

2009-09-07T19:05:00.001+01:00

"we are, we are the shaken (shaken)
we are the monsters (monsters)
underneath your bed"

Matchbook Romance: "Monsters"

Now the regular season has officially begun, a few home truths have landed already as all the foibles that are hidden during the bright, glittery performances of the pre-season-and several of the teams haven't even played yet...so let's have a few reflections on the opening season as we look back at the opening weekend of the 2009/10 season proper...it might be a bit shorter than usual due to there only being six-games...

Chicken Little is a Coventry native: Saturday night's win against the Steelers thanks to a Greg Owen hat-trick saw the pre-season optimism in the West Midlands rise to ever greater heights, and going two-nil up against Nottingham inside ten minutes (including an absolutely horrific error from Kevin St Pierre for the second, in front of the Sky cameras as well-watch the coverage on Friday night for just how bad) only fuelled it even more. The four unanswered goals from Nottingham, on the other hand, punctured it like the last forlorn beach-ball of summer being popped with a pin. Even Adam Calder's crisp finish with two minutes to go didn't really help things much, and as the Panthers fans, travelling in some force due to the fact that they haven't become ridiculously bitter and disillusioned with their team yet this season, celebrated wildly at the sight of an empy netter, the moans were already beginning. "No defence. Toothless third line. Lack of effort...Help! The sky is falling. THE SKY IS FALLING!"

Even milk left out in the desert heat doesn't turn as quickly as some in the Skydome crowd. You get the sense that this team may be the kind that has Blaze fans doing so many U-turns they'll make themselves dizzy...

How to (apparently) win friends and influence people, Sean McMorrow style: Much has been written over the summer over Sean McMorrow, the Giants' new enforcer-but surely he must be the first player to actually (or hopefully, otherwise he really is stupider than even his most violent critics would give him credit for) attract an imposter on Facebook. A Sean McMorrow facebook page bearing his picture reportedly bore a status this morning of "Belfast suck ass, Nottingham are going to own the league this season" and continued with derogatory references to team-mate Mark Morrison. Given both the poor grammar and the poor spelling on this, it appears this is a (very, very) bad attempt to discredit him...although nice to see that the Panthers fans are, seemingly, not all the highly moral, upstanding bunch who can be found complaining at length on the Cage Forum about the behaviour of opposition fans. Usually after they've lost, or visited Coventry, for whom they reserve hatred even beyond that of Sheffield...

Meanwhile, on the ice: The Giants won one, lost one, being brushed aside by Nottingham on Saturday before squeaking past Hull on Sunday night...and have provoked Dave Simms, who saw neither game, to pipe up already that they have no chance of winning anything due to having a British goalie. I'm not sure the Giants should be written off just yet...

Snake-bite. Now not just a way to ruin Guinness:...but a headline that may be used more than once to describe a Vipers game. They beat Cardiff 5-4 on Saturday night, with Jason Tejchma having a dream debut and scoring twice, David Longstaff getting two more and Matej Kralj also getting off to a fine start in Vipers colours, continuing his run of scoring against every English team he's ever played against. The Devils contributed fully to the game themselves, but were just squeezed out...We'll see whether this one is a false dawn or not as the season progresses.

Panthers...well, they've started well at least...: No-one can deny that Nottingham looked very good indeed this weekend...against Coventry they took the early punches, blinked, and then went throught the Blaze time and again like a hot knife through butter. Many, many times. Marty Gascon in particular quietly stood out amongst the bells and whistles of his more illustrious team-mates, and could be one to watch throughout the rest of the season...

There you go...that's a streamlined view of the streamline opening weekend...

Round the Rinks, 4th September: The Return

2009-09-04T20:00:00.001+01:00

"Over the top, over the top...
Right now it's killing time..."
Bullet For My Valentine: "Scream, Aim, Fire"

"And here we go, life's waiting to begin
Life's waiting to begin"
Angels and Airwaves: "The Adventure"

I couldn't choose between an optimistic and menacing tone to set for the opening weekend of the season with the song lyrics at the beginning, as I liked them both...so in the end I thought you might as well have both...

It's a slightly fragmented start to the season, as only five games are taking place over the weekend (only two on Sunday), but three of them are stormers-let's look at the fixtures:

SATURDAY

Newcastle v Cardiff: The Vipers open against the Devils in what will be a tricky test for their opening game of the season-the two teams look to be playing a similar hard-working, gritty style this season, and you can bet that any Rob Wilson team, however widespread the denials, will never be far away if there's any rough-stuff taking place. Obviously, this early in the season, results are perhaps not a true barometer of teams' pedigree, but with the Vipers fanbase jaded from several seasons of mediocrity, their home team need to make a splash early, and given that the Devils will be one of their major competitors in the rush to break into the upper reaches of the table, both teams will be aware of the need to set a marker down as quickly as possible.

Sheffield v Coventry: Stormer number one of the weekend-last season's top two renew early acquaintances after sharing the honours in preseason play. The Blaze have looked impressive so far, but the Steelers are a team known for coming together as soon as things start to become important, and now have defensive rock Kevin Bolibruck in the country, a player who they lacked visibly in the preseason meetings. They more than any other team know that a Blaze win will send a message to the rest of the league that the champions aren't invincible this time round, while the Blaze know that if they win in the Hallam tonight and then beat Nottingham tomorrow (more of which game shortly) that will fire a very loud and very accurate warning shot across the bows of the good ship Elite League...

Nottingham v Belfast: Stormer number two. The league's two self-proclaimed offensive powerhouses meet in the NIC, in the Elite League equivalent of a pissing contest-full of sound, fury and boasting about firepower. However, there is a serious side to it-because both teams need to prove that their defences are up to keeping the offences of the rivals out-and taking on a huge offensive test in their first competetive games aren't a bad way to send comforting messages...

SUNDAY

Coventry v Nottingham: Stormer number three. There is no love lost between these two clubs after the "Team Hollywood" furore of last season, and the fanbases share what is, shall we say, a cordial dislike of each other. The pair of them are two of the most powerful teams in the EIHL, and, every time they meet, sparks fly. With both teams having possibly the toughest possible opening weekends they could (or at least the second-toughest), they will both know that this game, even early in the season, can go a long way to ensuring their Challenge Cup qualification...

Hull v Belfast: This one, meanwhile, is important for completely different reasons. With the Stingrays fanbase buzzing with a new hope after Sylvain Cloutier's summer recruitment drive has left his team looking stronger than it has done for several season, they will be looking at games like this one as games to savour rather than games to simply survive-especially as two points are looking far more of a possibility than for the Stingrays of yesteryear...the Giants, depending on the result of the game the night before, will either want to bounce back from a nasty loss or continue the momentum of a morale-boosting win in the NIC...

That's your weekend previewed...

Frozen Dreams Part IV: One Shining Moment

2009-09-03T00:30:00.000+01:00

"And this is the smile, that I've never shown before

Somebody shake me

Cause I, I must be sleeping"

Staind: "So Far Away"

As you may be able to tell if you've kept up with the story up until now, most of the major hockey moments in my life have happened in front of only a few thousand people, and pretty much all of them have involved the Blaze. However, we're going to step away from them now-in fact, they will play absolutely no part in this story beyond this point, except perhaps a brief background reference.

There have been some great moments in my hockey-watching life which haven't involved the Blaze or, in some cases, British teams-watching Evgeni Malkin playing live for Russia before he joined Pittsburgh, as the Russians warmed up for the Turin Olympics with a match against Germany at the Kolnarena while I was over there, supporting Germany and then taking part in an unofficial Germany-Russia street hockey game as (probably) the lone British import on the German side, through the concourses of Cologne-Deutz station, over a main road and back, streaming over the pedestrian footpath on the main Hohenzollern railway bridge (basically, the equivalent of a few players taking over Tower Bridge to shoot a puck or two) and out onto the banks of the Rhine, with the teams at about 300-a-side, anything from beer-cans to tennis balls being used as pucks and seeing a paralytically drunk Russian hurl himself full-length to stop a flying beer-can shot by one of his mates going through the window of a moving tram, for example (he stopped the shot and the traffic). Playing another game during the World Cup in Cologne main square which turned into a weird hybrid of football and hockey with a bunch of chanting Swedes, Poles, and Portugese was another one.

Or, closer to home, jamming home a loose puck from all of about six inches out in an empty Skydome to finally score a goal in a competitive game at my home rink-even though the place was empty, it was a rec game and only the players saw it, I still went ballistic in an outpouring of joy which included a weird "up on one leg, cocking a shotgun and firing" hybrid of a celebration (one I still use in the unlikely event of scoring) and had to be held up by a linemate as I nearly went over backwards.

All not bad nominees for "greatest moment", but surely my greatest hockey memory has to involve the Blaze, right?

Does it hell.

The greatest moment of my hockey life was this: Bill Lindsay scoring the overtime winner for Cologne against Dusseldorf in game 4 of the 2005/06 DEL playoff semi-finals.

A bit of background here: I'd moved to Germany at the beginning of that season, and Cologne were my nearest team. Being alone abroad, and having not really found that many friends at uni, the weekly train-journey from Aachen to Cologne, then the underground from Hauptbahnhof to Deutz, followed by the walk up the steps to purchase a ticket at the ticket window, became something of a ritual...it was bringing something of home with me, even if the colours and language were different. It helped that I made friends with a fair few Haie fans thanks to being able to speak fluent German, and given that I was becoming seriously disillusioned with British hockey (a process which just got worse when I came back, as you saw in part III), the Haie became more and more important to me.

I started watching games over there as a neutral, but got sucked in as the Haie (or Sharks, if you prefer English) began to band behind the killer instinct of Slovak sniper extraordinaire Ivan Ciernik, the blossoming young goalie Thomas Greiss (who is now in the San Jose Sharks system) and the crafty veterans Dave Mcllwain, Brad Schlegel and Alex Hicks (to the point where, when they came over to Coventry to play the Blaze as part of the Ahearne Cup, I supported the Sharks for that game just because it felt right due to various issues I had with the Blaze's treatment of me over certain things) and then came my first KEC-DEG game.

DEG are Dusseldorf Metro Stars, and anyone who's been anywhere near Germany knows that the rivalry between the two great Rheinland cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf, standing half-an-hour's journey from each other on the banks of the Rhein, is possibly one of the fiercest city-to-city battles in Europe. Think Manchester and Liverpool, only tripled...Dusseldorf is the capital of the state of Rheinland-Westfalen, while Cologne is the economic powerhouse and one of the culture capitals of Germany-it's the beautiful classical maiden to Dusseldorf's rugby-playing powerhouse of a modern businessman. Hatred of the other city isn't learned in the inhabitants of these two towns-it's fed to babies with their mother's milk. The Haie-Metrostars games are known as the "Rheinderby" and if you think the hype over each Sheffield-Nottingham game is bad, then look away-these games are bloodless wars on and off the ice-you get the sense that, as long as these games are won, any poor season can be forgiven.

It was the most unbelievable atmosphere I've ever experienced...words simply can't do it justice. Imagine the atmosphere at the EIHL Playoff Finals just before the first game, then multiply it by 17,000, and you've got the Koelnarena on derby day.

Now imagine that in playoff time (German playoff series are "best-of-five"), with the Haie 2-1 down and having to win to keep their season alive, and 17,000 people, including a thousand or so from just up the Rhein, holding their breath as the puck drops and hoping for the result to go their way.

What followed was 70 minutes of the greatest hockey I've ever seen. Bar none.

Cologne scored first through Alex Hicks, who had already announced his retirement at the end of the season.-every shift could now be his last, and boy, could you tell by the way he leapt high into the air in celebration as the puck hit the net. The first period ended 1-0 Cologne, before the momentum went back the other way as DEG pressure told, Chris Ferraro scored and the game was once again balanced on a knife edge. A blast from Stephane Julien moments later restored the home advantage, before the script went badly, badly wrong.

First, Hicks earned himself a game misconduct for a viciously hard hit on DEG's Alex Sulzer, which was not noticeably harder than any of the others flying in (every collision was a board-rattler that night), but was judged to be from behind-and so from now on, the continuation of his career rested on his team-mates. And they seemed to wilt under the pressure-Klaus Kathan and Andy Schneider, both German internationals, scoring in quick succesion with a bullet wrister and a rebound respectively to leave the Haie 20 minutes from elimination.

The third period was horrifically tense. First, elation as Eduard Lewandowski tipped in a Mcllwain pass to equalise. Then, despair as DEG were awarded a penalty shot thanks to a Metrostar being hauled down on a breakaway-the silence when Craig Johnson scored was bottomless-the celebrating DEG fans one tier above my place in the terracing behind the goal he scored it sounded like the laughter of ghosts in a deserted mansion.

The clock ticked, with the roaring of the Haie crowd ceaseless, like the thundering of a hurricane-tossed sea, but becoming tinted with more and more desperation...the clock ticked past 59 minutes, and people were praying in the stands...

Then, the puck went into the DEG zone yet again as the waves of red charged forward one last time, bounced, found the stick of Brad Schlegel, and was propelled like a rocket into Trefilov's pads-it came out and the hopes of a city sat on the stick of Bill Lindsay as he found himself with an inch of space and got to the puck just as goalie Andrei Trefilov dived...and poked it home.

Bedlam. Utter, total, complete bedlam. The ghosts across the river in the cathedral must have stirred in their sleep at the roar of complete, mindless joy which nearly lifted the roof off the Koelnarena. We were going to overtime...

A season resting on every pass, every shot, every check. You don't know the tension until you've lived it, and I did that night...when Lewandowski broke away, the air seemed to be sucked out of the rink as the crowd held their breath, only to be expelled in a primal roar of anger as he, too was pulled down from behind.

Oh. My. God. Penalty shot. In overtime. For Cologne.

Jan Alinc was the man chosen to take it. And, unbelievably, he fanned on the shot. This game had more twists and turns than the Stelvio Pass...

Back and forth the game went, before it ended in a single, glorious second right in front of me, when this happened. I was stood at ice-level, right behind where Mike Pellegrins loses the puck, and as Lindsay scored I thought the roof had come off the Koelnarena, as I joined in with and was lost without trace in a hurricane of noise which the tape simply doesn't do justice to. Sometimes, in quiet moments, I can replay the whole scene in my mind as it unfolded in front of me. And I am certain that, this time, the ghosts in the cathedral woke up and roared with us.

Unfortunately, time has dulled my ability to summon back anything close to the emotion of how I felt at that precise moment, but it's not an exaggeration to say that (and I remember the words I used even if I can't remember the feeling itself) I felt like I was lifted up on the shoulders of the hockey gods. Nothing before or since has come close to the extremes of emotion I felt in that game. Nothing. And I don't think anything in hockey ever will.

And, in some ways, that's sad. But I look at it this way as I travel to every Blaze game with part of me in a ceaseless hoping to get a feeling close to it, and respond the same way to those who say "once you've felt something like that, everything else is a disappointment"...even if you shoot for the moon and miss, you'll land among the stars..."

So keep searching...and one day, it might be your turn for a piggyback on the shoulders of the Gods...in the meantime, I'll keep looking, hoping to get my chance at another ride, however brief. Although this time, I hope it's my home-town team that gets me there...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...Round the Rinks to come later...

Serious Playtime...

2009-09-02T21:39:00.003+01:00

"My knuckles have turned to white
There's no turning back tonight
(so hold on tight)"
Underoath: "It's a Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door"

Pre-season is done. The teams are back on the ice, the imports are arriving, and the acquaintances have been made and re-made in the stands. With Hull winning the P+O Cup up on Humberside, beating Nottingham and Tilburg to do so, Coventry coming through their pre-season unbeaten and looking very impressive indeed (particularly new signings Peter Hirsch, Luke Fulghum and, believe it or not, Derek Campbell, looking more like the skilled power-forward who made such an impression at Manchester rather than one-half of the carnival-sideshow act he became at Newcastle alongside Andre Payette), and Sheffield taking on Nottingham this evening in the official Elite League curtain-raiser, the Charity Shield, the time for mucking around, half-measures and still getting to know your team-mates is over. Admittedly, I've not seen half the teams in the EIHL, having been limited to what's gone on in Coventry, Cardiff and Sheffield (although, if you want a finely-written insight into Hull and Nottingham's pre-season preparations, then have a gander at the F-Block Blog). So, some (limited) first impressions of the teams seen so far:

Cardiff's big line is shaping up to be more of an anticlimax then expected. So far: Mark Smith looks somewhat off the pace, Max Birbraer is big and ugly as ever, but not quite fit, and Matt Miller is committed but a bit rusty. I hope for the Devils' sake this is little more than pre-season cobwebs, otherwise the pre-season foreshadows a much bleaker season than many in Cardiff are hoping for.

Brad Voth is...well, still Brad Voth: And this, whether you're a Cardiff fan looking for someone to drive your team forward or an opposition fan looking for a hate-figure, is no bad thing.

Brian Lee, defenceman of the year. You heard it here first: Yes, I may be a little biased, but Blaze's big American blue-liner, instantly recognisable thanks to hair that would be more at home in a mosh-pit than on the ice, is a hard-skating, positionally-sound d-man who can go both ways with equal ease. And if he keeps hitting the way he has been so far, expect him to become one of the most hated d-men in the league if you're an opposition fan-the man goes through opposition forwards like a runaway freight train through a collection of Ming vases. Seriously. It would appear his dial is set not so much to "check" as "attempt to wipe from existence". Watching him battle with the likes of Dominic D'Amour, Cameron Mann et al is one of the tastiest sub-plots of Sunday's meeting with the Panthers...and any time you feel the air in a rink begin to crackle when a player steps onto the ice, as is already the case when #5 crosses the boards at the Skydome, you think "hang on a minute...this could be fun"...

If you're a betting fan, then here's a dark-horse: Luke Fulghum, Elite League top scorer, 2009/10.

Be afraid, Sheffield: The Steelers appear to have stood still this off-season...they're still a very good team, but there will be more than one better than them if all teams play to their potential this season...although, as I write this, they have just beaten Nottingham 7-6, after a ridiculous number of penalty shots...defence clearly not considered important by either team on this early showing.

It's a very, very different Hull this season: For a start, they've won something already. Granted, it's only a pre-season trophy, but even so...there is a real, real buzz on Humberside

Greg Chambers will only be popular as long as the Blaze are winning: Wonderful, wonderful passer, and when he's interested, you can see just why he's one of the premier players in the league...the man has skill and vision to burn. But, like Sylvain Deschatelets, inclined to disappear for periods at a time compared to his linemates-and given that Deschatelets was roundly disliked for such a tendency last season, it'll be interesting to see what happens if he or the Blaze hit a slump in form...When they're Greg Owen and Luke Fulghum, though, you only need to make one or two crucial passes a period, and you have a good chance of a multi-point game.

Jason Robinson can read minds: OK, that's pushing it, but based on the pre-season the big Canadian has reached an even higher level than that which made him one of the stand-out d-men in London and popular wherever he's played-people have been claiming he's slow but, when your positioning is as good as his is, being beaten for speed is much less of a worry than it might have otherwise been.

Nottingham just might have something this year: Demolishing Tilburg 11-3 in the first game many of their players have played together? The talent is clearly there...can Corey Neilson finally mould it into a team, and will the "concede five but score six" approach finally work this year?

Nothing gets more of a welcome than a former enemy becoming a friend: The roar that Derek Campbell got when introduced on his Skydome debut is testimony to that...compared to that, the albeit-still-enthuastic reception given to the other players was about the same size, relatively, as a fart to a tornado...

There you go...a few pre-season reflections...Limited they may be, somewhat biased towards Coventry they may also be, but the appetite for the beginning of the serious stuff on Saturday is now well and truly whetted.

Tomorrow will see part IV of Frozen Dreams appear in the evening, while Friday afternoon/early evening sees the return of Round the Rinks as the season starts in earnest...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Watching and Waiting

2009-09-01T15:34:00.002+01:00

"I've been watching
I've been waiting
In the shadows
For my time"
The Rasmus: "In The Shadows"

I haven't gone away. The silence is simply due to the fact that I'm keeping an eye on the whole pre-season (Coventry's ends against Cardiff at the Skydome this evening) before commenting on it.

Expect (finally) something new around Wednesday evening. And apologies to those few of you who've been waiting...

PW's Fourth Annual Season Preview!

2009-08-22T14:15:00.000+01:00

"I gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good night
That tonight's gonna be a good, good night"
Black Eyed Peas: "I Gotta Feeling"

Here we go then. Last night, the 2009/10 hockey season officially began, as Coventry took on Sheffield up north in the first game of the pre-season, drawing 4-all. From now until April, the pain of hockey withdrawal will be but a memory, as it slowly feeds back into the weekend routine all over the country.

It's been a long, hot, summer, but, at last, autumn is no longer a few flips of the calendar away.

And so, naturally, it's time for a late-summer tradition on the Breakaway...PW's team-by-team EIHL Season Preview. Now into its fourth year, you know the drill by now...every team gets a song, and we break them down.

Buckle up, and let's hop on for season six in EIHL City...

Belfast Giants
"It's all you wanted to know, that I'm as fragile as you"
Racing Kites: "Hands Against the Sky"

The Giants are an enigma this time out. Their offensive power looks, quite frankly, terrifying on paper, and their defence looks like a solid-but-effective unit which will give more than enough protection to Stephen Murphy, a goalie who won game after game by himself for Manchester last season.

So, they're going to be the champions. End of preview...

Except it isn't. Normally, when writing this I have a fairly clear idea of what I think about each team-and a fairly clear idea of what type of song lyric I'm looking for. But when I look at the Giants team, so many questions and voices fill my head, a doctor would probably have legitimate grounds for suspecting schizophrenia...

"Can Stephen Murphy lead the Giants to a title, and disprove the "Brit Goalie Postulate" that you need an import to win the EIHL? How will the Giants cope with his absence?"

"Is Tom Walsh all he's cracked up to be, since one review called him "the worst player ever to play in the (Finnish) SM-Liiga?"

"Sean McMorrow-useful third-line winger or hired thug on skates?"

"Pat Bateman and Brandon Benedict...are they tough enough?"

"That defence...is it seriously weakened without Dave Phillips?"

"Will the money hold?"

We can speculate all we like (and doubtless Giants fans have answers prepared for each and every one of these questions already). However, I don't. And anywhere there are more questions then answers lies suspicion that something, somewhere, just isn't quite right. Or, alternatively...if you think it's too good to be true, it probably is.

It's going to be an interesting season in Belfast...

Key Player: Tom Walsh: Heralded as arguably the top defensive signing in the league this season by his PR, Walsh looks like the kind of defensive leader the Giants will need to keep Stephen Murphy protected. Along with Michael Jacobsen, he's the player Steve Thornton hopes will be the defensive rock to build his team on. If he isn't, and the doubters are right, then Murphy could face more rubber than he (and the Giants) have bargained for.

Player to Watch: Pierre-Luc Faubert: The speedy French-Canadian has already had the label "best forward in the league" pinned on him by some Giants fans. However, given that he has similar stats to Dan Carlson in Coventry, one thinks that the Blaze centre (and quite a few others) will have something to say about that. Faubert will have to prove himself. And quickly.

Unsung Hero: Graeme Walton: A strange pick, you might think. But Walton has quickly developed into one of the premier British defencemen not just in the EIHL, but anywhere...his steadying influence on the blue means that Jacobsen and Walsh will not be expected to carry the defence single-handed. Walton does the simple things defensively, and little more (he'll never burn up the points charts). However, he does them as well as any other defenceman, import or Brit, in the league. And that's what makes him so valuable.

Prediction: 3rd

Cardiff Devils
"I’ll start this broken heart
I’ll fix it up so it will work again
Better than before"
Motion City Soundtrack: "Broken Heart"

Poor Devils. Again and again they look promising early season, and again and again their season is ruined by injuries. However, last time out saw genuine progress off-ice, with the acquisition of the Devils by Comms Direct owner Matt Burge and his subsequent efforts off the ice turning the Devils into arguably the most professional organisation in British hockey. This off-season has begun to bear the fruits, as the Devils have signed an exciting-looking roster based on a mix of continuity on defence (Scott Romfo and Mark Richardson join Wes Jarvis, Jason Stone and Mike Hartwick to form a unit with both size and skill-Richardson in particular appears to be fast progressing towards challenging Jon Weaver as the best British offensive defenceman, while Romfo is a proven winner at his former clubs), finding the right blend of speed and power on the forward lines and bringing back some proven quality in Max Birbraer and the mercurial playmaking skills of Mark Smith. Pairing them with the speedy Matt Miller on the top line, who impressed last season in his brief spell with Basingstoke, has created arguably one of the most dangerous lines in the league.
Although there are questions about the Devils' scoring below the top line, and also whether Stevie Lyle in net is good enough for a title challenge, players of the calibre of Jay Latulippe and Brad Voth can't be discounted in the points column either, while Ben Davies is an exciting youngster and Tylor Michel providing the import grit on line three-and with the passionate Welsh crowd roaring them on and the club going from strength to strength off-ice, the future looks brighter than it has for a while in South Wales.

Key Player: Brad Voth: You could have picked any one of five or six for this slot, but in the end you have to go with the Devils captain, who is as close to a genuine franchise player as this league has. Where he leads, the Devils follow-usually full-tilt into battle...he is the heart-and-soul of his team...and, often forgotten, can play a bit too...

Player to Watch: Mark Smith: Arguably the best pure playmaking centre of the EIHL era (although Dan Tessier and Dan Carlson may have something to say about that) the slightly-built Canadian, when he's on his game, is an absolute dream to watch-skilful, fast and utterly, utterly clinical in front of goal.

Unsung Hero: Tylor Michel: New to the UK, Michel is described as the perfect pest-a grinding winger who will be expected to get into the opposition's heads almost as fast as he chases down opposition d-men. If he plays this role effectively, particularly on home ice, then he and Brad Voth will make the space and time for Smith, Birbraer and Miller to do their work...

Prediction: 5th

Coventry Blaze

"This time, baby, I'll be bullet-proof..."

La Roux: "Bulletproof"

Here we go then...the Breakaway's (unbiased) view of the 2009/10 Coventry Blaze. This, for obvious reasons, was a tricky one to write...

After a season considered disappointing by many in the West Midlands last season, this Blaze roster, at first glance, is one that will definitely excite the demanding (although I'm not sure "demanding" is a strong enough word for a fan-base that can consider finishing second in the Elite League a "disappointment") Skydome crowd. After the problems experienced last season in replacing the likes of Martin, Koenig and Cloutier, Paul Thompson has stuck with proven Elite League players in the main as he looks to correct the frailties in last season's roster, even though the roster has a significant number of new-to-Coventry names on it. Luke Fulghum and Greg Chambers join from the departing Basingstoke and Manchester squads, with Chambers' ex-team-mate Greg Owen's return from France boosting the GB contingent. An interesting storyline in the early-season will be that of Derek Campbell-as one of the players the Skydome crowd used to, shall we say, "welcome the most heartily" when he appeared for Newcastle and Manchester, he may have a job to win over certain sections of the Blaze crowd-but if he does, it'll be in spectacular fashion. At the back, the emphasis has markedly shifted toward the physical, with the big and immensely popular (except with opposition forwards and fans) Jason Robinson returning to the UK and looking like the defensive leader already, alongside new American d-man Brian Lee (no shrinking violet himself at 6'2 and 210lbs), and returnees Jon Weaver and Matty Soderstrom.

The signing that caused the most buzz, however, was that in net, as Danish international Peter Hirsch joins from Aalborg, probably about eight months later than he should have in the opinion of many Blaze fans. Financial issues meant JF Perras was temporarily reprieved from being replaced by the Dane in January, but Thompson has now got his man, and with a pedigree of the highest order Hirsch (who gave an extremely enjoyable interview to the Breakaway back in May outlining his aims for the season) should be the potential title-winning goalie all teams need...

Key Man: Peter Hirsch: Like Cardiff, a few players could have filled this slot, but after the struggles of JF Perras last season and the excitement caused by his signing this time round, few would argue that many see the Danish goalie as the key to the team this year. Goalies win you games, and games win you championships, after all.

Player to Watch: Luke Fulghum: Unforgivably, in last season's preview I picked Kyle Bruce ahead of the right winger from Colorado. Rave reviews from every Manchester fan I've spoken to, a shedload of points and being the crucial cog in the Beauregard/Hand/Fulghum line which gave the Phoenix arguably the most complete top line in the league proved how wrong I was. Fulghum is little short of a big, fast-skating, skilful beast-from-dman's-nightmare of a right-winger, who can do it all, and, last year in Manchester, frequently did.

Unsung Hero: Danny Stewart: I know this section is somewhat forward-heavy, but the little winger with the huge heart from Fort McMurray, Alberta will never, ever stop skating, harrying or puck-chasing until you pry the shaft of his Warrior Mac Daddy stick from his cold, dead hands. He will play on both forward and defence where necessary, and in his time at the Blaze, he's been involved in the vast majority of "big" goals and scored quite a few himself-the overtime winner against Manchester last season in the epic 7-6 game was just the latest in a long line.

Prediction: It may be biased, it may rebound horribly, but 1st.

Edinburgh Capitals
"We'll start a fire
And burn some bridges
And make it out of here tonight"
Funeral For a Friend: "Escape Artists Never Die"

What's going on in Edinburgh? The Capitals (although, at the point I write this, they’re still lacking a starting goalie and a few signings) have made huge strides this off-season, seemingly deciding that if they can’t beat the Elite League big-boys in the politics, they may as well join them. Signings such as Simon Lambert, Chris Allen on defence and latest acquisition Owen Fussey have well and truly put them on the map. Unfortunately, due to their roster being incomplete I can’t consider them in the same way I have all the other teams…so let’s look at what they do have.

In defence, with the likes of Ben O’Connor and the aforementioned Allen, as well as Scotland’s own “face only a mother could love” winner in Kyle Horne, the Caps look tighter, more organised and just plain better than they have in a long while-Michael Beynon will never win any scoring awards but he and Horne will allow O’Connor and Allen to flex their offensive muscle.

Up front is where things get interesting, though, with Fussey and Lambert competing for the title of “this year’s Cap who makes a massive impact on the scoring charts”, won previously by Colin Hemingway and Mark Hurtubise, while Martin Cingel, Darius Pliskauskas and Mark Garside provide useful scoring depth, and not forgetting the giant Doug Christiansen, who can pop more than a few in himself if the need arises…

And then there’s the carnival sideshow that is Andrew Sharp, which, if nothing else, guarantees Caps games will be entertaining…

With more signings to come, it’s difficult to work out just where the Caps will finish, but assuming they’re at a similar standard…I think they’ll occupy their usual mid-to-lower-playoff birth, but improvement all the time could see that made a mockery of. For the purposes of this though, and only because they lack a starting goalie, they occupy bottom. That could change very quickly.

Prediction: 8th

Hull Stingrays

"I don't blame you for walking away

I'd do the same if I saw me
I swear it's not contagious
In four short steps we can erase this"

Alkaline Trio: "This Could Be Love"

Step one: fire Rick Strachan. Two seasons two late, but better late than never, always.

Step two: bring in a proven winner and Coventry Blaze legend as player-coach, who just happens to be one of the best two-way centres ever seen in this country, including the ISL era.

Step three: let him recruit one of the most lethal snipers of the EIHL era, retain the best of last year and build a roster that has people well and truly raising their eyebrows.

Step four: simmer, allow the sheer force of Sylvain Cloutier's will to win to mould the disparate ingredients into an exciting-looking Stingrays side, built on hard work, grit and one very, very good top line, and serve.

The Stingrays could surprise a few people this season, including their own fans, with just how far such a recipe could take them:

Key Man: Tommy Sandahl: The young Scandinavian, in his first starting job, simply has to be a good ‘un, and hit the ground running right out of the blocks. The Stingrays now have scoring power and a decent defence, but they don’t have the offensive punch to outscore the top teams, and so that’s where Sandahl comes in. Keep ‘em out, and the Stingrays, if they follow the lead of their player-coach Cloutier, will always, always have a chance.

Player to Watch: Konstantin Kalmikov: The Russian now has the perfect complement to his passing skills on the top line in sniper extraordinaire Curtis Huppe, and a centre who will win the puck time and again in Cloutier. He’ll have to create the chances for these two, though-if Huppe has no ammo, he can’t fire off those deadly quick shots of his. All that and contribute goals too? If that top line are to be successful, a lot rests on Kalmikov’s shoulders…

Unsung Hero: Jeff Glowa: A Stingrays institution now, Glowa will work hard all night, and then, if necessary, through the following day to give his team a chance to win. If no-one else does, though, he’s been known to score more than a couple himself as well…

Prediction: 7th

Newcastle Vipers

"Staring at my own reflection

when suddenly, it changes

Violently, it changes ..."

Disturbed: "Down With The Sickness"

It’s been an off-season of huge change in the North-East. With Rob Wilson stating his intention to move away from the Slapshot hockey we’ve come to know and…well, know from the Vipers, this year’s roster sports a very different look to the previous ones, built on speed and grit rather than just brute force. The defence, in particular, will need to be good with Michel Robinson behind them-a goalie who splits opinion between “good” and “absolutely bloody awful” solidly in half. With players like Mike Berry, Tyler Kindle and Ryan Mahrle coming in, and very few players remaining from last season’s team, the next bit is hard to predict-but I shall try:

Key Man: Matus Petricko: As a proven scorer in the EIHL, the Slovak will be expected to contribute hugely to the Vipers goal column, potentially alongside Slovenian Matej Kralj-if the two Eastern Europeans can form an understanding then it will take pressure off the likes of Mike Berry and Jason Tejchma, as well as perennial talisman David Longstaff.

Player to Watch: Jerramie Domish: 5’9 and 200lbs, this pocket-battleship will be expected to lead the Vipers defence, hitting, blocking shots and contributing at both ends. An AHL pedigree suggests he can do that-with Ryan Mahrle, Mark Gouett and Tyler Kindle also joining him, the Vipers’ import D, and their ability to stop shots going in on Michel Robinson in net, could be the key to their season.

Unsung Hero: Ben Campbell: The young Geordie is progressing in leaps and bounds-and boundless is a fine way to describe his energy on the ice. Scared of nothing and possessed of no little skill, he’s an often-un-noticed but valuable asset to his team.

Prediction: 6th

Nottingham Panthers

"I know I’m not

The best decision

(the best decision)

But take a chance now..."

Handshakes and High-Fives: "Maybe Next Time"

The Panthers are impossible to write a preview for, every single year. One wonders how a team that looks pretty damn good every season can be so, well, average. Their problem last time out, and a common one under Corey Neilson, was that once again they appeared to be a loosely-connected group of talented individuals who just happened to be wearing the same shirt, rather than..well, an actual team. The latest incarnation of the GMB Panthers, however, appears, once again, to be similar, although they do have the massive benefit of Bruce Richardson, who like him or despise him is a pint-sized version of Sylvain Cloutier in his drive and will to win. The big news of the off-season was the signing of Cameron Mann from the DEL, but in all the excitement over this, the return of Richardson and Kevin Bergin, and some pretty solid D signings, the dodgy bits of trivia that keep popping up whenever you look at the roster get forgotten. For example:

Kevin St.Pierre lost his job in Tulsa last season to...erm...Davis Parley. Yes, that's ex-Panthers, cut-by-them-for-being-rubbish-mid-season Davis Parley.

Danny Meyers is expected to be one of their offensive forces on D. Yes, Danny Meyers, who even some Panthers fans think is way over-rated.

If Kevin St.Pierre gets injured, their back-up is Mark Hartley, who was considered a bit dodgy at ENL level. Pray he doesn't, Panthers fans.

Of course, there are many positives about this Panthers roster, not least the return of Sean McAslan from Denmark, giving the East Midlanders a genuine one-two punch, especially if Marty Gascon is a (very) poor-man's Dan Tessier, as he appears to be, Dominc D'Amour is as good as reported on defence, and Jade Galbraith actually puts the effort in this time round as he's promised (he wasn't too shabby a sniper even not trying). But the questions are still there...

Key Man: Bruce Richardson: The Panthers centre won a lot of friends in Nottingham last season for his ability to seemingly carry the team on his back and drag them up to the level of play expected of them through sheer force of will last time out. This time round, he's got players around him who are used to expectation, and have dealt with crowds far more demanding than those in Nottingham. Can the little centre lead the Panthers to a title?

Player to Watch: Jade Galbraith: WHAT? No Cameron Mann or Sean McAslan?! You must be out of your mind, I hear you cry.

Then you remember that, just occasionally, despite being roundly derided for being fat, lazy and slow, Galbraith looked like a very, very good sniper indeed. In fact, despite being relentlessly mocked for having more meat on him than a barbequed elephant, he scored 74 points, and has since openly admitted that he...well, could have tried a little harder than he did. Which, if true, is a frightening prospect, especially as he'll be alongside the aforementioned Mann and McAslan, who are pretty damn good themselves.

Just how good can this guy get? We shall see.

Unsung Hero: Nick Toneys: Last season Toneys was all but unnoticeable, unless you were an opposition forward. Then, his calm defensive play and superb sense of positioning were very noticeable indeed, mainly because it stopped you scoring yet again.

With players like Dominic D'Amour and Corey Neilson around him again, expect Toneys to keep on keeping on in his usual quiet, effective fashion this season.

Prediction: 2nd

Sheffield Steelers
"And I know that we've still got time

But I do not think we're invincible"

Enter Shikari: "Juggernauts"

The big signing news from Sheffield this summer is...well, that there's been no big signing news. The Steelers roster only contains a few new faces, as Ben Morgan steps up from the Scimitars to replace Steve Munn, Rod Sarich moves to forward, and Jeff Hutchins comes in from Newcastle. Even their big import signing was a familiar face, as Kevin Bolibruck returns on defence. Their biggest signing, in fact, was in net, as Kevin Reiter makes the trip up from Basingstoke based on his rave reviews last season...however, it remains to be seen how he'll cope in following in the footsteps of one of, if not the best goalie of the EIHL era in Jody Lehman...Rob Dowd will be hoping for another banner season to cement his place as the heir-apparent to Tony Hand, especially now Ashley Tait has disappeared off to foreign (Italian) shores. But it's very much a case of evolution not revolution again in Yorkshire-time will tell if it's as effective as last season...especially with the improvement across the league

Key Man: Kevin Bolibruck: With Steve Munn gone, the defensive unit needs a leader, and Bolibruck is it. He was possibly the best defenceman in the EIHL's first season last time he was here, and with a career that's gone from strength to strength in Europe since then, "Boli" will have the hopes of Dave Matsos pinned on him to help mould the defensive unit into the same stingy and remorselessly effective template as that which served him so well last season

Player To Watch: Rod Sarich: Already viewed as one of the best offensive d-men of the EIHL era, Sarich now moves forward full-time to provide the Steelers with a genuine power-forward-sized winger. The question is-is he a genuine forward?

If this experiment works, Sarich could quickly become a very effective forward indeed. If it doesn't, then the Steelers will need to move him back to his accustomed position quickly, before the hole he's left on defence impacts their title challenge significantly.

Unsung Hero: Doug Sheppard: Often forgotten in the blare of publicity focused on super-snipers Joey Talbot and Jeff Legue, Sheppard is a very effective, hard working winger who provides the Steelers with a genuine threat in all situations-he'll very rarely be out-worked and makes valuable contributions in the points column despite rarely receiving the fanfare of his more illustrious colleagues.

Prediction: 5th

So, the final table reads thus...

Blaze

Panthers

Giants

Devils

Steelers

Stingrays

Vipers

Capitals

Cup Winners: Any of the top five.

Playoff Winners: Pick one from eight...it's simply too early to tell.

I admit that the bias may seem blinding in putting the Blaze at the top, but I genuinely believe they have ever so slightly more than the Panthers thanks to Peter Hirsch. Giants will push hard for the top two places but losing Stephen Murphy for the early part of the season could hurt them, while Kevin Reiter may be Steelers' Achilles heel behind the offensive power and defensive solidity of the Devils. The bottom three, quite frankly, are a lottery...I put Stingrays over Vipers purely based on the Vipers having Michel "rebound-king" Robinson in net, while the Caps are bottom for no other reason than them currently lacking a starting goalie.

I do predict, however, that this league will be very close indeed, with first and eighth separated by no more than twenty points.

The 09/10 EIHL season...it's going to be the best yet. Let's drop the puck...

It's Coming...

2009-08-21T17:23:00.003+01:00

...honest. The season preview will be up in the next few hours...check around seven-thirty...

And sorry it's late...

Calm Before the Storm

2009-08-19T17:45:00.003+01:00

"motivate the situation

comprehend my intuition

understand the bigger plan"

Halo Friendlies: "Don't Let Me Down"

I know it's a bit quiet today and will be on Thursday...but that's because PW's Spanking New Fourth Annual Season Preview is in the works for Friday morning, as well as the Blaze section of the season preview over at The Cat's Whiskers and another instalment of Frozen Dreams to appear in the next week or two-so there is a lot of activity going on under the surface, honest.

But while we're waiting for that, the fruits of which will start to bloom on Friday, let's graze on the tidbits of EIHL news that have been floating around recently to feed your starving eyes...mostly involving Edinburgh:

Edinburgh sign Andrew Sharp...:...and one of the major reasons, Doug Christiansen says, is to get people talking about Edinburgh. Judging by a thirteen-page forum thread on THF which is still running even now-I'd say he's done that.

...and Owen Fussey...: Now, Fussey is good. Very good. A big power-forward who has four games in the NHL and has never played lower than ECHL or comparable (Italy last year), the British-passport-holder (a fact which I'm sure has made Paul Thompson prick up his ears), he's the "sweetener" to the very sour taste that signing Andrew Sharp will leave in a fan's mouth. His stats are here.

..and Simon Lambert: ..., from the CHL, who, reportedly, will be the quickest forward in the league. I'm expecting, for those of you who remember him, a Patric Lochi for the EIHL era. And a fan favourite in Edinburgh in the making.

Now, all they need is a decent goalie...

Hocktoberfest!: Despite the awful name, the idea of having all EIHL teams appear in action at one venue in a single day is an awesome, exciting one. And it's happening in Sheffield on October 4th, as the EIHL introduce a new competition. The Breakaway is already looking at live-blogging it...more on this to come next week..

I know that's very quick indeed...and there may well be a fair amount of news I've missed or will only touch on (including Cardiff's new sponsorship deal) but that's simply due to stuff piling up. I apologise to those teams, players and signings I've not considered...

Check back on Friday, though...the season preview will be done and up. And, that, you can guarantee, will be more comprehensive than a whole island's worth of secondary schools...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Frozen Dreams, Part III: Hockey Soup For The Soul

2009-08-18T12:16:00.000+01:00

"So dear, dear Katie
What have you done lately?
I've heard it's all gone wrong."
James Blunt: "Dear Katie"

"...but you and I...we know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there"
Rachael Yamagata: "The Reason Why"

"even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through"
All-American Rejects: "Move Along"

The last part of Frozen Dreams dealt with the beginning of my first (and so far only) "proper" relationship with a girl. And this one, following the rules of logic and also the eternal truth that "all good things come to an end" will deal with the end of it. Not directly-it didn't actually end at a hockey game or anything like that (which is perhaps a small mercy-after all, it's bad enough to have your heart casually tossed into a dustbin when you're by yourself, never mind when you think a few hundred or even a few thousand people might be aware that here is someone who is, to use the so-cruel-but-so-apt phrase, being dumped, in public.)

Although, amusingly and perhaps somewhat weirdly, hockey did manage to find its way into my life even at the very moment I was being dumped, given that it happened outside the Coventry Skydome (which had become our meeting-place given that we spent so much time there during the season, when I wasn't in Germany) and the painful "here's anything of yours I've still got" moment had hockey overtones, given that even this moment saw her hand me back, amongst other things, a Marc Lefebvre replica white jersey (which she'd bought for me the previous Christmas). I no longer have that jersey-it ended its days a few months later on a bonfire in the back garden after I, fuelled by a mix of one of the rare times I've ever drunk too much alcohol and miserableness, decided that there was simply no way I could keep it).

That last sentence may have given you some sort of clue as to my general state of mind entering the 06/07 hockey season. I'd just come back from a year in Germany, lost my girlfriend literally days afterwards (wonderful timing on her part-it might have had something to do with the rumours that she'd been less than faithful while I'd been away, but hockey-rinks are the kind of place where everybody knows everybody and so the whispers floating around really didn't help much), and after the bitter infighting and arguments which had taken place amongst the Blaze fans and God only knows what else, I'd come within an ace of taking a year off. Hockey was, to all intents and purposes, ruined for me.

Yup. Autumn 06 was not a good time for your friendly blog-writer, folks.

And so, come the first game of the new season, I had to, for the first time ever, force myself down to the rink. As for the game itself? The team, the league and indeed anything to do with the sport were the furthest thing from my mind.

I went through the first few months on autopilot...which was a shame given that the Blaze had Danny Stewart, Jon Weaver, Sylvain Cloutier and Neal Martin tearing up the ice in front of us, as well as Reid Simonton throwing hits left, right and centre and an exciting battle with Belfast for the top of the league.

However, come March, and me possibly at my lowest point-even to the level where a Challenge Cup demolition of Sheffield and finally coming out on top in the league race against Belfast barely registered a flicker, the playoff quarter-final against Newcastle was the last game of a season that had almost passed me by.

Most Blaze fans remember that rainy March night due to the amazing Blaze comeback after Newcastle had gone 3-0 up inside ten minutes, capped by Ashley Tait scoring an overtime winner that was almost the exact double of his playoff-winning goal in Nottingham. I remember it for a different reason.

I'd turned up more out of duty than anything else-after all, the feeling was worry given that the Vipers had won the night before, so nothing less than a victory would do-and when Longstaff, Weaver, Morgan and Payette put the Vipers firmly in the driving seat so that the end of the first period was a time for bitter recriminations in the crowd.

Then came the fightback. Over the next two periods, the Blaze played with a fervour and passion that even penetrated my frozen consciousness, so, for the first time in ages, I found myself actually caring about a hockey game again, yelling encouragement, heckling and generally getting back to the way I'd been when not wallowing in the depths of a broken heart. Although, even then, every time Newcastle went forward I feared that they's score again and bring me back down to the depths of despair.

But they kept scoring. 4-1 (Martin). 4-2 (Cloutier). 4-3 (Stewart). 4-4 (I can't remember the scorer, worryingly) and suddenly, OT beckoned.

And then, Ashley Tait went through, beat Ladi Kudrna again in the same way as in Nottingham, and the crowd roared with a pure, primal, unhinged bellow that contained a mixture of relief, joy and just a hint of madness. And, for the first time in a long, long while, my voice yelled along with them.

And, a year after a nasty break-up, at the end of a year in which I'd fallen well and truly out of love with hockey and indeed life in general, that split-second was the exact, pinpointed moment when, finally, the healing of the wounds caused by the death of first love, and also the tearing-away between me and hockey in my soul, began. And, to a small degree, it might still be the reason I'm watching today...just in the hope of more moments like that.

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Gains and Losses

2009-08-11T11:55:00.005+01:00

"Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock..."

Gwen Stefani: "What You Waiting For?"

"Tricked me once, but I won't let you trick me twice..."

Kelis: "Trick Me".

Before part three of Frozen Dreams, which'll be following tomorrow, let's have a quick look at the news, which has been somewhat neglected on here recently, starting with more signings in Edinburgh, and moving on to problems in Sheffield which couldn't really come at a worse time as the countdown ticks on towards the start of the season..

Capitals sign Martin Cingel and Mark Smith: Edinburgh are slowly building a roster which just might bring a whiff of the glory days back to Murrayfield, depending on their final signings. Their adopted Scot from Slovakia, Martin Cingel, returns for his eighth season in Capitals colours, joined by useful Lithuanian forward Darius Pliskauskas, who returns for his second spell in the Scottish capital and possibly has the best song in the Elite League ("Super-cali-fragilistic, Darius Plis-kau-skas!") just edging out his team-mate's "Cingel Bells"...

Mark Smith, meanwhile, is an ex-CHL defenceman who looks like a strong addition to the Caps' defensive core, even if he may spend the season in the shadow of the very exciting looking Chris Allen in the skilful d-man stakes...

Matus Petricko signs for Vipers:...alongside Michel Robinson in net. Aye well, if they have a defence worth its salt, Robinson should be a just-about-safe pair of hands..and Petricko is a proven player in this league after spells in Newcastle, Cardiff and Nottingham...

Steelers Screwed:...by Eurologix, their title sponsor until a week ago, after the ex-Telford sponsors pulled out without warning. This has caused a spectacular mix of schadenfreude and much hand-wringing on the forums, mainly over how bad it is that it's happened twice. Of course, you get some league zealots on both sides trying to put the "see, people only care when it's a big-league/the EIHL will eat itself now" arguments, which quite frankly are tired, repetitive and if nothing else, bloody boring to read every time anything happens with any club in either league. They're now the Field Electrical Steelers as mentioned last week...

Nope, no typo there:...not the Sheffield Steelers-as officially any semblance to a place-name has been dropped by the Yorkshire club. All I shall say about this, not being a Steelers fan but well aware of the need for an identity for sports teams, is that if Coventry ever become the "insert company here" Blaze, with no mention of my (adopted) home town*, then this blog will suddenly see a lot more fire-and-brimstone

*for those of you who're bothered, I'm half-Kentish, and despite living in Coventry since...well, ever, have something of a southerner's pride for my roots in the Garden of England-more so than the Sky Blue City, if I'm honest...

Speaking of pride...: The Blaze shirt designers appear to have put theirs on the shelf for this season...they're cheap, cluttered and the so-called "anniversary" jersey for the Blaze's 10th year is a (very) cheap Penguins rip-off, with only the fortuitous coincidence of the Pens jersey also being on a base of sky-blue allowing the Blaze PR to claim it's a "Coventry-inspired" jersey. But enough of my ranting-judge for yourself here

And that's a lightning blast through the major news of the past few days..

Scream If You Wanna Go Slower...

2009-08-05T18:00:00.000+01:00

"Cause everybody's shaking like the end of the world.
And everybody's waiting on the end of the world"
The Gaslight Anthem: "Say I Won't (Recognize)"

"The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming. You'd better run"
Florence and the Machine: "Dog Days are Over"

Remember those heady days in Britain, when salaries rose like rockets, and in the world of British hockey, particularly the EIHL, the talk wasn't about who was breaking the wage-cap in the EIHL, but just who was breaking it by the biggest margin, fuelled by the income stream from fans who could soak up any increase in ticket prices as long as they got to watch hockey-and more than that, were prepared to do so?

Well, like the fairytale-built-on-borrowed-money that was daily living in the last few years in the world outside the ice-rink, they're dead now-killed fast, brutally and extremely noisily by the credit crunch, spiralling costs of "keeping the world safe"/"unjust wars" (depending on your political persuasion) and thieving bankers (a view almost everyone agrees on). Only certain sections of British hockey don't seem to realise it yet.

Coventry have just released the prices for their pre-season games, which has started a fantastic debate amongst fans, given that they're at the bargain, reduced-from-regular-season cost of...erm...fifteen quid-an amazing zero-percent discount. For comparison, Sheffield and Nottingham are putting their warm-up games on for twelve and ten pounds (25% and 33% off respectively), and the Blaze are the only ones (as far as I can tell) stinging their recession-bloodied fans for full price to see what, essentially, are meaningless "get to know you" games.

I should point out at this point that, being a young, single bloke with very few (relatively) financial commitments, I am very lucky, in that this will not affect me beyond, perhaps, spending a little less over the month on amusements than I have been doing all summer, and £45 over the course of a month is doable-after all, I shall be spending more than that for the other seven months of the year, and quite frankly I would go and watch a hockey almost anywhere if a Coventry team were involved (well, with the exception of the Chargers)-indeed, I sustained my hockey fix over the early part of the summer with the help of the ENL and Coventry Phoenix women's teams-although the second one at least was helped by being friends with some of the players...and was free.

However, if you're a family of four, even to attend the Aalborg game (return of Neal Martin and Jody Lehman to the Skydome, which, let's face it, is the major reason most people will go, however much the Blaze claim that they chose the opposition based purely on the "high standard" and didn't even think about the fact that they'd get an extra 250 or so through the door based purely on the fact that these two ex-Blaze stars are playing-an excuse which holds about as much weight as an anorexic tapeworm) will cost £38 quid for two adults and two under-16s. Or, to you, family of four with one kid 16 or over...£52. Per game. Before the "proper" stuff starts.

Ow.

Although, saying that, I suppose the Blaze have to make the eight thousand quid a month rent they're paying for the giant white-elephant that is Crosby's somehow, on top of the player's wages...

I ask the marketing gurus amongst you, though...how many families are going to pay £120 in two weeks to watch three warm-up games...even allowing for the "first game of the season" and "Blaze legend" pulls of the Sheffield and Aalborg matches? Especially when that £120 is needed just to keep them clothed, warm and fed in these tricky economic times, and there's a good chance one or both of the parents is recently unemployed? (For reference, the West Midlands has statistically been one of the worst places for job-losses in the current recession-look it up).

OK, I've singled out the Blaze here, perhaps unfairly, but look around the rest of the league, once the season starts, and you wonder what planet some owners are on. Clearly one where they can afford to pour money into their clubs-because looking at the quality of the rosters in general, one can only assume that the wage costs are as high as ever, especially with the weakened pound meaning that imports can, effectively, justify higher wage demands than they'd normally give. It can't be long before fans effectively turn round and start with the little things, like deciding they can do without a replica shirt this season, or merchandise that previously they'd have snapped up. From there, particularly if teams aren't as good as promised, it's a short step to picking and choosing games, lower crowds, and all that that entails.

Oh yes, and don't rely on sponsorship to bail your team out either, Mr & Mrs Hockey Team Owner. The Sheffield Steelers have just had their title sponsor Eurologix pull out, with the mantle taken up by the thriving giant that is local sparky (admittedly on a big scale) Field Electrical Services, and the Blaze going from a national construction company to Coventry Plumbing and Heating Supplies, a local plumber's warehouse. Tellingly, both these sponsors were previously sponsors of the respective teams in some way, but nowhere near the most lucrative...

Now, I don't doubt that these sponsors are fine companies in their own right...however, being small-to-medium-sized at best, they too are doubtless struggling in the current economic climate, which means they, like all other businesses, will be cutting back their spending if they've got any sense. Which means the top line will be receding faster than Brad Voth's hairline-a trend which, we can assume, is replicated to some degree all over the country.

And yet, despite this, the clubs continue, seemingly, to think "well, we can charge the same as we did when the fans packing our rinks were lighting their period-break cigarettes with spare tenners and then putting them out with their fourteenth spare bit of merchandise, just for a giggle."

Which do you want-money or fans? Because, at the current prices, you might get the money to begin with, but both that and the crowd will start to trickle away...and as for getting newbies in-it's hard enough without people worrying that it's too costly for what it is-which is a semi-professional league of a minority sport in this country.

Dropping prices down a bit may mean that a few more people move from "once or twice a month" to "every home game"-which means more guaranteed money in the coffers, bigger crowds and a hell of a PR boost for the club that does it...

But it would take balls of solid steel to try it, and, however successful team owners in Britain have been in their other businesses...are they a) willing to bite the bullet and go for it to secure themselves a sustainable sports team, or b) take the easy option knowing that there's still a hardcore of fans out there like you and me that love hockey too much to stay away from the rink, even if it means they have to cut back in other areas?

I suspect the answer, driven by the cold hard reality that owners run clubs as businesses, not as labours of love, and there is no room for fandom in finance, is b).

And that could ensure that the owners, while thinking they're ensuring their clubs survival in these hard times, are actually slowly but surely choking the life out of both their teams and the sport in Britain itself. At least in its current form.

To take inspiration from no less a source than Top Gear, who produced this awesome, dark and foreboding view of how the recession has affected the part of life that is more about soul than money for their ending to the last series on Sunday....

Maybe, for British hockey too, we could be seeing an ending...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck.

Frozen Dreams, Part Two: Punch-Drunk Love and Playoff Hockey

2009-07-30T02:00:00.000+01:00

See part one here for an explanation of the whole "Frozen Dreams" thing if you're unaware of it. If you are-read on for part two...

"Someone call a tow-truck, 'cause this is a f*cking breakdown!"
Motionless in White: "Just When You Thought We Couldn't Get Any More Emo, We Go And Pull A Stunt Like This"

"Someday those scribbled lines will be straight
and conversations will never bare your name"
Rookie of the Year: "The Blue Roses"

I fell in love for the first time to the soundtrack of a thousand people roaring with pure, primal, unrestrained joy as their dreams came true in one magical instant.

Admittedly, it wasn't my somewhat-late initiation into the mysteries of human emotion that caused this reaction-in fact, I very much doubt whether me suddenly realising what this weird thing that caused people to pour their souls into writing songs, poems and everything else in between about since time immemorial was had anything to do with it. It was far more likely to be the fact that Ash Tait had just crowned an incredible season in Coventry by taking a pass from Jozef Lukac, deking once, twice and beating Nottingham's goalie, Ladi Kudrna, in overtime to win the Blaze the playoffs, and incidentally sealing the first Triple Crown of league, Challenge Cup and playoff wins (the Crossover Cup competition being won by Belfast even though there was no official trophy presented means that there is still dispute over whether or not this qualifies as a Grand Slam) in British hockey since Sheffield's tainted 2000/01 triumph.

It just so happened, however, that a great milestone in my "normal" life happened at the same time as a massive one in that of my hockey life...and ever since then, even though both the girl I fell in love with and every last trace of the celebrations of the 5th of April 2005 have vanished into the mists of time, they've been inextricably linked in my mind.

I remember, as a very cynical and somewhat unlucky-in-love 20-year-old, turning up for that bright spring weekend in Nottingham with a strange feeling that something momentous was going to happen. After all, optimism was rampant in the Blaze camp after a team containing such glorious names as Martin, McNamara, Lehman, Calder, Carlson, and NHLer Wade Belak had steam-rolled their way through all competition to the league title-their unearthly Challenge Cup Final win against Cardiff (6-1 up after the first leg, Cardiff go 4-0 up at home after being presented as dead and buried and then, in possibly the most exciting game of hockey I've ever seen, somehow lose 5-4 to a Blaze team seemingly backed by all the forces of the hockey gods, with Bari McKenzie scoring the game winner!) only strengthened the impression.

Saturday passed in agonies of anticipation-the Blaze sneaked through against Sheffield and Nottingham beat Cardiff in order to set up a meeting of the league champions v the home club. I honestly can't remember much about the Saturday game...if asked to recall that weekend, however, I do remember first becoming properly aware of the girl who was to cause me to be hit by a thunderbolt the following day.

Katie was part of my group of friends...fairly short, soft voice and with strikingly beautiful green-blue eyes and strawberry-blonde hair...but up until then we'd not exchanged more than a few words occasionally, as you do with groups of friends, as she was more a friend-of-a-friend within the group. However, she came to my notice properly rather painfully during a game of what might best be called "foot hockey" outside the NIC, when, despite being a few inches shorter and several stone lighter, she caused me to collide painfully with one of the supporting pillars of the NIC down at the Castle Inn side...putting an end to the game and meaning that I was limping around the NIC, and the trip to Rock City afterward, for the whole evening. On the plus side, at least it started a conversation.

That Saturday night was a strange one. I couldn't sleep a wink. At the time I thought it was due to the potential for history to be maid the following day, but looking back, Katie may have had more than a little to do with it...

Sunday passed in a blur, mostly-the third-place game between Sheffield and Cardiff was absolutely dire, notable only for goalie Jason Cugnet playing as an outskater. Tension rose throughout the game until, by the time the teams stepped onto the ice with Blaze chasing a historic treble and Panthers roared on by a sea of yellow-and-black at the horseshoe end, right next to the Blaze crowd, my guts were churning from the tension.

Then, everything came into sharp focus. I remember that. I don't remember much about the first two periods, though-I didn't see either Neal Martin's go-ahead goal or Nick Boynton's equaliser 40 seconds later at the start of the second period, thanks mainly to the queues at NIC catering, which meant I only made it back into the arena just in time to see the Panthers celebrating. I don't remember anything else except that there was no other score.

The third period, with the game still tied. was horrific, as medical science (I think, looking back, that the virus I'd had the previous week came back for one last spiteful hurrah) and the sheer tension of the game combined to produce a chemical reaction that gave me crippling stomach pains. Mark Cadotte somehow missing an open net from three feet out, which would have put the Panthers ahead, was the final straw for me, causing my body to rebel violently and me to barely make it to the toilet before the NIC hot-dog and over-priced pint of Tetley's went out the same way they'd came in about half an hour earlier.

I sat outside for a minute or two to recover, then stood up to go back in and experienced the scariest sensation I've ever had at a hockey game.

My legs wouldn't work. My mind was screaming at me to get back in-it was the third period of a tied playoff final, for God's sake!-but my body just did not want to go back through that door and risk seeing Blaze fall at the final hurdle, and nothing I could think or say would change its mind.

Then, as if my nerve-endings weren't wound tight enough, the doors opened, and Katie came out...

You're probably expecting some sort of fairy-tale here, but there isn't one. She and a few others had seen me leave my seat at great speed, and were simply coming out to check I was OK. We didn't even exchange more than a few words..and back in she went, along with everyone else.

However, the next few minutes saw me go temporarily insane. The fact that she'd came out to look for me somehow set off a crazy internal conversation and bargaining with Fate in my fevered mind, as I sat alone in the cavernous spaces of the NIC foyer and realised that I'd liked her since I met her a month or two earlier-the gist of which was "you have to go back in there-and if Blaze win, then it's a sign that if you ask Katie out, there might be a chance"

And then the hooter went.

Jesus...it's gone to overtime!

I stood up, marshalled all the resources of my fevered body, and made my way back in to watch, death-or-glory-type thoughts in my mind. Suddenly, there was Lukac, arrowing a pass to Tait, and the ice opened up in front of him...

I don't mind admitting that, if you could hear or see all the prayers rising up to the hockey gods at that moment, mine would have drowned them all out with ease-it wasn't so much a whisper as a silent scream of protest and pleading.

As he went in, I swear my heart stopped. I was still breathing, but to all intents and purposes, my blood had frozen. As the Blaze captain played chicken with Ladi Kudrna, it wasn't just the dreams of every Blaze fan he had on his stick, but seemingly my fragile, fevered soul and every last hope I'd allowed to build up, unawares, about this girl I barely knew.

He scored. As you know if you follow British hockey.

As the celebrations exploded around me, I searched the crowd for people I knew...saw many, many faces that had become friends originally through a shared love for hockey and then just because they had...and was filled with a sense of shared joy almost as strong as any other I've ever had.

And then, I saw her. To this day, whether she meant it or not, I swear our eyes met, and Katie smiled at me-and at that point, even as Coventry went wild around me, there might as well have been no-one else in the room...

Two months later, we became a couple. A year after that, for reasons which are still unclear to me, and out of the blue, she left me. I haven't seen her in nearly three years now, even though I'm still friends with most of that same group of people.

I like to think I've moved on now (although, as everyone does with their first love, I still wonder how she's getting on occasionally). But, when conversation turns to that magical weekend amongst Blaze fans, or when I hear the commentary clip from BBC radio of Tait scoring, I don't remember the season, or the celebrations, or the sight of the goal first of all (although these are memories that I and every other Blaze fan will probably carry forever).

I remember that smile. And, even though Katie and I have gone our separate ways and the chances of me seeing her again are near-as-dammit non-existent, I remember how beautiful it was, how it made me feel, and how it added something even more to my already-stratospheric levels of joy.

And that is why, however many trophies I see the Blaze win in my lifetime (and there've been a few since then) the 04/05 playoff win, even though I spent much of the game throwing up or feeling almost catatonic with tension, will always be the most special one.

Thanks, Katie.

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Friday Fancies...

2009-07-24T00:23:00.003+01:00

"Sad enough to say that
Alone I could barely light a match
But together we can burn this place down."
Four Year Strong: "Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die"

Let's blast quickly through the news of the week, then.

Panthers sign Cameron Mann: Note the complete lack of any bad pun whatsoever, Panthers PR people. There's no need. The man himself and his pedigree shouts loudly enough. Cameron Mann is a 32 year-old, 6' and 209lb right-winger who comes to the East Midlands from Duisburg of the DEL...and having been to the German city in the Rhineland while I lived over there, I can confirm that this is one of the few signings of the summer in Britain where Nottingham as a city has been used as a significant part of the bait-Sheffield fans may mock their near neighbours and everyone else might know the home of the Panthers only for Robin Hood and gun crime (possibly unfairly) but Duisburg is one of the few places on the planet where a nuclear holocaust would cause several million pounds' worth of improvements....thus making Nottingham look like the Garden of Eden in comparison.

As for the Cameron Mann press-release, which saw the Panthers start with the awful pun to end all awful puns and then descend further into copywriter hell with this actual quote:
"The GMB Nottingham Panthers have been thrilled and excited by all the signing news so far but now we think we’ve added extra cream and a cherry on top"...

Let's just say that the art of classy PR may be dead in the East Midlands. But anyway...

(Hold on-I think I just threw up in my mouth at the thought of Corey Neilson and friends bursting out of the world's most hellish chocolate pudding which that piece of writing conjures...)

Wait a second...

Wait another second...

OK, I'm good...

Enough parochial city-bashing and strange-pudding related thoughts-back to Mr Mann himself. Well, he's a bit good. Having never played below AHL level since his junior career, and being a consistent scorer throughout his time in the AHL and Europe (plus over 100 games in the NHL), the Panthers' roster just got a whole lot better. If this guy can form an effective partnership with Sean McAslan and Bruce Richardson, then that line could be grade-A, blow-the-roof-off dynamite in the EIHL.

But then, this is the Panthers we're talking about...so wait and see.

Stingrays re-sign Matt Reynolds: Another unsung hero of the EIHL last year returns to Hull...Reynolds and Konstantin Kalmikov provided much of the Humbersiders' offensive threat last year along with Jeff Glowa-with the three of them having some very decent-looking team-mates this time round, the Stingrays are looking like the dark times under Rick Strachan have been well and truly swept away.

Vipers sign Tyler Kindle: I so nearly went for a "kindle the fires of success"-type pun here, and had it not been for the jaw-dropping awfulness of the Panthers PR mentioned above, I would have done. Thank you, Nottingham. Thank you very much.

Anyway, Kindle is a 6', 180lb d-man who appears to be the counterpart to Ryan Mahrle, as the Vipers look to throw away the "all brawn and sod-all else" image with another skilful d-man to drive them forward from the back. He appears to have played very few games last season, but has consistently been putting up the points in the ECHL, including 10+34 in 2007/08, so could be a genuine offensive threat on Tyneside. And, unlike the tactics used by the Vipers at times last season, the word "offensive" is the good kind...

That sound you heard just now was a shotgun going off, aimed unerringly at a foot: News comes from Sheffield, who today announced the re-signing of defenceman Randy Dagenais, that his counterpart Steve Munn may have left himself out of the Steelers plans this season after waiting too long to begin negotiations.

Erm...What?!

If Dave Simms, Dave Matsos and co aren't now banging on Munn's door with a sealed-and-delivered contract that only needs his signature, then you have to fear for their sanity. Munn was one of, if not the best defencemen in the league last season, and is the rock the Steelers need in front of Kevin Reiter, particularly with Rod Sarich now moving up to forward...

Assuming that he's now priced himself out of a move abroad and is looking to stay in the UK, expect there to be a scramble for his signature-with Belfast now looking (with no disrespect to Kevin Phillips) a little weaker on defence, Vipers still with a player or two spare and Edinburgh making a wave or two with their signings, there are several possible UK destinations. I still feel he'll most likely return to Sheffield, however.

There you go...a quick run-through the big news of the week so far...I was going to produce the second part of Frozen Dreams, but you may have to wait until late Friday or Saturday for that one due to it now being nearly 1:30 am...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Frozen Dreams, part one

2009-07-23T02:20:00.000+01:00

"I wanted to be like you
I wanted everything
So I tried to be like you
And I got swept away"

Michelle Branch: "All You Wanted"

I don't know whether any of you out there have read one of the defining books of sports fandom, that little bit of genius by Nick Hornby known as Fever Pitch. But I have, and while staring at a blank screen trying to think of something to write that wasn't simply a "Panthers sign Cameron Mann-he's quite good"-type post, I suddenly had a flash-thought of just how much of my life is now taken up by hockey, whether it be attempting to play it (badly), writing about it, watching it or discussing it with like-minded lunatics who would rather spend their weekends from August to April shivering in a variety of giant fridges then doing...well, normal things, like going out and getting ratted of a weekend.

Not only that, but later, when I was lying in bed after giving up the idea of writing anything productive and turning the computer off in in a hissy fit, the thought recurred to me, along with the disturbing realisation that there are many, many events in my life that, however obscurely, are linked with either a particular game or a season in my mind, especially as I started watching the sport just as the veil of childhood was lifted and all the things that adolescence and adulthood brings, like first love, first loss of love, the move from school to actually having to live your life, and all the other REALLY MAJOR LIFE STUFF was beginning. This, then, led to the idea of using the blog, just occasionally, to produce something similar to Fever Pitch in a Blaze version. It could be horrific, it could be good, you could cringe like all hell as you get an idea of the person who writes these ramblings and his relationship with this great game of ours, or you could even like it.

Oh-and the title? Blame a good friend of mine for that...my personal choice was "Dreams of Winter" until it was pointed out that this "sounded like an emo porn-film", which, while making me laugh far too much, wasn't exactly the effect I wanted.

Oh, and it will jump around a bit-don't expect it to be in chronological order or anything like that.

Anyway...on we go with the first one...

Life, Love and Gareth Owen (Blaze v Dundee Stars, 2002/2003)

I've always had a soft spot for the underdog...the tenth forward, or the journeyman who rarely gets the ice-time or the notice of his team-mates. Like the back-up goalie, they spend most of their time putting their kit on, sitting on the benches, shouting encouragement to their team-mates, but very rarely get onto the ice or enjoy their moment in the sun-even if their team wins a trophy their presence is often something of an afterthought-their laps of honour come and go, and recognition is little more than a few mentions or empty phrases like "a great guy to have around"...

Gareth Owen, at least where the Coventry Blaze are concerned, was always this player. Signed for his second spell at the club during the BNL title-winning year in 02/03, and remaining at the club for their first Elite League season, he was very rarely seen on the ice, but always entertaining on it. So entertaining, in fact he's spawned his own phenomenon among some Blaze fans, adding to the hockey vocabulary and being immortalized forever in the phrase "the Gizmo Shift":

Gizmo Shift (adj.): a phrase used to describe a passage of play whereby a player steps onto the ice, skates around like a bat out of hell, lands a hit or two, gets nailed with a massive check and touches the puck once or twice in the corners, while hacing a shot that fails to come anywhere near scoring. Named after British hockey player Gareth Owen, who was a master of such shifts and became a crowd favourite for them during his time at the Coventry Blaze.

I always liked Owen...mainly because his style of play appealed to me so much...he was clearly nowhere near the most skilled player on the ice, but he simply didn't (and doesn't to this day) give a flying puck. This approaching life with joyful abandon was something that was far from what I, as a 19-year-old who was always running around in the shadow of more popular friends, generally something of a figure of fun and horrifically, pathologically self-conscious around girls, was able to manage...and in my tortured, prone-to-juvenile-association nineteen-year-old-mind, this whole expenditure of effort and doing his absolute best but always being overshadowed by others in just about every aspect seemed to echo the way I felt about myself...I used to wonder if, like me, he ever, just once or twice, wondered if his moment in the sun was ever going to come or whether he'd be in the background, always considered good to have around, and any success he gained being viewed by the in-crowd as a good thing, as long as he didn't try and get up with the REALLY popular kids. while others took the plaudits, glory and, yes, girls.

Reading that back, you probably get the sense that my late teenage years probably weren't the best of my life, emotionally...and you'd be right. But one of the few nights in that season when I was able to look on the future outside with more than apprehension and something of a dark-tinged outlook was the night in 2003 when this happened.

On the surface, it's a fairly simple hockey fight...until you break it down..not only is Gizmo getting a decent shift, but he flattens Tony Hand (who just happened to be considered the best player in the league...he had, and still has, an aura about him which makes flattening him akin to a builder shouting "get 'em out, love" at the Queen as she passes by on the way to Trooping the Colour) but he then goes in on a breakaway, nearly scores (somehow, the fact that he doesn't just seems to fit the whole Gizmo Shift thing) and then does the unthinkable by actually fighting with Tony Hand!

That night, if I remember correctly, Dundee won 5-0, since the Blaze had won the BNL title the week before (that one is another story, in fact) and it was a tempramental battle with Kurt Irvine and Hilton Ruggles both scrapping with Johan Boman and Chris Conaboy, but this has all been absorbed into the mists of time...the Gizmo scrap, however, has become a part of Blaze legend...certainly, he was the star of that game by some distance despite barely getting on the ice.

Looking back on it afterwards, I remember having the phrase "every dog has his day" come to mind...it seemed that this was some sort of proof that everyone gets their moment in the sun, somehow...even if you have to wait for it behind a ridiculous number of other people. Gizmo is now playing in Telford, where he is also immensely popular, but the fans' love for him in Coventry, born largely out of that scrap one February Sunday night in a nothing game, is something else.

He was somebody, finally. And I'm not quite sure what this proves about my thinking, Blaze fans, or whatever, but the fact that even the "little" guy had had life smile upon him cheered me up immeasurably for quite a while after that (and I needed plenty of cheering up thanks to a social life only slightly less hectic and exciting than a night in the deepest and darkest parts of the Gobi Desert)...it was a source of consolation in its proof that if you kept plugging away and waited long enough, life would reward you with a spot in the sun eventually, somehow...

If I'm brutally honest with myself, there are some things that I wanted back then as a nineteen-year-old that still haven't come to me as a slightly-more-grizzled-and-wise twenty-five year old...but if I ever start to convince myself that the girl for me isn't out there or that attempting to make myself a career beyond a job that means you work to live rather than live to work is fruitless, I can watch that fifty seconds or so of grainy footage on youtube, smile and think "well, if a place in legend and people's hearts can be found on a cold February Saturday in a horrifically dull Blaze loss, it can be found anywhere...as long as you keep looking".

Thanks, Giz...

Don't worry...we'll return to news some time soon...along with a few more glimpses into life, love and hockey history. Until then, though, keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Live from Tumbleweed Central...

2009-07-20T22:53:00.005+01:00

"This is Radio Nowhere...
Is there anyone alive out there?"
Bruce Springsteen: "Radio Nowhere"

God, it's quiet. After a burst of news and rumours last week, and much discussion over the Giants which is still going on over on KOTG but appears to have died down everywhere else, the news of signings is becoming less and less frequent as rosters become more complete and offices shut down for the summer break before the run-in to the season begins in early August. However, there are still a few crumbs to pick over...

It's nice when your sources prove reliable: Andre Payette is now officially confirmed as joining the Manchester Phoenix as their second import (Ed Courtenay for the third, anyone?...). A great entertainer and pantomime villain has left the EIHL-and you get the feeling most EPL fans, those from Manchester excepted, really don't know what's coming. Payette's one of those players who has had all sorts of myth, legend and half-truth build up around him during his time in the UK, but watching him play in the flesh when he's entered the "Payette Zone" of complete and total insanity combined with no small amount of skill is something few who've seen him play will soon forget. Fans of the EPL, and Phoenix in particular, you've got an experience akin to riding down a grassy bank in a shopping trolley coming-it will be wild, there'll be bumps in the road, you won't know exactly where it'll end up once it's started and outside influences will have no control whatsoever over what happens.

Oh, and there's a chance it could all go wrong very quickly, very loudly, and with much violence.

Buckle up. :)

Who got the talent in the Phillips house? We shall see: Back when the Blaze were winning trebles and Joe Watkins was still considered the top British goalie, he played against his brother Tom a few times while in net for London, and the Blaze's Watkins brother seemed to revel in scoring past him, and without fail triggering a cheerful little ditty from the Blaze crowd which went something along the lines of (to the Sunderland FC song "Super Kevin Phillips")...

"Who got the talent in the Watkins house? (x3)
Super Tommy Watkins".

Not exactly comedy gold, but it seemed to work in getting the point across as to which brother was having the better game, even provoking the goalie Watkins into what may have been a repeated horizontal wave of the glove every time it started up, to acknowledge the wit of the travelling Blaze support throughout one game in Lee Valley. Although it was strange that he performed the gesture at crotch level, thus preventing half the Blaze crowd from seeing it, it was still greeted with a cheer if I remember correctly...;)

Anyway-this reminiscence does have a point. Belfast have now provided another ripe opportunity for sibling-related taunting, by replacing Dave Phillips, who as mentioned earlier on this month is AHL-bound, with his older, slightly-less-illustrious brother Kevin, who joins after a career mainly spent in his home team of Hull alongside his brother. However, recently the younger Dave has risen to something approaching stardom, while Kevin's career has, if not exactly stalled at EPL level, certainly not progressed with the same rapidity...it will be interesting to see how he performs now he's being given a chance as a d-man expected to consistently produce at EIHL level...

Facebook. It's the future, apparently: From the "important, if true" file comes the mention that Tylor Michel (stats here) is the final import in Cardiff, after being befriended on Facebook by a Devils fan and supposedly confirming in an online chat that he was on the way. He looks like another example of a young, hungry player coming to Britain to prove himself after a decent start in the ECHL...but let's see the official announcement before we comment any further...

Matt Myers. Now there's some average-sized skates to fill: Nottingham have signed Ross Dalgliesh away from Edinburgh, meaning that Mark Garside is the only remaining member of the trio-nicknamed-by-me-and-probably-no-one-else as the "Top Scots" from last year to remain in Edinburgh. Dalgliesh will slot into the gap left by Matt Myers, who is trying his luck in the ECHL this season.

Believe it or not, there is hockey out there:..summer is traditionally a time for recreational teams to be the most active, but here in Coventry the Chaos are turning that activity into a bid to help charity, holding a charity match on the 2nd August which, were it a golf game, would probably be the equivalent of a pro-am tournament, as rec players (me included) line up side-by-side with such well-known names in British hockey as Luc Chabot, Paul Thompson, James Pease, and others in a game between two mixed pro-am teams. It's all in aid of the NSPCC, doors are open from 6:15pm on the day at the Skydome, with f.o around 7:15, and details can be found on facebook here...

I told you it was a quiet time...but there is a Falla-esque post in the works which should appear in the next few days...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Pucks, Half-Truths, and Stick Tape

2009-07-17T17:09:00.002+01:00

"Beneath the concrete there’s a sound...a muffled cry below the ground
There is a poison in the air...a mix of chemicals and fear
Mama, I've just hunches, I’m not sure what they mean..."
Maximo Park: "Our Velocity"

It's amazing how even the merest mention of money can polarise British hockey...after Wednesday's post, the hare of speculation is off and running, chased hard by the hounds...it's not taken long for the denials to come loud and long in the forum world, with Wednesday's mention of events in Northern Ireland being dismissed as "made-up", "overblown" and my personal favourite..."chav rubbish".

However, along with the slings and arrows have also come a few hints of truth...certainly there are many in British hockey forum-land wondering if it's possible to protest too much, and exactly what is going on, if anything, behind the calm facade of the Odyssey.

I should state once again that anything further is not fact unless clearly presented as such-however, it seems that the "Giants owing money" rumour may have some foundation-the Breakaway has heard a whisper that, in tthe course of fixture arrangements last season, there may have seen promises made to that seemingly weren't kept, leaving other teams out of pocket.
Further, it seems that the dates on several occations, at least those on the "other" side of the Irish Sea, were arranged without any consultation between the clubs involved, with no room for maneouvre, with travel arrangements made by the Giants in order to make them possible. However, despite promising to take care of the expense, the money reportedly never appeared.

This one could run a while...

Sharks in the Water

2009-07-16T16:46:00.003+01:00

"Baby, there's a shark in the water
There's something underneath my bed"...
V.V Brown: "Shark In the Water"

Interestingly, the rumours floating round about Belfast's potential financial problems, as mentioned in yesterday's post, have taken on a life of their own. After yesterday's rumours of "cost-cutting" appeared to be substantiated by those far closer to the Giants on this Kingdom Of the Giants thread (you need to be registered to view, but the basic gist of it is that several posters have come out appearing to confirm that cuts have been made within the Giants office recently), the Breakaway has now heard whispers from several areas that one organisation within British hockey has not received money it was promised by the Giants last season, despite waiting for several months.

Now, I should point out that, being a mere fan, with no connection to the Giants organisation, and thus no access to either the Giants' accounts or the league's dealings, I'm not sure of the veracity of this, and am presenting it as nothing more than a rumour....however, once again this information has come from a reliable source within the parties concerned.

Make of it what you will...

A Dance To The Music Of Time...

2009-07-15T20:20:00.001+01:00

"Out here, the birds don't sing
Out here, the fields don't grow
Out here, the bells don't ring...
And the good girls die"
The Killers: "A Dustland Fairytale"

I'm really starting to despise summer now, with a passion...simply because the burning hockeyless wasteland of each day seems without end (there's only so long you can lie on a beach, particularly if, like me, you have ice and snow in your soul and prefer the velvety inky blackness of midwinter evenings to the relentless, glaring glow of midsummer), the weekend nights, whatever you're doing, still miss the excitement of game time, the news comes in dribs and drabs, and rumours and half-truths are about as fun as it gets...

But rumours and half truths are better than nothing-there's even some genuine news in there, so as we continue to dance aimlessly and often drunkenly through summer with nothing more than the odd crumb of speculation to sustain our hockey appetites, let's have a look at it before departing into the realms of wild speculation and, as the title hints at, Icetunes returns with a few music gems that can take away the sting of hockeyless nights...as well as provide a bloody good accompaniment to anything else you may be doing...

A Brit Abroad: Let's start with perhaps the biggest news for British ice hockey as a whole. After being invited to the Chicago Blackhawks' prospect camp recently, Belfast d-man Dave Phillips, considered as one of British hockey's brightest home-grown talents, has been signed on a two-way between Rockford Icehogs (AHL) and the ECHL, with the potential to make the next step up now more than just a distant dream...much as I despised him when he played for Belfast, good on him.

Trouble is, Belfast are now left with a massive hole at the back, with Phillips being one of their top four defencemen and all the import slots now filled back there, either Graeme Walton will have to step up a level or there will need to be some readjustment in the Giants' season plan...

But then, at least they'll save on the wages: However, it could be questioned whether the Giants will sign a new player at all, with rumours from the Northern Irish capital pointing to light purses in the Giants camp and desperate measures, up to and including quietly "re-organising" their staff, being taken to make sure their (exciting-looking) roster will actually be seen on British ice. Obviously, we hear such rumours every single season, but this one will warrant watching closely...

The EPL doesn't know what's coming: Andre Payette, everyone's favourite pantomime villain, has been strongly linked with Manchester recently by sources in both Newcastle and Manchester-if he's allowed to play rather than expected to perform pantomime antics such as he was in a Vipers shirt, then he could dominate the EPL in the power-forward stakes...it will be extremely interesting to see if this one comes off.

As if the Skydome boards weren't rickety enough already...: they'll now have to contend with the impacts of bodies placed there by Jason Robinson-the ex-London Racer, Newcastle Viper and Sheffield Steeler, who isn't exactly shy when it comes to introducing opposition players to the plexi with extreme prejudice, is the Blaze's final import signing, returning from the IHL to provide the Skydome side with some muscle on the blue-and a more-than-useful enforcing element to his game also.

Meanwhile, up north...: Defence is the watchword, with Hull, Newcastle and Edinburgh all adding players new to the UK to their defensive strength recently. Ryan Jorde joins the Stingrays from the IHL, as well as Stephen Burns from the CHL, Jerramie Domish (something of a pocket battleship at 5'9 and 200lbs) heads to the Vipers from the AHL, and Michael Beynon, who has been linked with an unnamed EIHL club since the beginning of the summer, heads to the Capitals. The first three seem to be defencemen equally comfortable at either end of the ice, while Beynon is reported as someone more inclined to take care of business in his own end before charging forward-all three should be considerable improvements to their teams, with Domish in particular carrying an impressive pedigree with him...

However, perhaps the signing of the summer so far has occurred not for one of the big four teams but up in Edinburgh. Chris Allen joins after playing last year in Asia, but his stats suggest he could be the top d-man in the league next season...consider these facts:

Tied for second all-time scoring in the OHL for a defenceman-the other two players are ones you might have heard of...Bobby Orr and Al MacInnis.

A shot clocked at 103mph

13 goals and 25 assists in his last season in the ECHL, before moving over to Denmark

He's not exactly small either at 6'3 and 223lbs...and judging by this, should be popular off the ice as well. Particularly if he also brings his fellow "sexiest vegetarian" title holder with him...

Finally, in the land of steel, Sheffield have finally signed their replacement to Jody Lehman-it's ex-Bison goalie Kevin Reiter. Now, you'll forgive me if I'm not exactly conceding the league title to Sheffield yet, but Reiter struck me as something of a one-game-wonder last season. Yes, there's the whole "66 shots, 65 saves" malarkey (and as a Blaze fan who was present that day, that still stings a little), but one wonders if his exploits behind a Bison defence who were quite frankly bloody awful have placed his skills in a somewhat flattering light...there was a rumour he was Blaze-bound earlier in the summer and this worried me hugely, given that he hadn't looked hugely special in any of the other games I'd seen him play in. Nevertheless, he's still a decent goalie at this level, particularly with a better defence in front of him this time out. Whether he's a enough of a stand-out goalie to meet the expectations in Sheffield, though, particularly with the spectre of Jody Lehman lingering in the wistful minds of many a Steelers fan, remains to be seen.

And that's now you lot just about up to date...

And now, and in time for something completely different, for some music...

It's been a long time since the last IceTunes (several months, in fact) but with it now being midsummer, here's one or two songs, old and new, that the Breakaway recommends to help blast the summer by and sound as good now as thumping out of your rinks speakers in autumn...I suggest you turn the volume up to eleven before reading on...and click on the youtube links to hear them...

Florence and the Machine: "Kiss From a Fist": We start with something bang up-to-date. This is awesome...it's the kind of sleazy thing you can imagine fitting just as well in a sweaty club as when the gloves drop...it bounces along like one of those small balls you used to get from vending machines and lifts you almost as high while doing so. Their album Lungs is pretty special as a whole, but this is probably the stand-out track from it...

Explosions in the Sky: "First Breath After Coma": And, at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, you have this. People have compared them to an American Sigur Ros (more of which later), and like the Icelanders they have a gift of making music that doesn't so much represent a tune as a state of mind. This song is my favourite one of theirs-a simple way of describing it is "instrumental prog-rock", but that doesn't really do them justice. This is the kind of music that, when played, can make even the most mundane tasks seem epic. The Earth Is Not a Cold, Dead Place does tend to disappear somewhat up a cul-de-sac, and you probably need a perfect summer evening and lying staring at the sky in order to appreciate it properly, but this is music at its most raw emotionalness...

As for what relevance this has to sports or where it'd fit in in a hockey game...well, how about this for a pre-game build up?

Sigur Ros: "Hoppipolla": The title means "jumping in puddles" in Icelandic. Which makes it perfect for a walk in an English summer. If you prefer your music a bit faster, then maybe the Chicane dance remix (I'm shuddering typing that) is more your style. My advice-stick with the original, get quietly drunk in your back garden on a clear summer night with someone you care about, and lie next to each other staring at the stars. It helps the summer pass quicker...

Aiden: "Die Romantic": Yes, if it was any more emo it would only be found in the corner of your bedroom, crying over wilted flowers and writing poems about the sweet embrace of death despite being about fourteen*. But it's still a very good song indeed to just randomly fire out of your speakers and laugh at the overblown-ness of it, while at the same time secretly enjoying it.

*(note-I actually like this sort of thing...this is what is known as "irony." No offence is meant to anyone of such a disposition, whether real or put on for effect)

Nine Inch Nails: "Wish": Violent, chaotic and fast. Also a bit disturbing to those who don't understand the appeal of such entertainment. Just like hockey, in fact...

And finally, a link or two...: Goalies. They're a strange breed. And they like to write a fair bit when they're not stopping projectiles being fired at their head...Ken Dryden and Jack Falla in particular come to mind...
Becky over at Five Minute Major is one in a long line of literary puck-stoppers, and has produced this extremely enjoyable piece which seeks to work out just why all the best hockey literature is produced by those in masks...which, assuming I can marshal my thoughts, may see a response from the other end of the stick (almost literally, what with me preferring to attempt to score goals as a forward rather than stop them)...

Also tonight, The Cat's Whiskers' Jono Bullard is interviewed by a site I'm likely very remiss in not linking to before now-UK Hockey Live, offspring of the already successful View From the Bridge, in which he and Patrick from the podcast discuss the growing popularity of the UK hockey blogosphere, and he also says some very nice things about yours truly...it's an interesting listen...

And that, ladies and gents, is your lot for now...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

A Song of Ice and Fire

2009-07-08T22:00:00.000+01:00

"I'd like to sing a song...a song of great social and political import. And it goes like this..."
Janis Joplin: "Mercedes Benz"

"On a lonely afternoon in June, I need you...just like raindrops"
Basement Jaxx: "Raindrops"

"Winter is coming"
George R. R. Martin, first words of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series

I have a confession to make. I despise summer. And this is why.

Every year, without fail, the same thing keeps happening. The hotter it gets, the more I long for the sun to disappear again.

Halfway through the hottest day of the year last week, a day which saw the British workplace turned into an experience far beyond even Dante's wildest dreams of infernal torment, a day in which air-conditioners howled in pain as they were worked harder than they have been in many years, I left my desk for a few minutes and heard a very brief burst of this from a passing car as I sought a breath of air outside.

And much as I despise the song, its almost ubiquitous presence in British ice-rinks (most notably Nottingham and my own second home, the Skydome) meant that, as others sweated and complained about the heat, my soul went on one of its increasingly frequent journeys to a world where it is permanently early September, the leaves are just starting to fall from the trees and you can make the trip to hockey in golden sunshine one day and a dark, wet, rain-pattering evening the next.

This is a world when hope springs eternal, the winter stretches away in front of you and everything that's been so sorely missed during the seemingly endless weeks of speculation, rumour-mongering and desperate hunting around for information on new signings is back. The new signings are on the ice, your spot at the plexi is still open and you fit it like an old, familiar glove, and the boys of summer have finally given way. It's a bright, shining time lit by the muted glare of floodlights off pristine new ice and soundtracked by conversations picked up almost where they left off in April.

Trouble is, reality intrudes all too quickly, and we're back to an earth of traffic jams, heatwave alerts and overcrowded beer-gardens, sound-tracked by Eeeeebeeeefaaaa anthems, the sound of British failure at Wimbledon, rain-delayed cricket matches and really, really bad holiday dancefloor songs.

But surely I can't be the only one whose summer is occasionally interrupted by such dreams...it can be a fragment of song, a random video on youtube, or even the kind of memory when you're bored and daydreaming at work on a burning midsummer Wednesday...

The bite of the hockey bug is one that just keeps on itching...and you only need one bite to put the poison of being a closet summer-hater into your blood...

Come join me in the autumn of the soul...it's only 50 days or so until hockey season begins again...:)

There you are...after such philosophy, a bit of hard news will go down a storm, so in the next few days we'll have another round-up of the latest goings-on and player movements in the EIHL.

Until then, keep enjoying the summer...

Catch Up If You Can

2009-06-30T08:00:00.002+01:00

"This town rips your bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap..."
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: "Born To Run"

Yes, I know it's been two weeks or more since the last post...everyone's allowed something of a summer holiday...:)

For this one, let's just have a quick look at the signings taking place around the EIHL...there have been a few, but we're now well and truly into the doldrums of summer where hockey is at its farthest point from the light of consciousness...as you prepare to laze in front of diamond-shining seas and on soft white sands, it's hard to believe the first game of the new season is a mere 54 days away...although I'll freely admit that while my body is roasting in the unaccustomed heat of an English summer, the leaves are already falling off the trees in my soul and the nights are lengthening again as hockey returns to British shores...the British summer is heat, greenflies and no hockey, and thus is welcome to end itself as soon as possible as far as I'm concerned...

Belfast: Brandon Benedict and Tim Cook are the latest new additions to the roster in Northern Ireland, with the former being a chippy, slightly undersized but useful centre who appears to be from the same cloth as Bruce Richardson, and the latter being...well, not. Cook is a big defenceman who will presumably be expected to take care of business in his own end way before charging forward...both played for the same team in Denmark last season, so will have to help ease each other into a new locker room. The Giants are excited about their team this year, but it'll be interesting to see just how important these two end up being...

Cardiff: Not content with simply signing Mark Smith, the Devils have also gone and ensured the return of his partner-in-crime Max Birbraer for his second spell in South Wales, as well as completing their blue-line with the services of two-way d-man Scott Romfo from the ECHL. The Devils are quietly building a pretty damn scary roster down in South Wales this time around...

Coventry: Two signings which have caused much debate to report in Coventry since the last round-up...the return of the one of the prototypical EIHL pests in Danny Stewart, returning for his fourth season, and the capture of Derek Campbell from the Vipers. Now, some are underwhelmed by these two signings, but they please me...we've had the silk in the Blaze forward line already, and now we need the sandpaper to balance it. With Stewart and Campbell, who have crossed swords more than once already during their respective tenures in the league, on the same side other teams will really not look forward to facing the Blaze-particularly those with players of a slightly...well, fiery disposition. Campbell and Stewie are both players who can put up the points as well as the penalty-minutes, though, and should add some a surprising touch of speed and guile as well as their, shall we say, "own particular appeal"....

Edinburgh: It's still slow up north, although we have seen the return of possibly the ugliest man currently playing in British hockey...Kyle Horne is a fine British defenceman but...well, I would imagine that those puck-bunnies driven by looks over personality and skill don't exactly beat a path to his door during the season...

Hull: James Hutchison steps up from the EPL to join a promising-looking Stingrays side in their only signing since the last round up, as the Humbersiders continue their rebuilding under Sylvain Cloutier...after several good seasons with Peterborough, including winning every possible EPL trophy last season, it will be interesting to see how the Tynesider develops...

Newcastle: More new blood on Tyneside, although new signing Matej Kralj will be familiar to at least a small proportion of Blaze fans after facing Coventry with his former club, Maribor, last season. The bigger news is who isn't signing for the Vipers-with Kralj being the final import forward, Andre Payette and Jeff Hutchins will need to find a new club if they want to stay in the UK...

Nottingham: The Panthers' final import forward is CHLer Marty Gascon...perhaps not quite the "superstar" East Midlands fans were hoping for, but as a playmaker, he's clearly planned as a foil to the likes of Sean McAslan and Jade Galbraith at the NIC-14+54 in the CHL last season, with three teams, appears to bear the "playmaker" tag out. We'll see if he can step into the role filled with some aplomb by Dan Tessier last season...
Meanwhile, Matt Myers has made the trip across the pond, joining Bakersfield Condors of the ECHL...an interesting move both for him and the team. British ice hockey will be watching with great interest to see if he can emulate Colin Shields and Jon Weaver and hold down a regular ECHL spot...

Sheffield: The song remains the same in Steelerland, as the roster still has no new faces on it, with the Jody Lehman replacement still eagerly awaited in net. However, Ashley Tait will leave a big hole as he follows GB team-mates Greg Owen and David Clarke and tries his luck in Europe with Ritten Renon in Italy, after being signed by his former team-mate in Nottingham, Paul Adey.

It's still too close to call in the Elite League with rosters still to complete...but at least now, both you and the Breakaway are all up to date...

Picture Perfect...

2009-06-16T17:11:00.003+01:00

Just because it's a slow Tuesday, a few EIHL-related pictures that are currently floating round the web...

Firstly, thanks to a mole within the Panthers dressing-room, we have breakfast-time at Jade Galbraith's...

Following that is a sign specially designed for Andre Payette...

...and another which I can't apply to anyone in the EIHL's morals, simply because I'd probably (and justifiably) be sued for libel, but may be proof that someone in the EIHL hierarchy moonlights by being a sign-placer in the off season...plus, the unfortunate juxtaposition amused me (the bottom bit is a "no parking" sign, apparently)

The EIHL have also released a pictorial representation in answer to the question "can we break the wage-cap?"

...and the NIC's new crowd-control policy may cause a problem or two...

as, in the interests of balance, will the planned escalators to make access easier at the Hallam Arena...

And finally in this journey of randomness, we have proof that Andre Payette's new contract may be heavily incentive-laden...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Thought For The Day: The Hardest Part of Going, Is Coming Back...

2009-06-16T00:05:00.000+01:00

"Home, now that I'm coming home

Will you be the same as when I saw you last?

Tell me how much time has passed..."

Funeral For A Friend: "Into Oblivion (Reunion)"

We're back in the UK, finally...and it's been a week or two. Given that there's been a fair bit happen in the world of the EIHL, we'll simply have a look team-by-team rather than signing-by-signing...

Belfast: The Giants roster has seen only one new addition in the past week or two after a spate of early-season signings, but in Pierre-Luc Faubert they not only have only the second double-barrelled first name to appear in the EIHL (Jean-Francois Perras being the other) but a very, very, VERY quick forward indeed, who can also put up a point or two, it seems...The Giants fans are already getting very excited about him having a better pedigree than Paul Deniset (who was fairly useful last season himself)...however, Dan Carlson has better ECHL stats then both of them, so the claims of "top forward in the league" may be a little premature...

Cardiff: The Devils have been a little quiet recently, after having most of their roster already re-signed as returnees early in the summer. However, despite losing Mike Prpich after the speedy centre and one of Devils' stars last year got himself into a bit of bother off-ice that saw him released they've covered the spectrum with their last three signings, with Ben Davies taking the "young Brit and potential star" mantle as a reward for his coming on in leaps and bounds last season and Phil Hill returning as a power forward. However, their third signing, announced today, is the one that really raises eyebrows-as Mark Smith returns from Italy for his second stint as a Devil. The immensely talented centre and one of my favourite opposition players of the EIHL scored 80 points in 06/07 as a Devil, and will be one of, if not the top centre in the league-the Devils have suddenly leapt from "maybe a trophy" to "one of the title hopefuls" in one fell swoop-that's how good the 5'10 native of Kelowna, BC is...

Coventry: The revolution continues apace at the Skydome. Leigh Jamieson is gone to MK Lightning (in the eyes of some, not a moment too soon), as well as another player who we'll consider below, but arrivals have been busier than departures thus far in the West Midlands. As well as the returning Matty Soderstrom, the Blaze have two new faces in the big American Brian Lee, a team-mate of fellow new signing Greg Owen at Briancon in France last year, and one of the unsung heroes of the EIHL in Luke Fulghum from Manchester. Lee is a big lad, who appears to have been brought in as a d-man who can go both ways with equal ability on the ice, although if you believe the rumours he's intended as more of a defensive d-man then a points-scorer...something of a Steve Munn, if you will. The Breakaway will be trying to get an interview with his team-mate Greg Owen next week, after the Peter Hirsch interview was well received, and so perhaps we'll be able to gain a few more ideas then.
Fulghum, meanwhile, is one of the signings of the summer. The plaudits went to Tony Hand and David Beauregard for Manchester's heroics last season, but the American winger who shared the ice with them (earning himself 34 goals in the process) was the one that made that line tick and could well be the perfect foil for Adam Calder and Dan Carlson on the Blaze's top line with his combination of speed and physical play. Certainly, those in Manchester have been fulsome in their praise of him...

Edinburgh, as usual, are hard to read because, as is traditional north of the border, signings are once again slower in coming than a tantric-sex-loving eunuch.
However, they have snapped up Ben O'Connor from Coventry, in a move which saw a very catty press-release from the Blaze about his manner of going...obviously I have very little idea of how frenzied the negotiations were or the exact circumstances, and I fully appreciate the need to stay within a budget and not throw money at those who aren't worth it...however, releasing a press release trashing him by basically saying "this player's a greedy young sod who held us to ransom, so we let him go" is a little over the top. After all, isn't what happens in the coach's office supposed to stay in the coach's office-would not something along the lines of "Ben and I couldn't agree terms, so we wish him the best of luck wherever he goes", like that released for Russ Cowley before he U-turned last season, have sufficed to give reasons?
Aside from that, any Blaze fan (or indeed any Caps fan) who thinks that the Scots are paying him more money may need a quick dose of reality juice...O'Connor will certainly take a more prominent role in Edinburgh than that he would have had in Coventry, but surely he can't be on what the EIHL would call "big money"...if he is, then clearly the credit crunch hasn't yet reached Scotland.

On the plus side, any players they do sign will be able to take on two AHL teams in the Toronto Marlies and Hamilton Bulldogs, who along with Belfast will be taking part in the special Ice Hockey Homecoming tournament in Edinburgh and Belfast for the Gardiner Cup in September-more info here...

Hull are making a wave or two of their own on Humberside, building themselves a solid-looking roster, although it's fair to say that recent signings have addressed the "work and grind" aspect of the team rather than the "score as many goals as possible" area, as you'd expect from a Sylvain Cloutier-coached side. Adam Knight, joining from New Mexico in the CHL provides the physical presence on D (his stats of 2 goals, 3 assists and 153 PiM's last season should give you a clue as to where his role lies), while Shaun Thompson and Lee Esders give some hard-working British presence up front.

Newcastle have once again signalled their "new direction" by signing the skilful Ryan Mahrle from the ECHL, as they look for a more mobile defence. Along with Mike Berry, the returning Todd Griffith, Jason Tejchma and a new import to be announced tomorrow, the North-East could be seeing a very different team to that they're used to on the ice next season...

Nottingham have been quiet recently, although that's to be expected when most of your squad has already joined. Mark Hartley makes the step up from Coventry ENL to be the Panthers back-up, which is an interesting move for both him and the Panthers...doubtless many will be praying Kevin St Pierre stays very healthy indeed...however, Jade Galbraith will once again be easing a Panthers shirt over his (not-inconsiderable) torso this season...

Sheffield, meanwhile, have contented themselves with simply re-signing some of the top players in the league, with top-scorer Joey Talbot the latest to return...great for Sheffield, not so much for opposition goalies.

And there you go-now, we're up to date on the EIHL...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Game Seven: Seven Ways to Scream and Shout.

2009-06-14T23:55:00.006+01:00

"You make me laugh, you make me cry
I don't know which side to buy...
But the 7th thing, I like the most about you
You make me love you"
Miley Cyrus: "Seven Things"

Yes, I just used a Miley Cyrus song to open a post about game seven...but what the hell. It sums up my feelings about hockey as a sport to perfection. Be warned, this may switch into and out of lyricism, Falla-esque writing, and be fairly video-heavy....they will be referred to, so watching them would be an advantage...

Let's just get this out of the way early, because it feels so damn pleasing to see it in print.

Pittsburgh Penguins. Stanley Cup Champions, 2009.

Now, on to the game itself. I tried to do a running diary for post afterward, but it descended into complete anarchy after about ten minutes, when there was a very real possibility, at least in my mind, that I wouldn't survive the game.

Pens v Red Wings-the beginning...

Little did we know, watching this way back at the end of May (and this video may just about surpass the HNIC intro for Game 7 of Pens-Caps back in the Conference semis), that the series would go to seven, and little did I know that it'd age me ten years. Especially with the Pens down 2-0 after the opening two games in Detroit.

Then came Game 3, which meant that once again, there was a little hope...at this point I'm thinking "well, there's no sweep, and even if the Wings win now, we've gone down fighting".

Game 4 came and went, and suddenly it was two-two.

Game 5 was horrific. At that point, I thought the Cup was headed back to Detroit, and the best the Pens could hope for was to take it to seven. The jokes from the Red Wings of "history repeating" echoed long and loud, and the prospect of seeing the Pens lose the Cup on my birthday was not a great one, either.

But then fate took a hand.

Superstition is a weird thing. Certain rituals become imbued with their own magic power, and fans buy into this primitive form of sports voodoo in much the same way as the players do. As Game Six began, Pens fans were looking for some sign, any sign, that the race for the Cup wasn't already in its final stretch. And CBC, inadvertently, provided it by using a song that is almost like a modern-day spell of its own...

Step forward, "In the Air Tonight"

This song, I'm convinced, is either cursed or blessed with some sort of mystic power. Used before a sporting event, it makes extraordinary things happen.

And once again, it worked its magic.

And so we go to Game Seven.

The first period saw me regressing back to the primal consolations of superstition (I refused to sit in the same seat as that I'd sat in for game five), fear (when Valteri Filppula had a shot cleared off the Pens line, I uttered a sound containing fear, pain and hope never likely to be heard on this earth again), and jealousy (somehow, every bounce in the Joe seemed to go Osgood's way, or at least that's how my haunted eyes saw it).

Then came the Mad Max Redemption, otherwise known as the second period. First Maxime Talbot banged home his own rebound after hard work behind the net for one-nothing. The Wings came back furiously...but this night, Marc-Andre Fleury's pads had been stitched together by the angels themselves...they were truly blessed in stopping shots that, at the other end, could (and should) have gone in. Ten minutes gone, and 30 minutes at least from the Stanley Cup, Talbot went away again down the left side and aimed. His stick rose, lined up and fired, and puck left blade on a trajectory so perfect that Chris Osgood will never be able to tell you anything about where the shot came from, or indeed where it went past him, becuase he simply didn't see it rocket into the top corner.

And so, period three. Twenty minutes to realise a dream for the players, twenty nerve-wracking minutes for those watching. The period itself seemed fairly run-of-the-mill, though...right up until Jonathan Ericsson wound up and pulled the trigger on a howitzer from the point that "Flower" in his turn never even saw...and it was two one with eight minutes to play.

Two minutes later, with the Wings pressing, we saw the hand of the hockey gods reach down and pass the Cup to Pittsburgh. Nicklas Kronwall wound up from the point for another blast, and put every single last ounce of his 189lbs of muscle into swinging his stick, which sent the puck away on a path that scientists will tell you was ordained by physics and gravity, but Pens fans will say was influenced by the breath of angels. It rises slightly more steeply-than planned on a stray air-current somewhere in the course of its otherwise-dead-straight 70-feet-long journey, which takes it an inch or so higher than it perhaps would have gone on any other night, This inch means that it thumps into Fleury's crossbar, rather than the twine...and Flower himself rubs the bar better when its work is done...

There was still time for one more moment of magic...the Wings pile forward with the clock ticking down from ten to zero, and the puck finds Nick Lidstrom's stick tenths of a second before the buzzer-he fires, and Fleury stops it.

Game over.

And four months of celebrations in Pittsburgh have begun...

Gordie Howe, Chris Chelios, Steve Yzerman, Henry Ford, Alice Cooper, Tom Selleck, Kid Rock, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Mitch Albom...

Your boys took a hell of a beating...

Now, hockey is officially over until August...so we'll come back to the UK and by Wednesday, I'll finally have a summary of events in the EIHL while we've been focused across the pond...

Agony and Ecstasy: Game Seven

2009-06-12T12:08:00.003+01:00

"Don't wait, Don't wait
The lights will flash and fade away
The days will pass you by
Don't wait"
Dashboard Confessional: "Don't Wait".

Game. Seven. Two words, three syllables, eleven innocuous letters.

But, at the same time, one of the greatest phrases in all of sports.

Game Sevens are, truly, like nothing else. Every bounce could make twenty players' dreams come true, every shot could be one that echoes down through the ages, and every pass could be the last building block in a dream...

There are few other sporting events on the planet which inspire such emotions, and such extremes. Few which have produced so many iconic images, so many iconic sounds. And few whose rarity only adds to their value (there have only been eight game sevens in the Stanley Cup Final in forty years).

And now the Pens are in one.

Luckily, they have players who have "form", as the British cops say. People who've been there before. More of them than the Red Wings, because in all their wins, the Wings haven't been pushed to a game seven of the final.

Ruslan Fedotenko scored both goals, including the Cup winner, last time he was here with Tampa Bay, as well as giving inspiration for Gary Thorne to produce an awesome bit of commentary...

"..Score!...HE'S GOT ANOTHER ONE! FED-O-TEN-KOOOO!"

Search it on youtube..."Fedotenko game 7"...:)

Craig Adams has won the cup with Carolina in a game 7 too...so history is (just) on the Pens' side...

By this time tomorrow, new legends will be born, and many tears of joy or celebration will have been cried in either Detroit or Pittsburgh. But either way, tonight is a moment in hockey history that comes along all too rarely. Savour it. Whoever wins.

That said...

GO PENS, GO!

Reaction to come tomorrow, either way...and then we might get back to events in the UK hockey scene sometime on Sunday or Monday...:)

(Not) Enjoying the Silence

2009-06-11T14:56:00.002+01:00

Yes, I know that with the Cup Finals I really haven't said anything about events/signings back in Britain...I'm putting together a summary of these which will hopefully be up in time for tomorrow. As will a musing on the appeal, by way of a preview, on the sports version of Beauty and the Beast, and possibly one of the greatest recurring occasions in world sport-the mix of joy, pain and blinding fear that is Game Seven of a Stanley Cup Final...

Check back tomorrow morning...and keep keeping your eye on the puck..

Game Six: If No-One Speaks Of Remarkable Things...

2009-06-10T11:42:00.002+01:00

"Just one more breath, I beg you please
Just one more step, my knees are weak
My heart is sturdy but it needs you to survive"
Dashboard Confessional: "Reason to Believe"

Sweet Jesus Christ. I can't take any more. If you don't hear from me after Friday night for more than a day or two, whatever the result, then worry a little. There is at least a five percent chance the Pens have killed me.

I swore not to watch last night-mainly because I didn't want to ruin my birthday with a vision of the Wings once again lifting the cup, which, after Saturday's shower of faeces from the Pens, particularly in the second period, looked something of a formality. Then Jordan Staal scored, and hope returned. Then Tyler Kennedy made a play out of nothing, and just briefly, I and every other Pens fan began to hope that just maybe, there was a Game Seven in this thing after all.

Then Kris Draper (Kris....bloody...Draper!) scored to make it two-one, and suddenly the fear returned in all its vomit-inducing, dry-mouthed, weak-kneed fury. Shot after shot rained in on Fleury, and shot after shot got turned away. Even before the equaliser, Zetterberg tinged one off the post and for half-a-second I knew despair as I thought it had gone in, because I was as certain as of anything in my life that, if this game went to overtime, the cup was going to Detroit.

But still the Pens hung on. Until two minutes that, I swear by the hockey gods, came as close to causing my death from a heart attack as anything ever will, and nearly killed me on the same day as I'd been born twenty-five years before.

First came Pavel Datsyuk's gorgeous, made-in-hockey-heaven pass to Dan Cleary, which I couldn't help but admire even as I watched the big Newfoundlander attempt to destroy the dreams of the black-and-white half of Pennsylvania. In the second or two of his approach, I promised anything to the hockey deities, up to and including my firstborn, if Fleury stopped it. He did, and the thump of puck hitting left pad was like the hammer of the hockey gods crashing down. Surely that was it.

But no. The Wings kept coming, the clock in the corner of the screen moved like a sloth through treacle, and with twenty seconds to go, all hell broke loose.

With Fleury out of position and the puck sitting on the stick of Johan Franzen, my eyes widened in horror-this was it. The final, vital break through the Pens defence, and the spirit-crusher which would win the Wings the Cup in OT. As the Swede shot, my heart stopped...and didn't beat again for fifteen long, even eternal seconds, even as Rob Scuderi somehow got in the way with one of the greatest pieces of desperation defending you or I will ever see. It only started again at the final hooter.

God, I'm dreading game seven...

But even so, there is a fierce hope. We saw the hockey gods manifest themselves in all their cruel, heartless yet glorious beauty through Rob Scuderi last night. Next game, as is customary at this time of year, they'll pick someone else to do their work, and the Cup will be won.

For the sake of my bleeding and bruised soul, I hope it's a Penguin.

Let's go Pens...

Game Five: The Sound Of Silence

2009-06-09T14:32:00.003+01:00

Ouch. It's been three days now, and I still haven't quite processed the sheer nightmarishly bad-ness of the Pens game 5 collapse, particularly in the second period.

However, it has been done, and there will be an epic post tomorrow morning ranging from NHL to EPL as we look at hockey happenings both in the UK and in the "big league", including game six...check back around midday...

Game Four: Power and the Glory

2009-06-05T17:15:00.003+01:00

"I'll fight forever, I won't surrender,
And I will always...
Hunt...you...down!"
Saliva: "Hunt You Down"

Oh, hell, yeah.

One quick goal (from Geno Malkin, who else?) and a three-goal second period, with the third of those (Tyler Kennedy's) looking so beautiful that if it were possible, you'd make love to it until next July, and suddenly, with the Wings reeling on the ropes, we have a best of three.

Not only that, but the "best team in hockey" look shaky, especially on the penalty-kill-of the eight goals scored by the Pens in games 3 and 4, three of them, or nearly half, came on the powerplay. If you include Jordan Staal's shortie, the Wings special teams have been on the ice for half of the Pens goals in the past two games, and four of the ten Pens goals in the series have been scored with the man advantage.

By contrast, the Wings have scored only one powerplay goal in the series, despite getting ten themselves...

Special teams win games, and winning games wins championships. If you'd asked me after game two whether I thought the Pens could be returning to the Mellon on June 9th with a chance to lift the Stanley Cup, I'd have said "no way-they'll be trying to take it to a game 7 for sure". Now, I genuinely think a game 5 win is not only possible, but probable...Chris Osgood has been proven to be vulnerable, the vaunted hitting of the Red Wings defence (particularly Nicklas Kronwall) is failing spectacularly to intimidate (watch Malkin's goal from last night-the powerplay comes from a Kronwall hit that goes slightly wrong, on Geno himself...he hops up, stays on the ice and bangs home a rebound off the boards...a rebound which, by the way, makes up for the horrific Brad Stuart goal in game 1...

Oh yes, and there is the small matter of Sidney Crosby finally appearing to catch fire in the goalscoring department, too.

On Tuesday morning, the hope was just that the Pens could avoid falling into a deep hole. Now, as the series heads back to the Joe Louis, there's a real possibility that, far from just climbing out, they can go on and chuck the Wings into that same hole before they come back on Tuesday.

Watch out, Hockeytown. This summer, you have serious competition...

Game 3: Hope Reborn

2009-06-03T18:55:00.001+01:00

"Raise a bright hope, that there is a brilliant tomorrow"
Small Towns Burn a Little Slower: "A Tune of Panic"

Ladies, gentlemen and Red Wings fans, we got ourselves a series again. And this despite Sid still being held to one point, and Geno not scoring this time round (although he did once again step forward as "the" Pens player of the series so far, assisting on three of the four goals). How's that "two players scoring on the team" schtick smell now?

It's all about Mad Max Talbot, be-yatch, scoring two goals-the opener and the dagger-to-the-heart empty netter. Although you wouldn't put him among the top offensive stars in the series, Max can finish when he needs to...

Or Chris Kunitz, throwing only two less hits by himself in the first two periods (10) than the entire Wings team (12)...by far the leader on a Pens team that out-hit their opponents by over three-to-one. Crash-and-bang playoff hockey at its best...

Or maybe Kris Letang and Sergei Gonchar, blasting home a pair of bullet slapshots after the Wings looked like they'd weathered the storm to go 2-1 up, thanks to the Swedish tandem of Zetterberg and Franzen deciding that they'd do their bit to reclaim the superstar mantle after being shown up a little in the scoring stakes by the AHL line.

Whisper this...but maybe the Wings have a weakness-three penalties taken, two powerplay goals conceded. If you're looking for the ideal way to lose a game, then taking a 2-1 lead and throwing it away by failing to kill penalties must be up there somewhere.

Darren Helm and Justin Abdelkader, where art thou? The Wings everyone have been talking about in this series appeared to be a little off their games for a change...pride comes before a fall, and all that...

Three goals on 20 shots, including two on seven in the first period alone? Not that Chris Osgood is cracking (he's far too much of a professional for that) but the aura of flawless invincibility he was slowly building over the first two games has, if not shattered (after all, this is just one game), at least now got a few blemishes on it. If the Pens out-duel him in game 4, suddenly the Wings will have to come to Pittsburgh at least once more...and with the ground-shaking noise produced by 17,000+ Pens fanatics plus the massive crowd outside, it is not a friendly place for anyone wearing the winged wheel, but Ozzie will be the one under the gun most of all...

Game Four is now the Pens' to lose. They can keep Sid and/or Geno away from Zetterberg and/or Lidstrom, Datsyuk ain't fit yet, and 17,216 roaring voices are a hell of a sixth man. But if they do lose, the Wings are not only in the driving seat but have the key in the ignition and the handbrake released in their drive towards victory. For so many reasons, the season for Sid and friends has now reached the point where losing with dignity and pride, as they did last time out, is simply not an option any more.

After the first two, many were saying that the Winged Wheel was rolling toward another Stanley Cup. After Game Three, the Penguins are preparing to march again.

Thursday is D-day.

We need a repeat of Tuesday night on Thursday, Kunitz to crash and bang like a demented destruction-derby racer again, Malkin to play like a demon playmaker again, and Sid to channel the spirit of Mario through himself to his team-mates, many of whom will need no telling of how important a win is. Nothing else will do.

All 82 regular season games and the 20 playoff games thus far are history now. Grounding the hated Flyers, storming the Capitals and blowing away the Hurricanes were great fun, great achievements and would be enough for many other teams. But not this Pens squad. Not now.

We know the Cup will be won, but we don't know who by. Thursday's game will have a massive say in deciding that question...

Let's go Pens...

Game Two: Between the Hammer and the Anvil

2009-06-01T19:00:00.002+01:00

"She said
"Some races can't be won"
And so we fade with the setting of the sun"
This Day And Age:"Slideshow"

Now the Pens are in a hole. With Detroit going 2-0 up in the series after winning game two 3-1 last night, with their backs broken thanks to another goal from Justin Abdelkader just as they looked like equalising Valteri Filppulla's go-ahead strike (indeed, Sidney Crosby had missed a gilt-edged chance seconds before. Twice.), and with Crosby pointless and Chris Osgood sneaking into Malkin's head by stopping him twice in two nights on breakaways, the Pens now have to win four in five, while the Wings can lose all their games away from the Joe and still win the Cup.

If one of your top scorers is being relied upon to tie for the lead in hits in the game (Malkin had three) then you have problems...although at least someone finally nailed the "float like a turd, sting like a butterfly" Zetterberg (Malkin again, with less than twenty seconds to go in the third and the game all but gone).

For Detroit's first, though, I'd love to know why Darren Helm was allowed to stand completely unmolested in front of Fleury for several seconds-enough time for Jonathan Ericsson's bullet of a shot to be aimed, fired and travel past him and leave the Pens nettie no chance of seeing it in time to react...surely, come playoff time, that guy gets moved, if not flattened (and curse the new NHL rules for making bruising battles in front of the net almost a thing of the past).

On the plus side...there are moments where the Wings look suspect. If they keep presenting Geno with presents of breakaways then one day, Osgood will not save them. The longer Crosby's held scoreless, the more motivated he'll be. Although obviously every Pens fan hopes that this streak will end (much) sooner rather than later.

More positives-Pepper Osgood and the puck will go by-particularly if players such as Guerin (although some sources say he's carrying an injury-oh, good) Talbot, Staal, Adams and the like are willing to get involved in the brutal trench-warfare in front of him (what I'd give for Tomas Holmstrom to be on the opposite side to the one he's on-he's the epitome of what the Pens need right now)-indeed, the only Pens goal in game two came after seemingly every player on the ice bar Geno thought "sod it, we're crashing the net..." and we saw a proper playoff hockey goal-uglier than the thought of this lady sitting on your face while performing her party piece, but oh so needed...

The Pens need a few more of those in games 3 and 4...it's going to the Mellon now...and if the Wings can win one of two there, followed by one at home (or, God forbid, earn a sweep with two) then they've well and truly have earned the Cup. Pens win both and suddenly, it's a whole different series...

First, though, they have to get some offence...

Sid and Malkin have to start firing sometime...please god, let it be Tuesday...

Cup Fever: Game One

2009-05-31T13:59:00.002+01:00

"Now peel back his skin dear, peel back his skin
And he'll just smile....
But he's only smiling to deny the pain
And he's only smiling
And I bet you love this, don't you?"
Fear Before the March of Flames: "On the Bright Side, She Could Choke..."

I'm fast coming to despise Darren Helm with every fibre and sinew of my being, because the Red Wing currently filling the role of "young player who becomes a star from nowhere in the playoffs" this season is terrifying. Not because he's a league superstar who can win games by himself (well, yet) but because he's just so good at his assigned role.

But my hatred for him is nothing compared to the hatred I now have for inanimate objects in Detroit-or one set of them in particular. You may be wondering whether I'm in full control of my mind at this point, but bear with me.

It's the boards at the Joe Louis.

The Red Wings won game 1 3-1 last night, and two of the three were a direct result of strange bounces off the boards behind Marc-Andre Fleury's net...including the opening one of the finals. Brad Stuart's shot went wide by several feet, but bounced back harder than a well-aimed pass, and the back of Fleury's thigh did the rest. Franzen's second...that wasn't a shot so much as an instinctive hack at a puck which had again rebounded strangely...it went in off Fleury again, while Abdelkader's winner also had a slight element of luck in the way the puck rebounds straight up off Fleury's pads from the initial shot. Nicely pulled down and finished, though, I'll give him that.

Saying that, the good luck in Detroit must all have gone to the Wings...I mean, this is a typical street scene in Red Wings Nation...

This means, then, that we go into game 2 today with the Finals already at a crossroads. The Penguins win, and it's back where we were going back to the Mellon Arena. The Wings win, and suddenly there's a big, big problem...

But I shall quote my facebook status in saying that winning one from seven is a lot easier than three in six, especially when you're a) having to win at least one of them away from home unless you want to go all the way to the lottery that is Game Seven, and b) you won't have the friendly boards of the Joe for at least two of them. If the Pens can win game two, then it's simply a case of holding serve at home-something which they've done pretty damn well in the playoffs up to now, losing only twice at the Igloo.

Oh yeah...and the reason Crosby is the face of the NHL? It may have something to do with the fact that he's the best in the NHL, plus, for a combination of reasons, he's considered media gold by the league, at least in terms of selling the game to your average suburban American family...
Plus, he probably makes better chili than Chris Chelios does.

Quick thought...Brooks Orpik, we need more of this side of you. Preferably on Marian Hossa, if at all possible. However, if you could arrange a few to be on Henrik Zetterberg (who has more ice-time than Crosby but scores less despite most of Michigan wanting to have his firstborn, still. Yes, even the men. Maybe it's the playoff beard) then that would be nice...

Nicklas Kronwall...continue as you are. None of your famous big hits, and leaving Feds wide open to score the Pens solitary goal. Keep going, superstar...

With 14.2857142 percent of the Finals gone (yes, I looked it up), the Red Wings have the advantage. But the Pens nick one tonight, and suddenly things look very different.

The March of the Penguins has suffered a slight detour. But there is little, as yet, to worry about...whatever those in Detroit would have you think.

Cup Fever: Random Thoughts...

2009-05-29T19:30:00.004+01:00

I tried to keep quiet until game time. I really, really did. Then Red Wings Nation (or at least the British blog representatives of it) put their reasons why the Wings will win the Cup. And in doing so perpetrated the falsehood that every non-Pen uses as their foundation argument to why the Steel City ain't getting a visit from Lord Stanley this year.

The "you've only got two players" argument...

Which on numbers of goals alone, is just about arguable (although I fail to see how a team which ices its top forward and best player, Henrik Zetterberg, even more than the Pens ice Sid the Kid and its second-and-third best players, Franzen and Datsyuk, for round about the same time as Malkin can complain about double-shifting superstars-especially when they ice Nick Lidstrom longer than the Pens ice Sergei Gonchar). However, given that the Red Wings would give their eye-teeth to have one, never mind both, that smacks of sheer jealousy. After all, this is a team relying on a starting goalie who let Fedor Tyutin (Fedor Tyutin!) do this earlier in the season...But hey, if you want to forget Sykora, Satan, Guerin, Fedotenko, Staal and company and focus all your efforts on stopping two players, then fair enough. After all...what's the worst that could happen? It's not like Feds has ever scored an important goal or anything...

Oh, wait...

It can't be denied that the Wings are a damn good hockey team with a huge amount of depth. But the Pens, this time out, are younger, hungrier and (Darren Helm excepted) as fast if not faster, player-for-player. But can you really see a 39-year-old who's just come off an injury as the ideal counter for Crosby, even if he's won six Norris Trophies?

Nick Lidstrom will play game one after finally recovering from an injury which saw him miss most of the Conference Finals...and Chris Kunitz, hopefully, will duly give him the same treatment he gave Kimmo Timonen. Certainly this would seem to make sense...last season it was the Wings who put the hits in early in the Finals, and we all know what happened there...

There's also been a claim over "the other side" that Crosby and Malkin have something of a "bromance" going on. I see your Crosby and Malkin, Matt, and raise you Draper and Osgood. Is that what they mean when they say he's got a "quick glove-hand?"

The clock is ticking...next post after Game One...

A Declaration of War...

2009-05-28T21:36:00.004+01:00

"So pick your friends out
I'll take my place and you'll take yours
Load your guns up...
Cause now I'm ready for your war..."
Hadouken!: "Declaration of War"

For the latest from the EIHL, have a gander at the post below this one (Arrivals and Departures)...this one is all NHL.

As for the somewhat antagonistic lyrics opening...don't worry, I'm not going all Dubya on you...let me explain...

You may have noticed, or at least formed the opinion, that I'm something of a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. This, in recent hockey terms, was the equivalent of being a six-stone-weakling in a maximum-security prison for the first year or two of my hockey-watching life, right up to the point where one of the greatest talents ever to strap on a pair of skates fell into the Steel City's lap, thanks to a bit of luck in the 2004 and 2005 entry drafts...the seasons were grim but with first Evgeni Malkin and then Sidney Crosby arriving, things have got better and better...and us Pens fans have enjoyed every minute of it (and if you don't know who Crosby and Malkin are, then let me show you)...

Evgeni Malkin...

Sidney Crosby

Anyway...this presents me with something of a quandary, as my good friends Matt and Becky, over at Five Minute Major, are (and don't hold this against them) fans of the Detroit Red Wings, who beat the Pens to the Stanley Cup last year, and are the only obstacle in the way of my team's charge to the Cup again this year, with the finals starting this Saturday, May 30th.

Well, at least Matt is. Becky is first and foremost an Edmonton fan, and thus is well-prepared for being the experience of being on the losing side in a 21st-century Stanley Cup Final...to Carolina, no less...although given the history of the Oilers, not too-well prepared...

And so, naturally, war has been declared-in true hockey tradition, the Breakaway and Five Minute Major, while being good friends away from the ice, will now engage in verbal combat throughout the Stanley Cup Finals, with Matt and Becky cheering for the Red Wings, and me advancing the cause of the Pens. There will be taunting, there will be jokes, there will be below-the-belt pop-culture references, and at the end, one blog will earn the right to claim their team are the better...

And naturally, you lot out there can follow every sledge, every dig and every obscure joke for your own entertainment...

And it starts now...the gloves, from this point, are off...I shall preface every post relating to the duel with an appropriate catchy title, as soon as I or FMJ (or even you lot out there) think of it, but for now...let's consider just why the Pens will emerge victorious...

"Heads I win, tails you lose
out of my way I'm coming through
roll the dice don't think twice...
and we crush...crush 'em"
Megadeth: "Crush 'Em"

Chris Kunitz, Sidney Crosby, Bill Guerin, Sergei Gonchar, Brooks Orpik, Marc-Andre Fleury. That's the starting line of the 2008/09 Pittsburgh Penguins. Two of the best power forwards in the NHL, one of the best goalies to come out of Quebec since some bloke named Patrick Roy, a lethal offensive defenseman, and a stay-at-home d-man who, some say, can cause an opposition forward to wet himself just by a raised eyebrow. Oh, and the best player to strap on a pair of skates since Wayne Gretzky, too. You can talk about the likes of Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Lidstrom all you like, but they aren't Sidney Crosby. And thus, they pale in comparison.

And then we have the rest of the roster. Evgeni Malkin, who, by the way, is like Alex Ovechkin, only even better. Jordan Staal-the best young forward in the NHL who isn't Crosby, Ovechkin or Malkin (Hang on-did someone say "Darren Helm"? Who's he?...). And a supporting cast including Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko, both Cup winners already...it's a murderer's row of forwards. Including two of the top five scorers in the NHL this season.

On defence-Kris Letang and the monster that is Hal Gill. This is a team that has a third line that can (and has) beaten many first lines...mainly because it has Miroslav Satan (a career NHL top-liner with over 350 goals) on it...simply because there was no space for him anywhere else.

Sure, you will say that the Red Wings and their loaded team came out on top last season. But that was last season. Even many Pens fans thought that team was a year too early.

This time round, though...there's a firm belief that the March of the Penguins will not be stopped. Especially not by a team whose best d-men are 47, 39, and 35, has the league's third-best Russian as their superstar, and is growing old faster and becoming more boring and over-praised than Susan Boyle (if you're not British, look her up)...

I predict Pens in six. Or more likely seven...

And no superstition about touching a conference trophy, never mind Chris Osgood and friends, can change that result...

Let's go Pens!