(30th January 2008) The bmibaby Elite League is talking about increasing the number of imports. Is this a return to the Superleague era, asks Stewart.

The week’s big talking point is the Elite League’s latest wizard wheeze (revealed here) which could take us straight back to the Superleague era.

Those who know me will know just how much I love this idea. It’s been explained to me that with 15 ‘imports’ and a strictly enforced wage cap (another story for another day), teams will not be held to ransom by Brits who are not as good as they think they are. (Not quite the language used but you get the drift).

If this rule is adopted by the league, my betting is that the only Brits to get a regular spot on an Elite roster will be the very best ones - the Taits, Weavers, Hands and Clarkes - while the less talented will be forced to drop down to the English Premier or out of the sport altogether.

As in Superleague, our own brave boys would be squeezed out of our ‘top league’. This is the drawback with running a pro circuit in Britain which can’t afford to pay its players a living wage.

North Americans enjoy coming here for a year, getting £300-500 a week, a place to lay their heads (and their girl friends) and a car to get around in. But Brits can’t live on this sort of money unless they have a second job. And there’s no time for that and playing in a professional circuit.

(If my analysis is wrong, I’ll be delighted to hear the league’s thinking. As always, I’m at stewice@aol.com.)
 

Player of the Week There’s only one possible choice. Tony Hand MBE played his 1,000th league game on Sunday - an all-time British record - scoring a goal and, of course, an assist for Manchester Phoenix. Now in his 27th year in senior hockey, the Great Brit One has 3,006 league points (including 1,120 goals). Our photo shows Tony receiving his MBE from HM The Queen in January 2004.

PRO LEAGUE DIVIDES ICE HOCKEY

This is just one of the reasons I’m uneasy about a pro league in this country. It also divides an already minor sport into warring factions while doing little to address the most vital issue - how to develop better home-grown players.

So I was glad to see that some effort is being made in this direction, and by the coach of an Elite League club. According to an article in Powerplay, Coventry Blaze’s Paul Thompson’s coaching clinic (www.paulthompsonscoachingclinic.co.uk) has been given ‘workshop status’ (whatever that is) by the English and Scottish IHAs.

The clinic is not directly involved in coaching our kids but in coaching their coaches who too often are just willing and not very able parents.

I’m not familiar with junior coaching organisations. I only see the end product. But I do know that the standard of coaching our youngsters receive varies enormously from club to club. So anything that can improve matters has to be welcomed.

A fine, if unwanted, example of the sport’s Warring Factions is the news that ice hockey’s movers and shakers are meeting this week with the Minister for Sport, Gerry Sutcliffe.

Going to the Trafalgar Square offices of the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport are Frederick Meredith of the world governing IIHF; Ken Taggart, Bob Wilkinson and Neville Moralee of the English Ice Hockey Association (parent body of the English Premier League); and Joanne Collins of the players’ union, IHPAGB.
 

Photo of the Week Basingstoke Bison’s Derek Campbell steam-rollers a Newcastle Viper in Vipers’ 4-1 win in Hampshire. Photo: David Taylor.

SPORT DISCUSSES HOT TOPICS

On the agenda are the recommendations made by sports consultant, Neil Tunnicliffe, after his extensive interviews with a number of ice hockey people. There are several hot political topics on Mr T’s list which is why a couple of the Warring Factions were missing from this week’s get-together.

I understand that Ice Hockey UK and the Elite League are to meet the Minister in a week or two. Congratulations, gents, on showing to someone trying to help you that your sport’s organisation is a complete shambles.

The GB 33 are off to the Euro Challenge in the Mont Blanc region of France next week (Feb 5-8). Sadly, I shan’t be able to make it as all the hotels were booked but you can follow the team’s progress on www.bbc.co.uk or http://www.icehockeychallenge.net/index.htm.

With three games in three different rinks and players flying in and out of France to make sure they don’t tire themselves out for their club sides (shades of Pool A ’94), the organisers have a logistical nightmare on their hands.

But at least Thommo will be able to run the rule over guys who might not otherwise have had a look in. Good luck to him and all the players.

I’m away for the next few days, visiting former GB and London Knights’ coach, Chris McSorley, whose Geneva Eagles (http://www.geneva-hockey.ch/) are now the second most successful team in Switzerland. What a huge loss he’s been to the sport here.

Back in two weeks.

(23rd January 2008) Among the big spenders and little spenders of the bmibaby Elite League, the Bison Ten have a little budget but big hearts, says Stewart.

The Elite League rightly likes to point out how competitive their teams are, with any side able to beat any other on a given night.

But with the crowds and the budgets varying enormously (as we’ve said before, and can’t say often enough) the gap between the leaders, Coventry Blaze, and the last place Hull Stingrays, has now widened to a chasm.

In the ten-team league table, nearly 40 points separate Rick Strachan’s battling Stingrays (21 points from 37 games) from Paul Thompson’s all-conquering Blaze (58 from 35).

The Blaze steam-rollered the injury-hit Cardiff Devils 5-1 (away) and 8-1 (home) in back-to-back games and are well on their way towards a third league title in four years.

Thommo’s team are five points clear of their nearest challengers, Belfast Giants, who extended their winning streak to 13, a record for the Elite this season. But Giants have only the slimmest chance of catching the Blaze who have three games in hand.

Though the low budget team owners might not agree, at least this way the fans get to see the occasional feats of giant-killing.

Edinburgh Capitals (21 points) didn’t quite kill off the Sheffield Steelers (48) in their home-and-away contests. But they knocked ‘em about a bit in two titanic tussles and came away with a point.

The first game in Scotland went to a shootout before Steeler Doug Sheppard notched the winner for a 4-3 win. The next night, Ryan Finnerty broke a 1-1 tie in the 50th minute for a 2-1 Sheffield victory.
 

Player of the Week All the Bison Ten (plus keepers Curtis Cruickshank and Dan Green) deserve the accolade this week for their superb team spirit.  But as the rules demand one player, we’ll pick their skipper, Brad Cruikshank, who was man of the match with a hat-trick in their narrow home defeat by Nottingham Panthers and netted the winning shot in their come-from-behind victory at Hull Stingrays. Photo: David Taylor.

Pic of the Week Young British goalie, Steven Fone, played in the last period for Coventry Blaze in their second game against Cardiff Devils, an 8-1 win. Photo: Mark Tredgold.

TESSIER BACK WITH THE STEELERS

Steelers’ GM, Mike O’Connor, was full of praise for Doug Christainsen’s men. “The way Capitals played, I can’t believe they’re in ninth place,” he said.

No more has been mentioned, by the way, about the ‘two weeks’ notice’ dished out to the whole Sheffield club by owner Bob Phillips over a fortnight ago. There’s a surprise (not).

But there were surprises when Phillips sacked their popular enforcer Jeremy Cornish and brought back former Steeler, Dan Tessier.

Tessier broke his two-year contract at the end of last season for a better paying job in Germany, but that club and his subsequent North American team later released him. According to the rumour mill, the Canadian forward had been asking £900 a week in Britain.

The other giant-killers, or at least giant-worriers, are the eighth place Basingstoke Bison (29 points). The Bison Ten, as they’ve been dubbed, due to injuries and budget restrictions, had another battling weekend, this time almost murdering fourth place Nottingham Panthers (45).

In a wild five-goal last period, the Bison led twice through Brad Cruikshank before Panthers escaped with a 5-4 victory through Corey Neilson and Ryan Shmyr.

The game was played in front of Basingstoke’s largest crowd of the season so far. There were 1,225 fans in the Fridge, prompting one Panthers’ fan to remark: “There were over 4,000 in the NIC last week and no one said a word.”
 

Coventry Blaze forward Michael Tasker, 34, waves farewell to the Skydome faithful on 13 January after a 17-year career in British hockey. He was forced into premature retirement by injury. Photo: Mark Tredgold.

‘BAVY’ BOOSTS THE BISON

While it’s no coincidence that Basingstoke’s support has gone up by a remarkable 71 per cent since Tomas Enerston took over the club in early November, I must put in a word here for the team’s cheerleader, Darren Bavister.

Adorned with a ginger fright-wig, ‘Bavy’ works the crowd superbly from his DJ’s box. He excelled himself when the Panthers’ game was late starting, running round the stands, throwing sweets to the fans and encouraging the Mexican Wave.

The atmosphere at recent Bison games has been deafening, giving the depleted team just the boost it needs. At home, it's the ‘Bison Eleven’. Put your hands up in the air!

It was the Never-Say-Die Ten (plus reliable keeper Curtis Cruickshank and his back-up, Dan Green, of course) in Hull the next day when they fought back from 6-4 behind to beat the Stingrays 7-6 on Derek Campbell’s tying goal (at 59.39) and Brad Cruikshank’s winning penalty shot.

This time nine goals (count ‘em) were scored in the final session (actually in 12 minutes, 30 seconds), with ‘Rays' four in seven minutes being sadly in vain.

Finally, Tony Hand is scheduled to appear in his 1,000th league game on Sunday, playing for and coaching Manchester Phoenix against the Panthers.

I wonder if someone from Ice Hockey UK Towers is going to rise from their slumbers and tell the world of The Great Brit One’s latest feat. Or will they waste another fine PR opportunity? Answers on a postcard, please.

(16th January 2008) It’s character building playing pro hockey in Britain, says Stewart.

Last season it was Cardiff Devils and Manchester Phoenix who went through hockey hell, waiting half the season or more for their own rink and then finding it was a ‘temporary permanent’ one when it turned up.

Before that, it was the London Racers wandering around the capital trying to find a decent sheet of ice.

No one can say playing professional ice hockey in Britain isn’t character building.

This season’s characters are Basingstoke Bison, on their third owner in less than a year, playing in front of one of the Elite League’s smallest crowds and with a scarcely affordable budget.

Add the league’s current injury scourge and the team could be forgiven for just going through the motions. But that’s not the way hockey players are made. The bigger the obstacles it seems, the better they play.

All this is my rather long-winded way of breaking the news that the Bison, with only ten out-players, were the first team to rack up double figures in the league this season with a 10-2 annihilation of last place Edinburgh Capitals.

Naturally, Bison’s owner Tomas Enerston, was over the moon, Brian, about the result. His team’s gutsy determination to rise above their troubles is rubbing off on Tomas - or perhaps it’s the other way round.
 

Player of the Week Peter Campbell, Belfast Giants, hit a hat-trick against Sheffield Steelers and tallied eight points in Giants’ weekend victories. Belfast are on a ten-game winning run while Campbell is third in league scoring, five points behind the leader, Ed Courtenay, his team-mate and coach. Photo: Michael Cooper.

BOSS WAVES TEAM OFF AT 2.30 A.M.

Either way, in his long and interesting email to fans - a fine piece of PR - Tomas pointed out that the Bison had also travelled to Belfast only two days earlier (they lost 7-4), flying out to Northern Ireland at 2.30 a.m. What’s more he was there to see they all got on the plane!

How did Capitals take their embarrassing defeat? Player-coach Doug Christiansen preferred to concentrate on the next night’s game when his men made a startlingly quick recovery to shut out Nottingham Panthers 3-0.

“JF Perras [Caps’ goalie] played fantastic,” he told the Scotsman, “but the whole team deserves credit. It was a remarkable turnaround from Saturday.” Then he added: “We threw the video of our game at Bison away.” Who can blame him?

The Bison’s fortunes also went into reverse on Sunday with a 7-3 defeat at Newcastle Vipers. But Mr Enerston won’t be throwing the video of that game away. Instead, he’s found an ingenious way of turning recording tape into pound notes.

“[Player-coach] Ryan [Aldridge] always gets a copy of the game,” said Tomas in his email, “so I thought it would be good if we gave the fans who couldn’t travel a chance to see the game.”

Tuesday night was ‘away game’ night in the rink’s bar. Who wanted to watch a game where the result - a loss - is already known? We’ll see, but for the fans surely it’s a good way of showing solidarity with their team.
 

Shot of the Week Basingstoke Bison show their winning desire as they attack JF Perras in the Edinburgh Capitals’ goal during the Bison’s record 10-2 home win. Photo: David Taylor.

BOTTOM THREE TEAMS IN KO SEMIS

Back with the Capitals, their win in Nottingham gave them a crumb of comfort as it moved them off the bottom of the table for the first time since October, to be replaced by the hapless Hull Stingrays.

Before the playoffs, Capitals and Bison, along with the Stingrays, will feature in the last four of the KO Cup. Another upset. The bottom three teams all in with a chance of silverware. Who says this league isn’t competitive?

There’s just room to congratulate Newcastle Viper Shaun Johnson who was scheduled to play his 1,000th game during the week, and the 33 players who’ve been selected to play for the GB senior team in France in three World Championship warm-up games next month. Full squad here - http://www.eliteleague.co.uk/news/detail.php?id=5552.

Forgive another Bison plug, but I was heartened to see that their Toronto-born forward, Greg Chambers, 25, currently among the top ten in the Elite’s scoring charts, has made it into the squad.

Chambers and Peterborough’s Nathan Rempel are the only two British players who’ve learned their hockey abroad, unless you count ex-GB defender Mike O’Connor’s son, Ben, now with Edinburgh, and Newcastle’s Colin Shields both of whom have spent considerable time on North American teams.

These are the experienced players that GB needs if they are to continue their climb back up the slippery world rankings.

(9th January 2008) Only Tony Hand’s record points haul has brightened a week of gloomy stories from the bmibaby Elite League, says Stewart.

In a festive spirit of goodwill, last week I tried hard to be up-beat about the game. But this week the Elite League has let me down as almost all their news has been bad.

News - Cardiff Devils “need £18,000 to finish the season”.

Stewart says - Devils’ dodgy finances have been plastered all over the local press ever since the Superleague days. The latest chapter in this sorry saga even made the pages of the national papers.

I don’t know who’s to blame and, frankly, I’ve given up caring - along with most other non-Devils fans. Please, guys, fix this fast and in private. Or we’ll let Brad Voth loose on you.

News - Sheffield Steelers’ boss, Bob Phillips, threatens every player and staff member with the sack when the league runners-up lose two games in a row, 7-1 and 4-0. (http://www.thestar.co.uk/icehockey/39Steelers-players-are-letting-down.3646898.jp)

Stewart says - Is ‘e ‘avin a laff? ‘E’s ‘avin a laff. This is the sixth club to issue this public warning. It’s an empty threat from desperate teams hamstrung by budgets so tight they can’t afford squads deep enough to bench under-performing players.

 

Player of the Week Slava Koulikov, Hull Stingrays. Russia-born, British trained forward was passionately involved in his team’s 5-3 defeat of Manchester Phoenix in the first leg of the Knockout Cup after six straight league losses. He scored four points (one goal) and was thrown out at the end of the game for arguing with the ref.

WORST EVER INJURY CRISIS

News - Almost every team has an injury problem. This is contributing to the shorter than short benches and is probably the worst any of us have known. Just one example - the Devils have “four serious knee injuries and two broken feet”, according to their player-coach Brent Pope.

Stewart says - As well as wages being cut to the bone, so are rosters, while the decision to pay as little as possible for imports means that some overseas players inevitably come here with pre-existing injuries.

Elite teams also play the longest schedule in Europe. Newcastle Vipers, for example, played six games in nine days over the Christmas holiday.

With league (54), Challenge Cup (8), playoffs (4) and KO Cup (6), some sides could end up playing as many as 72 games. Last season, no one played more than 64.

News - Eight of the ten teams played games in the Knockout Cup. Belfast Giants and Nottingham Panthers have opted out.

Stewart says - Is this competition really necessary? Well, according to Tomas Enerston, Basingstoke Bison’s new owner, it’s essential for his club’s financial health.

He was as much relieved as delighted when his team upset the odds to beat Cardiff Devils and won through to the cup semis. “This will mean at least one extra home game with the income that brings,” he told me.

 

Shot of the Week Basingstoke Bison keeper, Curtis Cruickshank, who kept his second clean sheet of the season with 35 saves as Bison overwhelmed Cardiff Devils 6-0 in the first leg of the KO Cup. Photo courtesy of David Taylor.

MIND THE GAP

News - Ten times as many fans (6,575) watched Steelers at Panthers as were at Bison’s game against the Phoenix (726) on the same night.

Stewart says - No wonder some of the big clubs can afford twice the budget of the smaller sides, as Tomas pointed out.

The Cardiff-based, Sweden-born businessman has been on the scene for only a few weeks but it’s long enough for him to believe that the wage cap (£5,700 a week after tax) must be reduced - and strictly enforced - if the smaller teams are to compete on equal terms and, more importantly, to survive at the top level.

In the light of my comments earlier about the consequences of having tight budgets, the league urgently needs some lessons in economics.

News - Newcastle Vipers were knocked out of the cup - by the cellar dwelling Edinburgh Capitals. see link

Stewart says - How much more can the Vipers’ faithful take? The team have already dropped from second to sixth in less than two months. Coach Rob Wilson’s days are surely numbered - especially after his boss, Paul Ferone, gave him the dreaded ‘vote of confidence’ before the weekend.

Enough, I hear you cry. There must be some good news. Well, Mr Enerston told me the Sky TV deal has been good for the league with the viewing figures ‘above estimates’. Unfortunately, he was not allowed to tell me just what they are.

And our own Great One, Tony Hand MBE, scored his record 3,000th league point. His next target is 4,000 lifetime points in all official games, provided the 40-year-old doesn’t carry out his threat to retire.

If we have another week of disasters like this one, the Elite League will be forced into retirement long before Tony is.

● Our ticker at the top of the IHA Home page will keep you posted on his Greatness’s scoring progress.

(2nd January 2008) This is the time of year when we traditionally look back at the past 12 months and forward to … what?

First, here’s The Ice Hockey Annual’s awards for achievements in the last 12 months (not just the first half of this season). And woe to those who say ‘there can’t be many of those’. My New Year resolution is to be kind to the folk who run our game. (A new sport for you, dear reader, is to see how long it takes for me to break it.)

I’ll start with my nominations (in alphabetical order) for Person of the Year:

● Eamon Convery, the Elite League chairman, for negotiating a three-year deal with Nottingham’s National Ice Centre for the league’s playoff finals.

● Tomas Enerston for saving Basingstoke Bison and Katie Eleftheriou for ditto Bracknell Bees. Here’s wishing them and their new teams success and a long life.

SIMMSY OUT TALKS 'EM ALL

● Dave Simms for his commentating on Sky TV. We all know Simmsy can talk - he has even more opinions than me - but when it comes to describing the finer points of the game, with a few Kylie in hot pants-type comments thrown in, I reckon he’s the best we’ve had in years - and I can go back to Alan Weeks in the 1960s.

● Paul Thompson for his coaching with GB and Coventry Blaze. The Blaze have the Elite League’s best record over the last calendar year and in April GB moved up two places in the world rankings.
 

Player of the Week Doug Christiansen, Edinburgh Capitals’ player-coach, who led his team with a hat-trick in their 7-3 crushing of Newcastle Vipers. Photo courtesy of Edinburgh Capitals.

Team of the Year

● Coventry Blaze - see above.

● All the Elite League teams - apart from Belfast Giants, Coventry Blaze, Nottingham Panthers and Sheffield Steelers - for surviving in a ‘pro league’ despite rotten crowds and, in some cases, less than elite facilities.

● Guildford Flames for their consistent professionalism, on and off the ice.

Quote of the Year

So many to choose from but here’s some I especially enjoyed:

“Basingstoke is a sleeping giant… There is so much potential there. We’re aiming to generate income of between £50,000 and £70,000 by [selling] merchandise.” David Taylor, Bracknell Bees’ owner on taking over the Elite’s Bison in the 2007 off-season. (Daily Star)

“The problem with ice hockey in Britain is that teams don’t own their facilities like they do in other countries. You’re always handing money over to someone else. It’s also a minority sport and wage bills are often high.” Ken Taggart, chairman of the English IHA, on the Bracknell Bees’ troubles.

‘Cowmeadow put out to grass’. Headline on a story in the Swindon Advertiser about Wildcats’ winger, Lee Cowmeadow, recently announcing his retirement after 17 years.
 

Shot of the Week Greg Owen beats Manchester Phoenix keeper, Scott Fankhouser, for Basingstoke Bison’s third goal in Bison’s 5-4 home win. Photo courtesy of David Taylor.

OLD ROBERTS’S ALMANACH

Now to consult Old Roberts’s Almanach for 2008 and see what might be ahead. Despite some reservations, it seems the Elite League is secure for quite a while with a three-year NIC contract, over five years left on the bmibaby sponsorship and, according to Dave Simms, Sky happy with the league’s TV games.

There’s also a chance that the sport’s power brokers will get round a table in the New Year, as requested by the Minister for Sport, and discuss ways to resolve their differences and how to take the game forward.

Wow! My New Year’s resolution has held up this far. Before I crack, let me wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year, and here’s hoping it’s a successful one for your team, your league and your governing body.

(12th December 2007) Stewart Roberts, the editor of The Ice Hockey Annual, reports on some surprising results in the bmibaby Elite League and exclusively reveals details of GB’s international tournament.

What a difference a week makes! One win doesn’t mean you’re going to carry off the league title, but it sure helps morale - and shuts up some of your more impatient fans.

The headline-catching results of the weekend were Basingstoke 3, Sheffield 2 and Cardiff 1, Hull 2. While the Stingrays result still left them in the danger zone - ninth - the Bison’s victory keeps them in a playoff qualifying eighth place behind Tony Hand’s faltering Manchester Phoenix, with a game in hand.

The big difference between the Stingrays and the Bison appears to be one of effort. I’ve seen several games in the Hampshire Fridge this season and Ryan Aldridge’s crew rarely give less than their best.

So it’s not been difficult for their fans to remain loyal during the club’s traumatic first half of the season, with two owners and only eight wins from 24 games.

Curtis Cruickshank has been an adequate replacement in goal for Stevie Lyle (now in Belfast) while, for my money, Steve Thornton, the Anglo-Canadian GB international, is the best forward in the league.

He’s a fine example of how skill has been allowed to shine this year, now that the players and the officials have come to terms, more or less, with ‘zero tolerance’. Now it’s clever stickhandling rather than dirty stickwork that wins games and Stevie’s silky skills are worth the entrance fee alone.
 

Player of the Week Shaun Sutter scored five goals and six points for Belfast Giants in their first weekend game against Edinburgh Capitals, and added two more markers in the second. Photo courtesy of Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk)

12-MAN BISON BEAT THE STEELERS

The Bison’s success against the Steelers was the more notable for its being achieved with just 12 players on the ice, plus a back-up netminder.

Their roster is still at least two men short following the early season cost-cutting exercise, and British forward Greg Owen was out with a shoulder injury.

The club’s new Swedish owner is working hard to increase the size of the crowd - it’s remained stubbornly under 1,000 - before increasing the size of the budget.

Hull Stingrays and their coach, Rick Strachan, have been under a lot of pressure from the fans in recent weeks following a string of losses. But Strachs rebounded with a cheery quip after his side’s surprise win over the second placed Devils.

“With just one import defenceman, before the game I felt like General Custer and his last stand,” he said. “But the lads pulled together, defended like animals and concentrated on playing defence.” No change there then.

But for once the Rays had luck on their side as Cardiff’s first string goalie, Phil Osaer - the runner-up in the league’s save percentages - is out for a month with a knee injury.

His back-up, local lad Joe Myers, 20, was praised by his coach, Gerad Adams. “Joe made one mistake in 60 minutes,” he said, “and I couldn’t name one other player who didn’t make four or five mistakes at least.”
 

Shot of the Week Not listed on the Hatton-Mayweather undercard - Carlyle Lewis, Belfast Giants, lets fly against Adam Stefishen of Edinburgh Capitals. Photo courtesy of Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk)

HIGH FLYING BLAZE HIT BY INJURIES

While Coventry Blaze are shooting away at the top of the table, five points ahead of Cardiff and with four games in hand, their current injury crisis is helping to keep alive the faint chances of their rivals.

Among the hopefuls are Nottingham Panthers who won their seventh game in a row with a 4-0 shutout of the mysteriously fading Newcastle Vipers. For Panthers’ new netminder, Tom Askey, it was his second whitewash and his fourth straight win.

“We’ve got everyone locked into the system and it’s working like a dream,” said jubilant player-coach, Mike Ellis.

In international news, the GB senior men’s team are scheduled to take part in a tournament in France during the ‘international break’ on 5-8 February against Norway, Lithuania and the host nation.

It’s part of the annual Euro Ice Hockey Challenge which GB last played in five years ago during the Chris McSorley era. The team has yet to be announced but details of the tournament a are here - http://www.timb-hockey.org/site/index.php.

Before then Britain’s under-20 team are in Riga, Latvia for the World Junior Championships (12-18 December). Game details are here - http://www.iihf.com/index.php?id=719.

Last year, the lads unexpectedly finished with a silver medal but Edinburgh Capitals’ forward, Mark Garside, 18, said this year’s team are trying to be realistic. “You never know what to expect as teams change so much. Our first target is to stay in the group. Everything else is a bonus.”

As I’m taking my own international break in Paris this weekend (strictly no hockey!), this will be my last regular blog until the New Year. So may I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and for you and your favourite team, a healthy and successful 2008.

(6th December 2007) Stewart says Week 13 of the bmibaby Elite League season proved to be lucky for some teams and unlucky for others.

Newcastle Vipers’ six-game losing streak came to an end at last, but not before Rob Wilson’s team had crashed out of the Challenge Cup at the semi-final stage.

Vipers, who were only one goal behind the Panthers after the first leg in Nottingham, played so poorly in their own barn that some of the 3,000-odd crowd left before the final whistle.

“Embarrassed to be a Vipers fan” and “looked like they couldn’t be bothered” were some of the fans’ comments on the web after the 5-1 defeat.

Coach Wilson was even harsher in his judgment of his side’s performance. “I’m furious with the team,” he told the Evening Chronicle.

“I told them that after winning in Coventry [the league leaders] a few weeks ago [10 November] I didn’t know what had changed so much. We’ve been abysmal. I wanted to win this cup and I’m very disappointed not to. You don’t want to threaten jobs but we need new faces and a shake-up.”

Fortunately, Vipers recovered two days later and walloped Basingstoke Bison 6-3 in a league game. It was their first home win since 14 November, but as the cash-strapped Bison have only 14 fit skaters, including their back-up goalie, and lie eighth in the ten-team league, it was hardly a major victory.
 

Player of the Week Adam Calder scored four goals and an assist in two weekend games for Elite League leaders, Coventry Blaze. The 31-year-old Canadian is the league’s top sniper with 21 goals in 21 games plus 25 assists for a points total of 46. Photo of Adam Calder by Mark Tredgold (www.tredders.smugmug.com).

HULL FANS WANT STRACHS’ HEAD ON A PLATTER

If there’s any theme to this season - apart from the inexorable march to the title of Coventry Blaze - it’s coaches threatening to sack their players. Wilson’s “we need new faces” remark is only the latest in a long line.

In a variation of the theme, Hull Stingrays’ fans have been asking for coach Rick Strachan’s head on a platter. Their demands reached fever pitch after the Stingrays had an even worse weekend than the Vipers, losing two games, scoring two goals and conceding 12.

‘Rays’ usual saviour, netminder Ladislav Kudrna, was yanked by Strachs early in the second period of their home clash with Sheffield Steelers after he leaked five goals in 11 shots. With Brit Tom Chamberlain between the pipes, Hull went on to lose 9-1.

Stingrays have won only six of their 24 league games and the coach - a good friend of club owners, Mike and Sue Pack - hit back at the fans.

“Everyone’s under a huge amount of pressure,” he said. “It’s not just me, it’s the players, it’s the management. When Mike and Sue say you can’t do the job any more, then I’ll go.”

Two teams enjoyed a lucky Week 13. Nottingham Panthers reached the Challenge Cup final after their 10-5 (aggregate) conquering of Newcastle, and added a second road triumph with a 3-2 league victory over the fast rising Cardiff Devils.

THIS ASKEY’S NO COMEDIAN

The key to their success was their new netminder, Tom Askey, who was signed from Italian club, HC Alleghe, (David Clarke’s new team) in place of their fallen playoff hero, Ratislav Rovnianek.

The 33-year-old American was drafted ten years ago by Anaheim of the NHL and is being described somewhat extravagantly as an ‘NHL star’ despite playing only eight games in the Show.

But Askey’s saves aren’t wafer thin. While the Vipers scarcely troubled him with only 14 shots, the Devils hit him with 33 and added seven more in the shootout, six of which he saved, enough to give his new team the win.

And Edinburgh Capitals chalked up win number five in game number 23 thanks to an overtime marker from their player-coach Doug Christiansen. But the 3-2 victory over Tony Hand’s Manchester Phoenix, their first win in six games, still left the Caps five points adrift of Hull at the wrong end of the standings.

The Stingrays were hit with another big blow on Wednesday when one of their best players, Canadian defenceman Paul Cabana, accepted an offer to move to a German Bundesliga 2 club, Eispiraten Crimmitsc (correct spelling, so I’m assured!)

Moreover, with Ukrainian Nikolai Ladygin out with a back injury and Steve Lee on GB under-20 duty, this leaves the already struggling team with only three blueliners for the coming weekend.

How long the bottom three teams - Basingstoke, Hull and Edinburgh - with their poor support can survive at the top level is a question that must be worrying the league. My worry is that they don’t really have an answer.

Player of the Week Adam Stefishen, Edinburgh Capitals. Scorer of the winning goal against Elite League leaders, Coventry Blaze, in the shock result of the season so far. It was the first goal of the season for the ‘bad boy’ who lies fourth in the league’s penalty list. Photo courtesy of Edinburgh Capitals.

NEVER HEARD OF THIS RULE - COURTENAY

Giants’ player-coach, Ed Courtenay, was unrepentant about icing the players, pointing out that with only ten other fit men, he would have been breaking the league’s ‘minimum roster’ rule if he hadn’t added Peter Campbell (who previously played in the cup for Basingstoke Bison) and Shane Johnson (Cardiff and Sheffield).

“I can understand Coventry’s point of view,” said Courtenay in the Belfast Telegraph. “If they had gone through to the semi-final they would probably have made the final and it’s a big pay day for them getting two home dates. But that’s a league issue, they have to clarify the rules.”

On the possibility that Giants could be fined, Courtenay retorted: “To be fined for playing ‘illegal’ players to obey a rule that I’ve personally never heard of or actually seen in a rulebook is ridiculous.”

But when the Giants were duly fined £1,000 for their transgression, it was the Blaze who got angry as their appeal had asked for the draw to be turned into a 5-0 forfeit.

Obviously Coventry are as much in the dark over their league’s rules as the Giants. “We think it’s wrong that there are rules you can pay to get around,” said Blaze director, Mike Cowley.

For once I applaud the decision which seems entirely appropriate for a league that likes to see itself as a professional one. Forfeiting games is only acceptable in an amateur set-up, especially in a cup competition where this would necessitate changing the semi-final line-up.

But to be really professional, guys, you have to agree and publish a set of rules for all your competitions, and stop your critics reaching for the Disney-word.

By the way, in the first legs of the semis, the Vipers are at Nottingham Panthers on 20 Nov and the Devils host the Steelers a week later on 28 Nov.

Item - Back to the 'rules'… the player transfer deadline. The league have finally accepted that they have no option but to adhere to the IIHF’s new rule that foreign players needing an international transfer card (ITC) cannot change countries after 31 January.

Without this restriction, players often left clubs which had been eliminated from the playoffs and moved to help a team in another country’s playoffs. “This is not good for the credibility,” said the IIHF’s Swiss boss, Rene Fasel.

Shot of the Week Newcastle Vipers swarm the Steelers’ goalmouth in the Elite League’s crucial Challenge Cup game in iceSheffield. Photo courtesy of The Star, Sheffield.

WHO’S THE NEW MAN BEHIND THE BISON?

Last season, Sheffield Steelers brought in Vezio Sacratini from Italy and Nottingham Panthers signed Trevor Gallant from Germany at the last minute just to boost their play-off runs.

The Elite’s chairman, Eamon Convery, famously insisted in the summer (see my blog of 14 June) that his league “would change nothing”. But as the IIHF won’t sanction the ITCs, the league has no alternative but to comply. Fans can now expect a rush of signings after Christmas.

Item - Q & A on the new man running Basingstoke Bison. (You thought I’d never get round to this, didn’t you?)

Who is he? Tomas Enerston, a Cardiff-based Swedish businessman who’s lived here for five years and has ‘a successful IT firm’ (unnamed).

Why does he want to run a professional ice hockey team that’s nearly bottom of the league and plays in front of crowds of 700? Pass.

What previous experience does he have in running a professional ice hockey team? None, but he just missed out on taking over Cardiff Devils earlier this year.

What’s his business plan? Put up the price of admission by a pound to £13.

Who does this remind me of? Roger (Plexiglas) Black.

What does Bison coach Ryan Aldridge think of his new boss? “It’s just so different from a week ago,” he told the London Daily Star. “Friends are saying it’s the first time this season they’ve seen me smiling. Tomas gave me the money to buy champagne for everyone but we couldn’t stop on the way back from Manchester. There are still some guys owed four weeks’ pay and the hard times aren’t totally behind us, but now we can …move forward.”

Champagne? “I’ve won the lottery, lads, the drinks are on me.” (OK, I made this up, but…)

Player of the Week Cardiff Devils’ forward Sylvain Deschatelets, who was threatened with the chop for under achieving only a few weeks ago, assisted on six of his team’s eight goals against the Bison and is now second in the Devils’ scoring.  Photo courtesy of Cardiff Devils.

 PANTHERS LOSE FOUR-YEAR-OLD HOME RECORD

The Blaze and the Giants have had a pretty cool relationship ever since the days of Theo Fleury. This affair will do little to thaw it out.

The rivalry between Nottingham Panthers and Cardiff Devils goes back to the Eighties. And the Panthers’ proud boast was that the Devils hadn’t beaten them at home during the last four years.

But that record went down the drain on Sunday night when Jason Silverthorn scored the winner in a 2-1 Cardiff victory. It was only the Panthers’ third home defeat this season but it forced coach Mike Ellis to make good his threat to release PC Drouin, probably his highest-paid skater.

“PC is a very good player,” explained Ellis, “but in our high energy team he has not met the huge expectations required of him.”

Whether or not those expectations were justified is debatable. Winger Drouin, now 33, was unquestionably the Panthers’ best and most popular guy in their Superleague days, but that was six or seven years ago. And hockey is a hard, physical game.

A shortage of points is Hull Stingrays’ problem. With none in the Cup and just 12 from 16 league games, some disgruntled fans have been calling for coach Rick Strachan’s head.
 

Shot of the Week Basingstoke’s Danny Stewart scores on former team-mate Stevie Lyle in Bison’s 5-4 home league victory over Belfast Giants.  Photo courtesy of www.ddimaging.co.uk.

OWNER’S VOTE OF CONFIDENCE IN STRACHAN

The former GB mentor has been in charge of the Stingrays since they were formed five years ago. Prior to that he worked under Stingrays’ owners, Mike and Sue Pack, with the Milton Keynes team.

“I have confidence in Rick’s coaching ability,” Sue insisted to the local paper. “I believe he is one of the few coaches out there who has the ability to get more out of the team than the sum of its parts.”

Given the long relationship between coach and owners, I think we can safely take these words of support as genuine, rather than the owner’s usual dreaded ‘you’re OK today but we’ll drop you tomorrow’ statement.

A shame really, as a change of air is often good for everyone in this sort of situation.

Finally… Back in the summer when estate agent David Taylor and his wife, Sharon, took over Basingstoke Bison, David famously described the club that Planet Ice didn’t want as ‘a sleeping giant’.

Despite the Taylors’ best efforts in the last few traumatic weeks, the giant has slumbered peacefully on with barely 800 of the faithful at his bedside.

But wait. A mystery Swede claiming to be able to rouse the comatose has been seen in the Hampshire rink. Is he the marketing and financial wizard with a keen hockey brain who the club, and the league so urgently need? Or yet another well-meaning hockey nut who shouldn’t be allowed out without a minder? Watch this space.

(30th October 2007) With a second bmibaby Elite League coach threatening to sack all his players, Stewart believes the league needs to look at its import recruiting methods.

While Basingstoke Bison have been running short of money, coaches at some Elite sides have been running short of patience at their teams’ failure to perform.

The latest to threaten his players with the sack is Edinburgh Capitals’ director of hockey, Doug Christiansen. With the crowd’s chant of “what a load of rubbish” ringing in his ears after the Caps blew a 4-0 lead at home to lose 8-5, he announced: “Every person in the dressing room has been given two weeks’ notice.”

Edinburgh have won only once in their last 11 league games and Christiansen added: “I’ve been playing ice hockey for 25 years and [this] may have been the worst loss I have ever been part of.”

What made the defeat even harder to bear was their conquerors - the ninth-placed Bison, who’ve managed only four wins themselves.

This is his first head coaching role for Christiansen, a Canadian forward who joined the club in May from the ECHL. The Caps have one of the league’s smallest budgets and Doug plays, coaches, recruits and cleans out the dressing rooms.

It’s a thankless task, though he no doubt sees it as a handy item on his CV when he returns home one day.

Hopefully for him that won’t be a while yet, though his boss, former GB international Scott Neil, was distinctly unimpressed by his team’s mistake-ridden display. “At 4-0 up we should have closed the game out,” he told the local paper, “but we lost two goals short-handed in less than a minute. That is unacceptable.”

According to the paper’s reporter, too many players did not give their full commitment, with only the Brit line of Mark Garside, Iain Bowie and Ross Dalgleish notable for ‘working their socks off’.
 

Player of the Week Steve Thornton (pictured in his HC Brunico days). The former GB international has not only stayed loyal to the troubled Basingstoke Bison but his straight hat-trick (the tying, winning and insurance goals) at Edinburgh Capitals was the key to his team’s first win in ten games. Photo courtesy of SIHR.

Only three weeks ago, Christiansen’s opposite number in Belfast, Ed Courtenay, issued a similar ultimatum to the Giants. Since then, results have improved with four wins out of five.

Mike Ellis at Nottingham Panthers also blasted his squad recently with returned Canadian hero PC Drouin and Slovakian netminder Ratislav Rovnianek among five players believed to be threatened with the chop.

So far, his outburst has worked, too, with Panthers winning twice at the weekend and goalie ‘Rasto’ even picking up man of the match with a 1-0 shutout of rivals, Coventry Blaze.

Of course, these threats are mostly just that - threats. Elite clubs are only allowed 10 ‘imports’ - players who need an ITC (International Transfer Card) - at any one time, with a maximum of 15 all season.

With one ITC usually reserved for a replacement netminder, that effectively leaves only four spots open, and finding suitable replacements in mid-season ain’t easy.
 

Action Pics of the Week Our photographer, Diane Davey, was at the English Premier Cup tie in Bracknell this week when the Bees hosted Swindon Wildcats. Dave Cloutman ref’d a lively game as you can see by these pics. That’s the sin-bin after five players from each side were thrown out at the same time, and a good mid-ice check by Bracknell’s Shaun Thompson on Joel Petkoff of Wildcats. Photos courtesy of www.ddimaging.co.uk.

Fortunately for the coaches it’s even tougher for clubs to find new men to stand behind the bench and take the flak.

Much of the problem stems from clubs mostly recruiting from CVs and agents’ say-sos, a system sadly open to abuse. Some players come here with pre-existing injuries and who knows if they weren’t let go by their previous club for a lack of commitment - or maybe they’re just peering over the hill.

And then there’s the lack of time to get match fit. Players are expected to play competitive hockey as soon as they arrive. Manchester Phoenix’s highly rated netminder, Scott Fankhouser, pointed out that everywhere he’s been in the past “we had about a month of practice first.”

Meanwhile, we continue to wait eagerly for any public statement from the league on Basingstoke’s financial situation. It must be their biggest embarrassment since London Racers and Paul Berrington.

A bucket collection - something the league must have prayed would never happen - was taken among the 733 (count ‘em) long-suffering Bison fans during their 2-1 defeat by Belfast Giants.

That must have been even more embarrassing - being beaten by a team containing your old netminder, Stevie Lyle, and one of your forwards, Peter Campbell.

What a great sporting weekend we had! Never mind the rugby, the football or the golf, I mean Coventry Blaze’s victory over the star-studded Red Bull Salzburg in the Continental Cup.

The Elite League leaders’ come-from-behind 3-2 overtime win in Denmark capped a pretty amazing few weeks for British ice hockey or, more precisely, ice hockey in Britain.

A Sky TV contract for the Elite League, packed houses for the NHL games in London’s 02 Arena, not to mention last weekend’s near sell-out crowd in Nottingham for the Panthers-Steelers’ game and the league’s three-year deal with the city’s National Ice Centre to hold their end-of-season playoff finals

I’m kicking myself for not having had more faith in Paul Thompson and his men and going out to Aalborg myself. Red Bull were one of the favourites in the four-team group and only lost 7-6 to the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings last month.

It was a cracking game, too, according to reports. Even Salzburg’s press officer agreed it was a well-deserved victory with the Blaze showing great spirit in the last two periods.

OK, Coventry lost their other two contests but they could hardly have picked a better team to defeat. The Salzburg club are owned by billionaire Austrian businessman Dietrich Mateschitz, the part owner of Red Bull, the world famous energy drink, and owner of the Formula One team, Red Bull Racing.

His biography is in Wikipedia here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Mateschitz.

From this you will see that Herr Mateschitz also has a team in the USA’s Major League Soccer. This brought him into contact with LA Kings’ owner, Phillip Anschutz, who also controls a couple of MLS clubs, and their friendship is probably the main reason the Kings found themselves in Salzburg prior to their NHL games in London.

What the good Herr thinks of his prize hockey team being beaten by what Blaze’s Michael Tasker cheerfully described as “a plumber, a tiler, a decorator and a bouncy castle manager”, I don’t know, but you can bet he was impressed - once he’d got over his disappointment at his own team’s performance, of course.

Dietrich Mateschitz is just the latest wealthy and influential personality to get a taste of the game as it’s played in this country.
 

Elite League's Player of Week - Ashley Tait, Sheffield Steelers. The GB international was involved in three of Steelers’ four goals at the weekend, scoring both in their 2-1 Elite League victory over Nottingham Panthers, one of his former teams. Photo © Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

I spoke the other day to Frederick Meredith, the former boss of the British Ice Hockey Association, about all this. Mr Meredith, who still keeps a close eye on the sport here, attended the NHL games as a council member of the IIHF.

Several of the sport’s bigwigs were at the Kings-Ducks games, men like Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner; Rene Fasel, the president of the IIHF, the world governing body; and Mr Anschutz.

Frederick said they were all surprised and impressed with the 02’s packed houses. He liked to think that this might have persuaded the former London Knights’ owner that he had made a mistake in pulling his Superleague team out of London, and that he might even reconsider staging the sport again in Manchester. The American billionaire’s company runs the MEN Arena.

We agreed, however, that this was probably wishful thinking. But Frederick wouldn’t rule out the finals of next season’s Champions Hockey League (CHL) being held at the 02. The IIHF is to make a decision on the venue for these games next month. Details can be found at http://www.iihf.com/news/iihfpr1407.htm.

Mr Meredith confirmed that with the advent of the CHL, the future of the Continental Cup is up in the air, but he hoped it could be continued in some form for countries like Britain to gain experience of European hockey.

 

Shots of the Week Coventry Blaze’s captain Jonathan Weaver celebrates scoring the winning goal in overtime against Red Bull Salzburg in the Continental Cup; action from the game. Photos courtesy of Mark Tredgold (http://tredders.smugmug.com and http://web.mac.com/marktredgold/Site/Blog/Blog.html)

Anyway, back with the Blaze, just how big was their victory in Denmark? Salzburg boasted five former NHLers in their line-up, including Stanley Cup winning defenceman Ric Jackman, and St Louis Blues and Austria netminder, Reinhard Divis. The respected former NHL coach Pierre Page was on their bench.

It’s definitely the most surprising single game result in the short history of the Elite League, but Nottingham Panthers won two games in 2004-05 and finished as group runners-up.

And taking the long view, British teams have been playing in the Cup and its predecessor competition, the European Cup, since 1983. Full results are in the 1997-98 and 2006-07 Annuals.

Excluding the Superleague years when several teams reached the final round (sadly most of them are no longer with us), Cardiff Devils pulled off the biggest giant-killing act in 1994.

With only a 14-year-old in goal - one Stevie Lyle - the John Lawless-coached side beat two former Soviet bloc sides to reach the semi-finals.

But we mustn’t let all this take away from Coventry’s deserved moment in the spotlight. There may be many problems facing this sport but for now, as the great man once growled, I think we may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing.

Please note there will be no blog next week as I will be busy getting out the new 2007-08 edition of The Ice Hockey Annual. Go to the Order Page to obtain your copy.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to send your feedback to me at stewice@aol.com.

(10th October 2007) After the euphoria of the NHL weekend, Stewart didn’t find it as hard as he feared adjusting to British ice hockey. Now, he wonders, can British ice hockey make the adjustments that would improve our game.

In my unceasing efforts to bring you reports from as wide a variety of rinks and leagues as possible, I went along to an English Premier League game last weekend.

The Guildford Spectrum, home of the Flames, is one of our best appointed rinks and I had a comfortable seat in the front row of the balcony.

In that respect, and that only, it was similar to my visit to Greenwich’s 02 Arena where I watched the NHL games. Yes, I know such a comparison is a bit daft but bear with me.

Now I’ve had time to reflect on the NHL, were the games really that marvellous? Sure, the skills were superb but you discount this when you go to an NHL game. It’s expected and, anyway, you can see it on TV nowadays.

As for excitement…. Many fans only got to their feet when a punch-up started. If that’s your bag, then you can see one of those any weekend in a British ice rink.

When you have to watch the game from a huge distance, as many had to in the 02, it takes away much of the fun. And don’t get me started on the obscene salaries the NHLers are on!

So I got more pleasure than I’d expected from watching the Flames take on Sheffield Scimitars in the Spectrum’s friendly confines.

Elite League's Player of Week - Jake Riddle, Hull. The American forward, 24, scored three points (two goals) against Edinburgh and was a big physical presence in Dundalk in his team’s weekend victories over the Giants and the Capitals. Photo with Augusta Lynx (ECHL) - thanks to SIHR.

BRITS DISPLAY SPEED AND ENTHUSIASM

While the skills may have been lacking (mostly down to the lack of ice-time in our over-crowded rinks), there was plenty of entertainment in the speed and sheer enthusiasm of the Brits and the few, mostly European imports. (Actually, they weren’t many imports around on Sunday as the Flames have had a dreadful rash of injuries.)

In my book, there’s as much enjoyment to be had from watching your own home-grown guys as there is to seeing questionably talented foreigners. The Brit who caught my eye was the Flames’ hard-working player-coach, Paul Dixon. The Geordie defender, 34, hasn’t played for GB since the Flames joined the EPL and he’s still badly missed.

Perhaps, as I‘ve said, it’s not a fair comparison, but for my money I’d rather watch a Paul Dixon than a George Parros any day.

The Flames are currently ice hockey’s biggest draw in southern England - and Wales. Around 1,100 were at the Scimitars’ game. The league is in its 21st season and its three non-Brits (on the ice) limit ensures that wages are kept within sensible bounds.

It’s a successful formula that many northern teams would love to have, if only the league would have them. I don’t want to get too political here (much!) but it’s been a blot on our sport for some years now that the big rinks in Blackburn and Whitley Bay and more recently in Dundee, Fife and Glasgow (Braehead) have not been able to ice teams at a respectable level.
 

Shot of the Week Snooker on Ice - Action from the Cardiff Devils-Belfast Giants game. Photo © Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

WHY NOT A TRUE NATIONAL LEAGUE?

Travelling is the main problem as the league’s teams are mainly in the south. Travel costs can be as big a drain as wages on a small club’s budget.

But surely the prize of adding well-run clubs playing in large buildings and turning the EPL into a truly national league would soon repay the extra costs. One way of creating this is posted on the Fife Flyers’ website here - http://www.fifeflyers.co.uk/directorsquestions.php.

But knowing the way our governing body works, we’re more likely to see the Stanley Cup final played in the 02 before we get a genuinely British league.

Paul Thompson’s Coventry Blaze will be flying the flag for the Elite League and British ice hockey in the Continental Cup this weekend. It could be our last chance to enter a team in European competition for the foreseeable future as the new Champions Hockey League (http://www.iihf.com/news/iihfpr1407.htm) begins next season.

(Let’s hope it’s not also the last chance saloon for the Elite League. The second rumour in a week about possible financial problems at Basingstoke is here - http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/ice-hockey/article3045032.ece)

In wishing the Blaze all the best in Denmark, here’s a look at the arena in which the Blaze will meet the top teams from Salzburg, Austria; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Aalborg, their hosts. Ah, if only we Brits could create an atmosphere like this!

I hope you can read this, down there on Earth. I’ve just been watching two NHL regular season games about an hour from my home. Surely, I must have died and gone to Heaven!

That’s probably how the fans felt who sat in the top tier of seats in the vast 02 Arena in Greenwich. Apart from the bit about dying, of course.

Personally, I’ve always reckoned Nottingham or the good old Wembley Arena are the right size for hockey, certainly for atmosphere. But 17,500 seats are needed nowadays to pay the millionaires on the ice, and there’s no complaints about sightlines. They were perfect.

Anyhow, creating an atmosphere seems to be the job of the announcer (each NHL club brought their own from southern California) and the deafening PA system. My favourite moment came when the Anaheim guy yelled over the music for fans to “make more noise”.

Who were the fans? There were supporters from all over North America and Europe, proving NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s contention that “hockey is the most international of team sports”.

With so many Brits among them, the attendance figures for the British games (unfortunately played at the same time) will make interesting reading.

What did the fans enjoy most? No contest. It was a gloves-off stand-up between Ducks’ tough guy, George Parros, and Kings’ rugged winger, Scott Thornton. “It was a pretty good scrap,” said Parros. “They’re a hooligan crowd here. They like a good fight.”

 

Shots of the Week The Big Fight - Scott Thornton, Kings (top) and George Parros, Ducks, square off. Photo © Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

Once the players had got over the jet lag from their 18-hour flight, their biggest worry had been the ice which had only been installed on the Wednesday before. (The 02 opened in July). Fortunately, the NHL had the foresight to bring over their ice making guru, Dan Craig, from Edmonton. Although Dan admitted he’d “never worked with this kind of system”, Ducks’ coach Randy Carlyle reckoned the surface was “200 per cent better” by the time his team played the first game.

It was little surprise that the Kings won the opener. They had wisely organised a couple of friendlies in Austria beforehand, in a tournament run by Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, a friend of Kings’ owner Philip Anschutz.

Tim Leiweke, the club’s chief exec., said it had been easy for them to arrange the overseas trip. The hard part had been finding a willing opponent. Ducks’ general manager, Brian Burke, “is to be applauded”, he said, for agreeing to join the Kings in London.

The more so as the Ducks were due to play in Detroit this Wednesday and Columbus, Ohio on Friday while the Kings could relax until Saturday’s opening game in LA’s Staples Center.

Los Angeles’ netminder Jonathan Bernier, 19, was one of the three stars of Saturday’s game. Seemingly unmoved at being the second youngest goalie ever to start a Kings’ game, he credited his ancestors for helping him to concentrate.

In a ritual he follows during the national anthem, “I kind of say what I need to do for the game, and I talk to five persons who are dead and were important to me in my life,” he explained. Hey, whatever helps.

I neither heard nor read of any complaints by players or staff about the unique trip. “It was a fun week,” said Corey Perry, who scored two goals and an assist in the Ducks’ 4-1 win. “It’s nice to get over here and see things you may not ever see in your life. We’ll take this week and remember it for the rest of our lives.”
 

Shots of the Week Chris Kunitz scores the game winner for Ducks in their 4-1 victory. Photo © Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

One of the things I never thought I’d see in my life was the amount of statistics issued by the league. After only the first game, I was handed no fewer than 31 sheets of paper, printed on both sides, containing an indigestible mass of facts, tables, stats, and miscellaneous bits of information. Multiply that by the 180 journalists accredited to the games and that’s a week’s employment for the Amazon wood-cutters. Carbon footprint, what’s that?

Personally, I was at a bit of a loose end with very few British newspapers interested in the games, or preferring to send their staff writers. So I was amused to find that I was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times after one of their reporters interviewed me about where the 02's crowds had come from.

You can read it here. By the way, I admit I was wrong about the number of Brits. They probably filled up almost half the seats.

The biggest question on Sunday evening was whether or not the NHL would come back next year. The rumour quickly spread that Prague would be the destination of choice in September, with variously Pittsburgh (Sidney Crosby) Penguins, Tampa Bay (Vincent Lecavalier) Lightning and New York (Jaromir Jagr) Rangers mentioned as the visitors. The city’s new Sazka Arena is pretty impressive [follow link].

September will also be the turn of Mr Anschutz’s Berlin arena to open [follow link]. But with a superb facility like the 02, I’m sure it won’t be long before London plays host to some more top level hockey.

Whatever is decided, I’ll try and be there. Heaven will have to wait.
 

Recommended further reading -

Daily Telegraph

The Guardian 

The Times (London)

Los Angeles Times

Canadian papers

(26th September 2007) Stewart tries to find a little poetry in the shenanigans in last weekend's Elite League games.

Autumn is the time of year when a young hockey man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of mayhem. Not quite Tennyson, more Tie Domi.

In sporting terms, the early season is when the teams test each other out. In hockey parlance, it means a game breaks out occasionally.

There were a couple of ding-dongs at the weekend. Edinburgh Capitals hosted Cardiff Devils twice and beat them twice, lifting Scotty Neil’s squad to joint fifth in the table, their highest ever in the Elite League.

The teams were probably sick of the sight of each other by the start of the second game. In the first period, four players - two a side - were binned with fighting majors (it’s five minutes for fighting in the Elite this term, just like their counterparts in the North American minor leagues) and the period ended three minutes early to allow the players to cool off.

Coventry Blaze retained first place with a 7-1 thrashing of runners-up Newcastle Vipers. The Vipers were already 6-1 down when someone cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar actually. Google’s wonderful, isn’t it?).

Andre Payette - there’s a surprise - was thrown out with a fighting match penalty and six other players were chucked in the bin before the game ended.
 

Player of the Week - Manchester Phoenix's ex-NHL goaltender, Scott Fankhouser, conceded only two goals from 67 shots in the team's two weekend victories, moving them into runners-up spot in the Elite League. Photo courtesy of Vienna Capitals.

VIPERS LACK “HEART AND PASSION”

The result pushed the Vipers down to fourth and it took a couple of days for coach Rob Wilson to cool down. By then the muse had settled on him, too, as he spoke of his team lacking “heart and passion”, and slightly less poetically of his lads needing “to bust their guts all night”.

If Belfast Giants had done that, maybe they wouldn’t have found the strength to go partying in Nottingham in the wee small hours of the morning (Hilliard & Mann, popularised by Sinatra - not boring you, am I?)

According to the story in the Nottingham Evening Post, ‘police were called to a Lace Market bar after an ice hockey star was allegedly involved in a fight with other customers’.

The incident occurred after the Giants had been knocked about 6-4 by the Panthers in a game that ended with an even nastier incident. Panther Jim Shepherd was accused of ‘sticking’ Belfast's Mark Dutiaume in the face seconds before the final whistle, leaving him ‘flat on the ice, badly injured and concussed’.

Shepherd, who joined the Panthers this season after spells with Newcastle and Basingstoke, was apologetic afterwards. “He was hacking and chopping at me, but that’s no excuse,” he said. “I just wanted him to stay clear, waving my stick at him, and I was obviously nearer to him than I realised.”
 

Shot of the Week - Scenes from the bad-tempered game between the Panthers and the Giants in Nottingham on Saturday. Photos © Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

OFF-ICE DISCIPLINE A WORRY

According to the paper, the episode was not on the game video and Dutiaume was one of those later out partying.

On Wednesday, the league handed Shepherd a six-game ban with another eight games suspended. But they missed the opportunity to urge their clubs and players to tighten up their discipline off the ice, too. The Lace Market Affair is the second time this month that hockey players have been in the papers for their alleged antics.

Last week, we told you of the problems in Scottish ice hockey. This week it’s the turn of the new Irish League. A slight exaggeration as it’s really just a house league with all four teams based in the new Dundalk rink.

The first two games were played at the weekend, with Shane Johnson’s Belfast City Bruins beating Dublin Rams 6-4 in the first game. My journalist friend, Wayne Hardman, watched the second encounter, between Dundalk Bulls and Dublin Flyers, and told me he was horrified not only by the scoreline of 26-2 (to Kenny Redmond’s Bulls) but also by the way the Bulls players ‘high-fived’ each other after every one of their 26 counters.

Wayne reckons such over-reaction could kill the game as a spectator sport in Ireland before it’s barely begun. (‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves’, Oscar Wilde).

Right, that’s it. I’m off to the NHL games in London’s 02 Arena this weekend and will give you my take on them next week. And no poetry, I promise.

Meanwhile, have a chuckle at this site - www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/22312.

This week’s Elite League game on Sky Sports Xtra (Thurs, 5.00 p.m.) comes from Cardiff where the Devils are hosting Hull Stingrays.

Player of the Week - Joe Tallari of Manchester Phoenix. The 26-year-old from Thunder Bay, Ontario  joined the Altrincham-based club from Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL and scored a league-high eight points (five goals) at the weekend. Photo courtesy of Caroline Landers .

TV A WIN-WIN SITUATION

But these are in the ice for a good reason. As I understand it, the deal is that the ten Elite League clubs pay for the TV-time to give them and their sponsors wider exposure than just bums on rink seats. In return, the clubs to ask their sponsors to cover the costs of putting the games on the box.

A neat, win-win situation, eh? Well, it is as long as everyone agrees to the deal. There are worrying rumours that one party has thrown a spanner in the works. I’ll say no more as I know no more and just pray that everything can be sorted out amicably and we won’t have a re-run of the disaster in the British National League.

This week’s Sky game should also be worth watching. Look away now if you don’t want to read the score. It’s the Hull Stingrays-Nottingham Panthers’ clash from Yorkshire when the low budget Stingrays thrashed the big spending Panthers 5-1.

It was a match-up between two of our best known British-Canadian coaches, Hull’s Rick Strachan, a former GB coach, and Nottingham Panthers’ Mike Ellis, also a GB man.

Away from the rink, these guys are great buddies, even working together on a decking business during the summer. But when it’s game time, off come the gloves. The pair are ultra-competitive.
 

Shot of the Week - The Elite League’s top goalie, Trevor Koenig, literally stands on his head as his Coventry Blaze pummel Belfast Giants 6-2 in Coventry. Photo courtesy of Diane Davey (www.ddimaging.co.uk).

PANTHERS’ ‘HUMILIATING’ DEFEAT

Ellis described the defeat as “embarrassing and humiliating”, adding: “I told the players they’re on a fraction of what Hull are earning and yet they [Stingrays] played as if their lives depended on it.”

Make sure you tune into Sky Sports Extra on Thursday evening at 5 to watch one of the upsets of the season.

I hate to spoil the party but it wouldn’t be an Ice Hockey Annual blog without a bit of controversy, eh? While the big clubs are attracting TV cameras, at the other end of the hockey ladder two once proud Scottish clubs are finding life very difficult.

Fife Flyers and Dundee Stars have won numerous trophies. Flyers are the oldest club in the country, having played more or less every season since 1938.

But for reasons never fully explained they were left in the cold when the British National League broke up. This summer they worked hard with other Scots sides to create a Scottish Premier League to rival the long established English one.

But their season has started in chaos. You can read more on the sad state of Scottish ice hockey at www.prohockeynews.com.

Everyone’s excited about the new TV coverage, heralding it as a great step forward for our sport. But it’s not going to be that easy. There’s a heck of a lot of competition in telly-land and fingers get itchy on remote controls if the armchair fan doesn’t get immediate gratification from the picture on offer.

There were plenty of goals, fights, shock results and bizarre incidents last weekend. If they had all been in one televised game, most viewers would have been on the edge of their seats.

There were eleven goals in the Manchester-Basingstoke game with Bison’s new forward Steve Thornton scoring a hat-trick in their 7-4 victory. The defeat was the Phoenix’s second of the weekend and leaves them rock bottom of the Elite League.

Two other imports had league hat-tricks - Coventry’s Dan Carlson in their 6-2 crushing of the Steelers which lifted the Blaze to the top of the league, and Slovakian defender Patrik Luza in Edinburgh’s 6-3 smashing of Hull.

As is the way with ice hockey, there were as many fights as hat-tricks. I wonder what the sports fan who’s never seen a hockey game will make of these on Sky?
 

Action from the Cardiff Devils-Belfast Giants Challenge Cup game courtesy of Diane Davey  www.ddimaging.co.uk

22-SHOT SHOOTOUT IN HULL

Panthers’ Ryan Shymr went toe-to-toe with Brett Clouthier of the Phoenix on Saturday and with Vipers’ Andre Payette after only five seconds on Sunday. Sheffield’s Jeremy Cornish got it on with Devil Brad Voth in the last period of Saturday’s 5-1 Sheffield home win.

Perhaps the most photogenic game was Hull-Newcastle. As well as an altercation that saw four players binned, there was sudden-death overtime and a shootout before Colin Shields scored to give the Vipers a 3-2 win.

That was the 21st shot of the series with a 22nd from Hull’s Paul Cabana being blanked by Ryan MacDonald. Remarkably, the two goalies, MacDonald and Ladislav Kudrna, faced a total of 101 shots, 51 on Kudrna.

The most weird incident occurred in Coventry in Sunday’s game against the Steelers. With a delayed penalty called on Cornish, Blaze keeper Trevor Koenig went to the bench and Blaze’s James Cooke and Jonathan Weaver watched in disbelief as their defensive mix-up ended with the puck rolling into the unguarded net.

Blaze’s coach Paul Thompson tried to console young Cooke. “I’ve told him that will never happen to him again for the rest of his career. It was bizarre.”

The league have, unsurprisingly, chosen a Sheffield-Nottingham contest for their first Sky game. ‘The greatest rivalry in the history of the world ever’ or something like that. From past encounters, there’s a good chance it will be a lively game. And the Sheffield arena looks great on TV.

ICE HOCKEY NEEDS SOME CHARACTERS

But there’s bound to be some dud games and we know there’s some dud rinks. And a sport which is played in only a handful of places, whose participants wear helmets, where fighting is indulged, and where the puck travels at warp speed is always going to be a hard sell.

For ice hockey to take full advantage of this golden opportunity it needs a ‘face’, a character for sports fans to talk about.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a Lewis Hamilton or a Tiger Woods. While Koenig has the looks that could make the camera love him, mega-talent Tony Hand, now 40, can hardly be pushed as the future of ice hockey.

Of course, the argument against promoting one guy is that hockey is all about team. Anyone getting above himself will be ribbed mercilessly. But the sport must do something to sell itself. It can’t rely on TV to do it.

I come back to my old argument that the Elite League should give some serious thought to shelling out for a handful of top class players. They would be recruited purely to help sell our game to a fickle public, not only by their skills on the ice but also with their ease with the media.

As we all know from watching television, celebrity sells.

I'll be back next week with my thoughts on the Sky show.