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(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)
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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.”
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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)
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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. |
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(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).
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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. |
(14th November 2007)
You couldn’t make up some of this week’s stories in the bmibaby Elite
League, says Stewart.
Come on, put your hands up. You think I make up this stuff every week,
don’t you? Well, you’re not alone. I can scarcely credit some of it myself.
But I reckon this last few days tops the lot.
Item - The league’s last placed team beats the table-toppers. Yes, Edinburgh
Capitals who’ve won only a quarter of their league games (31 of 112) since
joining the Elite in 2005, upset the title-holders, Coventry Blaze, 3-1 in
Edinburgh.
It was the Blaze’s second weekend defeat after they went down 2-1 at home to
Newcastle Vipers who are now joint first with Coventry, though they’ve
played one more game.
Already some fans are muttering about the Curse of the Continental Cup in
which Paul Thompson’s side competed last month. But it seems more likely to
be just a mid-season dip in form. Coventry have still lost fewer league
games than any other team. But with Cardiff Devils and the Vipers snapping
at their heels they can’t afford too many slip-ups like this.
Item - Remember my piece last week about Belfast Giants icing two ‘cup-tied’
players against the Blaze in the Challenge Cup? Well, the Blaze decided to
appeal to the league against the 1-1 result which prevented them from
qualifying for the semis.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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…) |
(7th November 2007) Stewart Roberts, editor
of The Ice Hockey Annual, looks at the latest trials and tribulations to
beset the bmibaby Elite League.
Our beloved professional league has been suffering from shortages.
Some Elite teams don’t have enough fans - half of them are averaging crowds
of under a thousand a game - and, notoriously, one club is desperately short
of the readies (more later).
But in Belfast Giants’ case, it was a shortage of players that they had to
contend with at the weekend. Five Giants were out injured, leaving just ten
fit men and true.
With only two games in the Challenge Cup where they had no hope of
progressing, defenceman and general manager, Todd Kelman, gambled on playing
two illegal, cup-tied players, Peter Campbell and Shane Johnson - despite
being warned off by the league.
Sure enough, the club were fined £200 for playing defender Johnson and, as I
write this, they were likely to be hit with more punishment as forward
Campbell scored Giants’ lone goal in their 1-1 home tie with Coventry Blaze.
The result was no big deal for Killer’s crew but a major one for the Blaze
who needed a win to reach the semis.
Kelman pleaded guilty but insisted he had a good reason to break the rules.
“I didn’t think it was fair to the fans or the rest of the team to go into a
game with three defencemen and seven forwards,” he said.
Assuming the old rule of teams having to ice a minimum of 14 players is
still in force, Giants were in a genuine dilemma. The costs of running a pro
club these days are so high that teams can’t afford a proper reserve side to
cover for emergencies like this.
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.
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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. |
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(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.
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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. |
|
(17th October 2007)
Ice hockey’s recent successes have attracted the attention of some powerful
figures. Stewart dares to hope that this might lead to more investment in
our game.
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.
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! |
|
(3rd October 2007) Stewart enjoyed the first NHL league games to be
played in Europe, in front of sold-out crowds in London's 02 Arena.
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. |
(19th
September 2007) The Sky Sports game was a winner, says Stewart, but Scottish
ice hockey is turning out to be a loser.
For almost the first time since I started writing
these blogs, there’s some really good news to impart. The Elite League
clash between Sheffield Steelers and Nottingham Panthers was shown on Sky
Sports last Thursday and it was so well produced that I can find hardly
anything to moan about.
The whole game was shown, not live but 24 hours after
Wednesday’s game in the Sheffield arena, and it was an excellent advert
for the sport. It helped that there was plenty of action in the game, a
4-2 Steelers’ win.
Dave Simms, who admitted in Powerplay magazine that he was very nervous,
nevertheless commentated like he’d been doing it for years, and his North
American side-kick Nick Rothwell was smooth and cheery as the presenter
and colour man.
For older fans, meet the new Paul Ferguson and Richard Boprey. GB and
Coventry Blaze coach Paul Thompson also came over well as the expert
analyst.
The camera work was light years away from the league’s own ill-fated
attempt at filming the games themselves two seasons back, with four or
five cameras being used.
Perhaps I may be allowed a small whinge here. The amount of coloured paint
on the ice with all the sponsors’ names made it hard to spot the puck. At
times I found myself reading the logos!
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. |
|
(11th
September 2007)
- Sky Sports begin showing British ice hockey games this week for the
first time since the Superleague in season 1999-2000. Stewart urges the
sport not to rely on television alone to sell the game. 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. |
(6th
September 2007) -
Stewart looks at the line-ups for the new season and reckons defending
bmibaby Elite League title-holders, Coventry Blaze, are the team to beat.
Thank goodness that ‘summer’ is over.
It’s bad enough not having any hockey to watch but not having a summer is
even worse. No wonder I was grouchy. I promise I’ll try and find some
reasons to be cheerful in the new season. (Don’t panic, fans of doom, I did
say ‘try’.)
Actually, I’m feeling pretty relaxed as the new Annual has just gone to the
printers and will be out next month, folks.
There’s one excellent reason to be upbeat about 2007-08 - television. As
exclusively forecast here in June (see Blog Archive – League of Friends?)
for the first time in seven years, games from our top league will be shown
weekly on Sky Sports (more here
www.digiguide.com and
www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12992_2709655,00.html).
Those nice people at Sky have just sent me a half-price offer which I think
the Annual’s accountant will approve, so I can give you my thoughts on their
weekly shows. No expense spared for you, dear reader.
Meanwhile, if you have digi TV, I recommend you check out Channel m’s
coverage of Manchester Phoenix (www.channelm.co.uk). Avoid the awful camera work on the game
highlights, but it’s good to see our own Great One, Tony Hand, giving his
views on the sport. If you have a state-of-the-art computer, you might be
able to watch it
here.
Back to work. I’ve been analysing the Elite League’s line-ups to figure
out who’s most likely to win the title.
Yes, I know it’s a mug’s game, especially when I’ve no idea what the new
players are like - 45 new imports have signed so far - and I suspect few
of the coaches do, either.
Based purely on this, Coventry Blaze would end up champs as, uniquely in
the league, coach Paul Thompson has signed no imports new to this country,
and all the fresh faces on his bench played here last year, too.
HOW MANY SHIFTS WILL BRITS GET?
At the other end of the scale, Scott Neil’s Edinburgh Capitals have seven
new imports, that’s half the team.
Newcastle Vipers are the only side this term to have a contingent of
Europeans, a big switch in policy for Rob Wilson.
And about a third of each squad is home-grown. Though this is encouraging,
it remains to be seen just how many British lads will get a regular shift.
(On a doom note, I was sorry to hear that the league didn’t follow through
on their promise to reduce the number of overseas players - those needing
international transfer cards - from ten to nine.)
But they say that coaching and netminding are the keys to success these
days, so let’s see how the teams break down in these categories:
Coaching - Thompson and his Blaze come out on top here again as Thommo’s
won numerous trophies during his long career, including two Elite League
crowns.
The most the others can muster is a league win by Ed Courtenay with
Belfast Giants in 2005-06, and ‘old MBE’ with Dundee Stars (in a lower
league) a few years back.
KOENIG, KING OF THE KEEPERS, IS BACK
Basingstoke Bison’s new man at the helm, Ryan Aldridge, took Bracknell
Bees to the English Premier title last time but again this doesn’t stand
comparison to the Elite.
Netminding - If you’re not a Blaze fan, be prepared to weep because Trevor
Koenig is back. The 32-year-old Edmontonian was the league’s best
netminder last year.
Of course, one of the three new cagemen - JF Perras (Edinburgh), Scott
Fankhouser (Manchester) and Ryan McDonald (Newcastle) might outplay Trev.
The dark horse could be Fankhouser who has played a handful of NHL games,
and there’s also Basingstoke’s Stevie Lyle, the Elite’s only ‘true Brit’
stopper, who had a fine
World Championship.
So, in that ghastly term, it’s a ‘no-brainer’. The figures don’t lie and
the figures say the only side who can beat the Blaze are the defending
league champs - the Blaze.
But if Scotty’s Caps skate off with the title in March, please don’t come
back and read this and send me a rude e-mail.
More next week. |
(8th
August 2007)
Stewart says that the NHL’s embarrassing refusal to recognise British ice
hockey should serve as a wake-up call to Ice Hockey UK.
The text for this month’s
sermon - sorry, blog - comes from
this article that I spotted in the Coventry Evening Telegraph. It was
what Paul (Thommo) Thompson, the GB and Coventry Blaze head coach, said
that particularly caught my eye -
“The timing of the NHL games could have been better. The weekend could
have been a showcase for British ice hockey as well. I wanted there to be
a Great Britain exhibition game before the NHL match. It would have been a
great experience for our guys and a great showcase for the sport in this
country."
Nice idea, Thommo, but it doesn't bear close examination. A GB exhibition
game. How would that work? Britain versus who? France, our under-21s?
Sorry, cheap shot, but you get my drift.
I’m a big GB fan. I’ve not missed more than a handful of their games since
1989, but we can’t avoid the fact that the team is now 29th in the world.
Fans have paid good money (up to £65 a ticket, double that on eBay) to see
the Stanley Cup winners at London’s 02 Arena. I can’t bear to think how
dire GB would look compared with an NHL team. I could be traumatised for
years.
But I don’t want to dismiss this as, er, a load of twaddle. While such a
game obviously wouldn’t work, Thommo is making a serious point which
should serve as a wake-up call for British ice hockey.
The sport’s bosses, Ice Hockey UK, are understandably embarrassed that the
NHL have ignored them by staging their games during our season. They find
it hard to accept the brutal fact that the NHL are here for one reason
only - to sell their league and their merchandise to us Brits.
That’s akin to owning a corner shop and finding an Asda is going to open
down the road.
Some say the world governing body, the IIHF, should intervene and tell the
big league to work with IHUK. But the federation are busy establishing
good relations with the NHL - the first world club championship will be
played in Europe next year (maybe in the 02 Arena) - and setting up a
European Champions Hockey League (for which British teams are sadly not
good enough to qualify). (See
www.iihf.com/news/iihfpr1407.htm)
Besides, the IIHF did get involved with our sport a couple of years ago
when it tried to broker peace between our warring bodies after Superleague
collapsed and look what happened. For those of you with poor memories (and
strong nerves), check out The Ice Hockey Annual 2004-05.
BRITISH ICE HOCKEY UP A BLIND ALLEY
Since the start of British ice hockey’s ‘modern era’ 25 years ago this
year, GB have had their moments, most notably when they reached the dizzy
heights of the world’s top 12 in 1994.
And it’s not entirely their fault that they’re now 29th as nine new hockey
playing countries have sprung up since their last appearance in the world
elite pool.
The sport has explored some exciting avenues since ’94 but most have
turned out to be blind alleys. Big arenas, a disastrous Superleague and a
near-bankrupt former governing body have all helped to destroy our
national team’s momentum.
And GB took another hit when our leading clubs went in for mass
immigration long before it became fashionable in the rest of the country.
All this has led British ice hockey to where it is today. Blown out by the
world’s top league and frozen out of major internationals. (This might be
bearable if our domestic game was on the up, but it’s not.)
PUT A BRIT IN THE NHL
For what it’s worth, here’s Old Roberts’s sure-fire way of persuading the
NHL to respect British ice hockey and its national team - coach our lads
to a high enough standard that one or two of them actually make it onto an
NHL team. Then they’d find it hard to ignore us.
Another load of twaddle? I think not. One of the NHL’s most exciting young
players - Anze Kopitar - will be at the 02 Arena next month. (see
here)
Where’s he from? Slovenia. GB fans will know him as he was one of the
stars of the last World Championships.
If a little nation like Slovenia (for those muttering where the heck’s
that, it’s part of the old Yugoslavia) can produce a top player, surely a
mighty one like ours can.
We have plenty of talented youngsters who could go much further if a
better calibre of coaching was available to them.
If you want proof of our kids' potential, our under-20s won a bronze medal
(see
here) and the England under-16s won a prestigious tournament - go
here.
CLUBS SHOULD SIGN FEWER BUT BETTER IMPORTS
While I’m blue-sky brain-storming, here’s another idea that would make the
sport more attractive to our fans and better respected internationally.
Bring over some really talented imports, like a Moria or a Brebant. Teams
could easily find some spare dosh by not signing so many mediocre
foreigners and giving more Brits a chance.
These guys would (a) be eligible for GB, (b) be willing to run a coaching
school for Ice Hockey UK, (c) play attractive hockey and bring back the
crowds.
After all, if you’re going to shell out good money for imports, why not
get real value? The only reservation - they can’t be goalies. We need to
see more goals not less.
Back with GB, Paul Thompson is doing his best to move them up the world
rankings but we all know they need more funding and the support of the
teams in releasing their players for mid-season internationals.
Thommo is also trying to address another important item - getting a
consistent approach to the way the game is played in this country. He
stressed this recently when he appointed Paul Heavey and Peter Russell to
take charge of GB’s under-20s and under-18s respectively. Let’s hope he
can soon persuade some club sides to work with him, too.
And take a look at his new coaching clinic at
www.paulthompsonscoachingclinic.co.uk.
Will Ice Hockey UK’s embarrassment over the NHL games concentrate their
minds on these vital matters? Because it’s only when they’ve ticked all
the boxes that British ice hockey can start thinking about sharing the
same bill as the Stanley Cup winners.
ICE HOCKEY’S WEST LOTHIAN QUESTION
I was disappointed at the response to my last blog. So everyone’s happy
with the way our sport is organised, or are you just gob-smacked that a
game with a pro league, national teams at all levels, thousands of players
and many more thousands of fans is run by amateurs (including an American
living in the USA) and its national men’s senior team is 29th in the
world?
Perhaps it’s my fault. Maybe I should have made it clearer that the great
anomaly at the heart of the sport’s organisation is what Westminster
politicians call the West Lothian question. That’s where the Scots can
vote on English affairs at Westminster but the English can’t vote on
Scottish ones because that’s the job of the Scottish Parliament.
Our game’s version of this is that Ice Hockey UK can’t vote on Elite
League affairs (so they claim, anyway) because the league is a private
company representing other private companies, the clubs. Yet the Elite
League has two directors on the board of Ice Hockey UK who can vote on the
governing body’s affairs.
Plenty then for the new Sports Minister to get to grips with when he
resumes the review of the wacky world of British ice hockey.
More next month. Meanwhile, do send your feedback to me at
stewice@aol.com. |
(13th July 2007) Stewart explains how British
ice hockey is structured and concludes that, with a willingness to change
and goodwill on all sides, the sport can move forward.
Now that I’ve got your attention...!
This month I’m going to take a look at the structure of British ice
hockey, a Dummy’s Guide, if you like, to how our game is run. I’m sure
this will be particularly useful for newbies to our sport.
Let me say first that I was involved with administering this game in the
1970s and 1980s. It has altered beyond recognition since then and not
always for the best, which is one of the chief reasons I took the
tee-shirt and got out.
Everything changed in the 1990s with the opening of the big arenas in
Sheffield and Manchester. Parts of ice hockey became professional and
while the Superleague is long gone, its successor, the Elite League, is a
professional league with all its clubs being private companies.
In contrast, the six directors of the board of Ice Hockey UK, the
governing body, receive no remuneration for running the sport, apart from
out-of-pocket expenses. The full list of board members is at
www.icehockeyuk.co.uk/officers.asp.
On the board, the game’s professional side appoints two representatives
from the ten-team Elite League. The other four come from the amateur side:
two from the English Ice Hockey Association (EIHA) - which controls the
English Premier, English National, junior and women’s leagues - and, a
trifle oddly, two from the very much smaller Scottish Ice Hockey
Association.
Ice Hockey UK takes care of the national teams, with the funding coming
mostly from within the sport. This year’s women’s world championships in
Sheffield also received some government funding, though normally this is
very hard to come by. The senior men’s team was assisted by the
four-figure proceeds of a pre-World Championship game at Coventry.
So far, so understandable. The one thing that makes many of us scratch our
heads in wonder is that the EIHA is chaired by an American who doesn’t
even sit on the Ice Hockey UK board. Although he’s one of the sport’s most
influential people, he runs the show - as he would say - from his home in
the USA where he is the president of a referees’ body. Go to
www.cihra.org.
But as this affable guy has survived in the chair for 25 years, this
probably says as much about the EIHA’s inability to find a local man for
the job as it does about the incumbent’s ability.
This structure was created eight years ago this month after consultations
with UK Sport who imposed it on Ice Hockey UK when that body replaced the
British Ice Hockey Association.
UK Sport insisted that all ice hockey’s various groups should elect a
representative to serve on the governing body. But the elections produced
only much the same faces - the ones who loved the sport and were willing
to devote a lot of unpaid time to it.
It’s hard to knock such enthusiasts but they have not always been
effective in their negotiations with the new breed of professional clubs.
Regular readers of The Ice Hockey Annual will be only too familiar with
all the power battles in the new Millennium.
Looking ahead, how can a more practicable administration be created? The
answer lies with the people who got us into it in the first place - UK
Sport.
Following the interviews conducted with ice hockey’s bosses earlier this
year by Neil Tunnicliffe (see last month’s blog), the Sports Minister has
been trying to get everyone round the table to discuss, among other
things, an improved structure and a better ‘funding model’, especially for
the national teams.
The current chairmanship of Ice Hockey UK rotates among the existing board
directors. My ideal is for a full-time independent chairman, someone with
no previous connection to ice hockey but who is experienced in running
sporting bodies, someone like Mr Tunnicliffe, perhaps.
However, despite having thousands of players and many more thousands of
fans, British ice hockey has never managed to pull together to raise the
admittedly sizable salary such a person would command. And it’s unlikely
that UK Sport could fund this, especially with the government so committed
to the London Olympics.
But with our new Prime Minister’s well known love of sport and the new
Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe (more about him
here) having a strong trade union background, I’m sure they will do
all they can to help ice hockey. All it needs in return is for our
governing body to show that it is really open to change and the sport can
move forward.
And that’s where we are at the moment. Unfortunately, Mr Sutcliffe’s
appointment in place of Richard Caborn has delayed the next UK Sport
meeting but I’ll endeavour to keep you in touch.
Now I have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news.
London’s 02 Arena, formerly the Millennium Dome, has sold out every one of
its seats for the NHL games due to be played there on 29 and 30 September.
(Go to
http://www.theo2.co.uk/web/guest/booking/event?id=6 and wonder!).
That’s 40,000 seats! Twenty thousand a game! These crowds will comfortably
beat the UK’s current record attendance of 17,245 which was set by
Manchester’s arena in 1997. And they will be the biggest crowds by far to
see ice hockey in our capital city since the post-World War II era.
The NHL’s TV promotions during the Stanley Cup finals on NASN and Five
obviously succeeded magnificently, which proves the power of TV
advertising and showing your games on TV.
These phenomenal ticket sales must put the 02 in the frame as a possible
venue for the first Victoria Cup, a mouth-watering clash between the top
European club side and a leading NHL team which is scheduled for September
next year.
Though the British leagues have yet to release their fixtures as I write
this, it will come as no surprise to connoisseurs of these matters that
some teams intend to play over the NHL weekend. With the NHL games already
sold out, British teams and their fans - and players - can only be the
losers here.
The bad news concerns a player who was pushing on a bit when I first
watched ice hockey in the early 1960s. Sonny Rost came to London in the
first wave of Canadian imports in the 1930s and was still playing his
hard-nosed style into his fifties.
Sonny and his wife, Marjorie, had two children, a daughter and a son,
John, who played for Brighton Tigers and Streatham, among others. The
Rosts are now into their fourth generation of players through Sonny’s
grandsons, Warren Rost (Slough Jets) and Scott Moody (Bracknell), and his
great-grandsons, Chris Rost, 17, and Alfie (Sonny) Skelton, 12, who are
both at Slough.
Sonny’s daughter-in-law, Pauline, is the driving force behind Slough’s
juniors and Sonny was a regular at the rink until a couple of years ago,
taking a keen interest in their progress.
But time has not been kind to ‘the father of British ice hockey’.
Marjorie, his wife of 64 years, died last October, and his younger brother
Wally, also a hockey player, passed away not long ago. Now 93 and blind,
Sonny was hospitalised a few weeks ago after suffering a bad reaction to
having a heart pacemaker fitted.
I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing him well.
I must admit that I didn’t expect my last blog to attract quite so much
heated comment. I think I was the one standing in front of a slapshot in
just my boxers!
My belief that the bmibaby Elite League is unfriendly was all too
convincingly proved as, instead of making a robust defence of themselves,
all I received was…. well, let’s just say their response wasn’t exactly
friendly.
That said, I regret that I was misinformed on one point. I now accept that
the reason Eamon Convery, the Elite League’s chairman, could not attend
the meeting with UK Sport in December last year was entirely genuine. I
also accept Mr Convery’s explanation that the proposed June meeting could
not be arranged because insufficient people were in a position to accept
UK Sport’s invitations.
Consequently, I apologise to Mr Convery and to Bob Wilkinson, the chairman
of Ice Hockey UK, for any embarrassment my comments on this matter may
have caused them.
I hope you like the Annual’s new Statement of Beliefs or, less
pretentiously, what I want for Christmas (2020?!).
Don’t forget you can send your views to me at
stewice@aol.com
for the Blog Feedback page. My grateful thanks to those who wrote to me
about my last blog.
More next month, work on the 32nd Annual permitting. |
(14th June 2007) Stewart reflects on the
events since the end of the season and wonders why the sport, especially
the struggling Elite League, is so unwilling to make friends or accept
advice.
My apologies for the delay in posting
this blog. This is mostly because I’ve been busy preparing the new edition
of the Annual for publication in October, but it’s also been a pretty
depressing time here at Annual Towers with the news that’s been coming in.
Here’s some of what’s been going on since the World Championships. A
warning to real fans - reading this is almost as painful as standing in
front of a slap shot with just your boxers on.
Britain’s (oh, all right, Team GB’s) fourth place finish in Slovenia left
them 29th in the world, leapfrogging Bulgaria and Serbia, but still behind
such hockey powerhouses as Romania, Croatia and China. (Even a bit of the
old Yugoslavia is better than the whole of GB!) The official World
Rankings are here -
http://live82.ihwc.net/english/prechampion/
Planet Ice, who at one time threatened to drop their loss-making Elite
team, Basingstoke Bison, into the English Premier League, finally
off-loaded it - to the owner of an EPL team! The Bison were rescued by
David Taylor, the ice hockey-mad estate agent from Berkshire who feels
that owning one team - the EPL’s Bracknell Bees - is not enough to feed
his habit.
He must have been talking to Bob Phillips, the one-time owner of two Elite
League clubs, Cardiff Devils and Sheffield Steelers.
Oddly enough, Uncle Bob and his family have been relieved of their
ownership of the Devils as they failed to reach agreement with Planet Ice,
the operators of the new rink in the capital. As the team lost several kay
while they played for months without a rink, Mr Phillips is suing the
local council for the delay in completing the new building.
In Newcastle, Paddy O’Connor dropped out of the three-man group who owned
the Vipers, amid rumours of more losses, and left the team in the hands of
winger Paul Ferone and player-coach Rob Wilson. Ferone, 31, is a member of
a wealthy Vancouver family.
O’Connor told a Newcastle paper: “We inherited an absolute mess [from
previous owner Darryl Illingworth]… but hopefully we’ll be passing on a
much healthier business.” It wasn’t healthy enough for Vipers to keep
their star player, GB skipper Jonathan Weaver, who struck a better deal
for himself and his young family in Coventry.
And who knows what losses were suffered last season by Edinburgh Capitals
(average crowd 734), Hull Stingrays (722) and Manchester Phoenix (781,
when they had a rink at all).
It’s not only the Elite’s over-spending that reminds me of their
predecessors, the Superleague. It’s also their failure to make friends. I
don’t mean with the English IHA whose American boss, Ken Taggart, admitted
to me recently that he’s been round to tea with them a couple of times. In
any case, Ken’s got his hands full with an internal row over the EIHA’s
plans for an under-25 league.
And I don’t mean television as I hear that efforts are being made to put
some Elite games on a decent channel next season as the broadcast rights
have at last been wrested from Planet Ice’s grasp. (Doesn’t that name crop
up a lot these days?)
I mean the match officials, the journalists, the players, the fans and
some of our best run clubs. The league’s relationships with these people,
or the organisations representing them, are at best strained, at worst
non-existent.
Some fans are so fed up with the way the sport is being run that they’ve
formed their own association to lobby for better governance. The
inspiration, if that’s the right word, for the British Ice Hockey Fans
Association (www.bihfa.co.uk)
was the experiences of two injured and uninsured players, Marc Twaite
(Sheffield) and Paul Berrington (London).
No one has yet taken responsibility for compensating these players whose
club owners at the time simply wound up their companies and avoided
payment.
Twaite and Berrington turned instead to their MPs who involved the Sports
Minister, Richard Caborn, who in turn set up a meeting last December of
all the sport’s movers and shakers. All, that is, except the Elite’s
chairman, Eamon Convery, who missed the get-together when his flight was
cancelled.
I was prepared to believe this excuse until I heard that Mr Convery, along
with Ice Hockey UK’s chairman, Bob Wilkinson, has twice turned down UK
Sport’s recent invitations to a follow-up meeting.
You’d think that a sport in as much of a mess as ours, run by people with
little or no previous experience, would leap at the chance of getting some
free advice on how to improve its organisation.
Neil Tunnicliffe, the sports consultant who interviewed all ice hockey’s
bosses of behalf of UK Sport, was the chief exec. of rugby league and has
carried out reviews of basketball and ice skating, among others, advice
for which those sports readily paid.
For more on Mr Tunnicliffe go to ...
http://www.mallinbasketballreview.org/page/review team/neil tunnicliffe
profile and
http://www.mallinbasketballreview.org/page/review/the+review.
Back with the Friends of the Elite League (membership nil), the league
recently did their best to alienate people in high places by publicly
declaring that they would ignore a recent ruling from the IIHF, the world
governing body.
You will remember that Vezio Sacratini and Trevor Gallant joined Elite
clubs at the end of last season when their European teams’ games were
over. Rene Fasel, the IIHF’s boss, rightly believes that this sort of
thing damages the sport’s credibility and the federation have imposed a
transfer deadline of 31 January between clubs in member nations. See
www.iihf.com/news/iihfpr0907.htm.
The Elite League’s credibility is obviously not a priority as Mr Convery
told the Nottingham Evening Post: “We will change nothing. The system we
have in place worked well and it will stay the same as last season.”
We can’t comment on last season’s system for the simple reason that the
league never told anyone what it was, but we await with interest to see
what happens if any Elite club tries to sign a player from a European team
next February without the properly completed international paperwork.
If the Elite League really wants to expand and prosper, it must start to
try winning friends. There just aren’t enough ice hockey-mad estate agents
around to keep bailing them out. |
(21st April 2007) After Britain’s fourth
place finish in their six-team group of the World Championships (Div I),
Stewart looks at Tony Hand’s last international and assesses GB’s chances
of improvement in 2008.
Britain's second victory
in Ljubljana, Slovenia – a 6-1 defeat of Romania – ensured that Paul
Thompson’s team will be back in Division I for a 14th successive season
next year.
The game was also the final one in national team colours for Tony Hand who
confirmed his retirement. Although Tony has ‘retired’ from GB twice
before, I think we can safely assume he means it this time. He turns 40 in
August.
Though never at his remarkable best with the lion on his chest - at least
since his first break after Pool A in 1994 - Tony goes out as GB’s highest
points scorer and second highest goal scorer (behind Gerry Davey, who
starred in the 1930s and 1940s).
His coach generously declared that “Tony played his best game tonight.
It’s a good way to end his career.” But in truth the finest home-grown
player of his generation missed a couple of sitters and had only one
assist despite his line being revamped yet again, this time with David
Longstaff on his right wing and Jonathan Weaver on his right.
It was probably Weaver’s best game of the tournament with a goal and an
assist. The versatile GB captain who normally patrols the blueline, has
only just recovered from a bout of food poisoning.
The unlikely star of GB’s easiest victory of the week was British-Canadian
forward Nathan Rempel who had a hat-trick after being invisible for most
of the earlier games.
While GB kept themselves in the Division with this win, they had to wait
for the very last shot of the next game, between Japan and Hungary, before
they found out their final placing. Japan took the narrowly favoured
Hungarians into overtime and a shootout before surrendering, which left GB
tied with Japan in the standings.
As Britain beat Japan in that first game – making that result even more
important – GB finished fourth, their highest since Hungary in 2002.
It should also be enough to move the Brits up into the top 30 in the world
rankings, which would make them eligible to take part in the Olympic
qualifiers. (The official world rankings, which are based on four years’
championship results, won’t be issued until after the elite games in
Russia next month.)
Mission accomplished then for the new GB management.
Indeed, as far as coach ‘Thommo’ is concerned, GB were the third best team
in Ljubljana: the loss to Lithuania - who also finished on six points -
still hurts badly. There is certainly a strong argument for Britain
finishing higher as this was probably the easiest group in which they've
competed for some years; every nation apart from the host one, was
beatable.
But as well as the lack of any meaningful training camp – the Hungarians,
for one, had three weeks with two games against Sweden and one against
Norway – Britain’s gruelling domestic season is the longest in Europe,
with most of the teams playing only two-line hockey.
Having to go into a series of five-games-in-seven-days straight after this
is asking too much of our players, so it was hardly surprising that they
wilted in the later stages of games, notoriously against Lithuania and
Hungary when they blew two-goal leads.
So obvious was this that some Slovenian journalists (no friends of GB)
decided for themselves that our players must have been regular late night
clubbers. If this were ever true, it certainly wasn’t this year when
Thompson was constantly preaching ‘professionalism’ to his charges.
“We’ll never move on if we don’t change our approach to our national
team,” Thompson declared. Years of covering GB (this is my 20th World
Championship) make me sceptical that anything will change, and the absence
of the sport’s bigwigs here helps to prove my argument.
Not one of our many chairmen could manage even a weekend in Slovenia, not
Eamon Convery of the Elite League, not Ken Taggart of the EIHA, and not
Bob Wilkinson of Ice Hockey UK. Poor show, gents, very poor show.
But I’ll leave you on an optimistic note, courtesy of goalie Stevie Lyle,
one of the championship’s three stars. Stevie, who’s sufficiently driven
to want to try his skills in Germany next season and find himself a goalie
coach, pointed out that the top two nations here, Slovenia and Hungary,
don’t seem to be bringing on their young talent like GB is, and GB has
more fine prospects among their medal-winning under-20s.
By the way, the game’s second star was evergreen defender Mike Ellis and
the first star was forward Jonathan Phillips who was voted not only
Britain’s Best Player of the Tournament by the organisers but also by the
other heroes of the week, the 150-strong GB Supporters Club, truly GB’s
‘fifth line’.
I’ll be back in a month with a look at the signings for the new season and
other UK news. |
(20th April 2007) Britain lost their third
game in group B of the World Championships, Div 1. Stewart reports direct
from the arena in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
GB coach Paul Thompson looked weary
when he chatted candidly to the press after yet another World Championship
defeat for his men. But he made no excuses for Britain’s equally
weary-looking 4-2 loss to Hungary, though he had a good one.
“We’re in a relegation battle now,” he admitted. “If we’d won that game
[against Hungary] we’d be looking at a silver medal. But if we lose on
Saturday to Romania, we'll go down. It’s that close.”
The excuse he tried to avoid mentioning was that today’s game started only
18-and-a-half hours after their energy sapping tussle with group leaders,
Slovenia.
Instead he said: “A lot of our mistakes were down to inexperience.” Almost
half the squad are 25-years-old or less. The powerplay also concerns ‘Thommo’.
“We’re not passing and our tempo is all wrong,” he explained.
With leading forward Dave Clarke still out injured – and likely to be for
the rest of the tournament – Thompson shook up his forward formations
again to try and get some scoring going. GB’s eight goals in four games
are easily the lowest of the six nations.
The hardest working trio was probably Shaun Johnson alongside David
Longstaff and Matt Myers but the most effective was Tony Hand’s line with
Russ Cowley and Jonathan Phillips.
Phillips and Hand set up the first goal, a smart pass by Hand from behind
the net to onrushing defenceman Tom Watkins who smashed the puck past
Clark Kent, sorry, goalie Levente ‘Szuperman’.
That was Hand’s first first-assist, which illustrates not just how the
Great Scot is playing (he’s actually one of our best forwards) but how the
whole team is performing.
GB’s best moment of the game came when they successfully killed off a
three-minute shorthanded spell, which included 53 seconds of five-on-three
and a superbly taken goal from Phillips.
He came out of the penalty box, snatched the puck, skated over half the
length of the ice and converted his breakaway to the embarrassment of the
Hungarian minder who at times like these must regret his nickname.
After that, the roof caved in with Hungary scoring twice in two-and-a-half
minutes. The first, on a bad line change by GB, was almost a replica of
Phillips’s as Ocskay got a clean break and slid the puck under Stevie
Lyle.
A defensive error led to Majoross’s tying goal as a clearing pass from
behind Lyle’s net landed right on the Hungarian’s stick. Another blooper
moments later, this time from the sickly and sore ribbed defender Jonathan
Weaver, almost led to a third.
As a previous GB coach, Chris McSorley, might have said: “The first muscle
to tire is the brain”.
After two GB powerplays fizzled out, with ten minutes remaining Hungary’s
top scorer Ladanyi tipped in Vas’s pass from the far boards for the
prettiest goal of the afternoon to give Hungary the lead for the first
time.
The game stepped up a pace as both sides strained for a goal. But with
Longstaff in the box after an awkward collision with an opponent,
Palkovics caught Lyle out with a close range shot through his five-hole.
GB will get a well earned rest on Friday before meeting the Romanians. 'Thommo'
is not taking them lightly, describing them as “dangerous”.
“To be honest, I think we’re the fourth best team here,” he said. Provided
GB get all three points from a win over Romania, and Japan lose both their
remaining games, that’s where Britain will finish. |
(19th April 2007) Stewart was at rink-side
for
Britain’s third game in the six-nation group B of the World Championships,
Division I.
If GB played down
to the level of an indifferent Lithuanian team, they were superb last
night against Slovenia, who were relegated from the elite group last
season. But either way, GB lost 4-0.
They also lost Jonathan Weaver, one of their best defencemen, who was
injured in a collision during the second period, though he’s fit for
tonight’s game against Hungary. But Dave (‘our best natural scorer’)
Clarke, who was crocked during the Lithuanian game, is lost for the
Hungary encounter.
Slovenia’s coach, former NHLer Ted Sator, complimented his opposite
number, Paul Thompson. “Paul had them well prepared,” he said. “They
killed their penalties well, never giving us time on the puck. I thought
we were lucky to go in level at the first break. We had to make some
adjustments after that.”
Britain, whose penalty killing ranks third overall, were at their best in
the first half of the game. The hard working Tomaz Razingar didn’t score
Slovenia’s first goal until the 28th minute.
But with only one win in three games, GB’s next two matches are critical.
Two wins and there’s a good chance of a medal. Two losses and Div II
looms.
Neither game will be easy. Judged by the current standings, with only one
point, Romania (Saturday) are the worst team here. But they started the
tournament five places above GB in the world rankings and they only lost
to third place Japan in overtime. Though I’ve yet to see them play, the
fans rate them quite highly.
I’ll be blogging on today’s game against Hungary later this evening but
they’ve been impressive and are currently runners-up. As well as ex-NHL
goalie, Levente (Superman) Szuper, the Hungarians have Balazs Ladanyi,
who’s the third highest championship scorer behind Slovenia’s
sharpshooters, Anze Kopitar of LA Kings, and Ivo Jan.
Britain’s highest scorers, Greg Owen and Ashley Tait, with a goal and an
assist each, have just scraped into the top 30 scoring list. Clarky had
two assists before his injury. Hand and Longstaff have just one assist
apiece and the third veteran returnee to the national team, Shaun Johnson,
has no points at all.
While Lobby is regarded by most of us here as having a poor tournament,
the performances of the other two are only a reflection of how far British
ice hockey has slipped in comparison to the rest of the world since GB’s
last visit to Slovenia in 2001, when they held their hosts 3-3 and gained
a silver medal.
After last night’s game, coach Thompson was asked by a Slovenian
journalist about the difference between then and now. “This time we have
only two British-Canadians,” he replied, “and the Slovenians have a better
team.” That sums it up pretty neatly.
Hand and Johnson played well last night. I thought Johnson’s line with
Mark Richardson and man of the match Jonathan Phillips was probably their
best one.
Tony Hand may be 39 but physically he’s only slowed down marginally, while
his brain is still lightning quick at summing up the situation. But the
play changed so quickly last night that even he - or was it his
team-mates? – often found it hard to cope with.
GB can’t honestly use the excuse of the refs picking on them any more.
Thanks to the adoption of zero tolerance, our players are cleaner than
they’ve been for years. Last night’s Russian ref was a bit picky but he
dished out the same amount of sin-bin time to each side.
Netminder Stevie Lyle was, yet again, another possible choice for best
player. He faced 40 shots (GB managed 18) and was often under huge
pressure which, fortunately, he seems to thrive on. He’s ranked third in
save percentages, behind only the Slovenian and Hungary’s ‘Szuperman’.
There’s no doubt that for GB, these championships become more difficult
every year. |
(16th April 2007) Britain’s second game in
the six-nation group B of the World Championships, Division I, was in
stark contrast to their first. Stewart was at rink-side again.
Oh dear, here we go again. After a
great display by Britain’s ‘A team’ yesterday, their ‘B team’ threw all
the good work away today.
To be precise, some poor performances by some players (David Longstaff for
one admitted sadly that he was “shite”) led to GB throwing away a two-goal
margin and handing the Lithuanians a 3-2 victory.
In his post-match interview, Paul Thompson could barely contain his fury
at his charges’ inept play which he described through gritted teeth as
“disappointing”.
“There’s no way we should have lost after holding a two-goal lead,” he
said, adding: “We didn’t work hard enough, especially in the last 30
minutes. Our powerplay and penalty killing need improvement. We can’t keep
moving the puck around the edges.”
He consoled himself, if not his listeners, by claiming that the
Lithuanians scored “three garbage goals”. That’s not quite right.
Lithuania’s first, which came only a minute after Mark Richardson had put
GB 2-0 up, was as pretty as Richardson’s close-in deflection of Jonathan
Phillips’ pass from the wing.
GB FAIL TO CONVERT THEIR CHANCES
But Lithuania’s tying and winning goals certainly fit the description of
‘ugly’. The first was deflected past a stranded Stevie Lyle, and the puck
lay in the crease for a couple of seconds before being flicked home for
the third.
But GB had only themselves to blame for this let-down. They failed to
convert their chances in the first period when they outshot their
opponents 13-2. The loss of David Clarke who was nursing a bruised knee
didn’t help. “He’s our most natural goal scorer,” said ‘Thommo’. Clarke
remains doubtful for Wednesday’s big game against Slovenia, who are
desperate to get back into the elite group from which they were relegated
last year.
Speaking of which, this game and Thursday’s against Hungary and their
sometime NHL goalie, Levente (Superman) Szuper, are unlikely to yield so
much as a point for GB, leaving them in fourth place at best. A win today
could well have put them among the medals. Now you see why everyone is so
hacked off.
A couple of players came out of the game with their reputations enhanced,
or at least untarnished. Man of the match was the hard skating Basingstoke
forward, Greg Owen, who had a team high four shots on goal (out of a total
of 26), but Lyle would have been an equally good choice.
FIRST FORWARD LINE NOT CLICKING
The opposite could be said of a couple of others. Though Ashley Tait
assisted on defenceman Tom Watkins’ goal late in the first, this feat was
rather forgotten after his high hit on a Lithuanian which ruled him out
for the last vital minutes of the game.
Tait’s line - GB’s no. 1 - with dual national Nathan Rempel and Tony Hand
is massively under-achieving. The image of Hand shooting straight at the
keeper rather than passing to a nearby team-mate who had a clear chance on
goal will stay with me for a long time.
A quick word about the Lithuanians. As is the way with East Europeans who
used to be part of the old Soviet Union, they’re more skilled than the
Brits, though not by much, and not as physical. They’ve actually played
four of the last six championships in the same division as GB, but always
in the other group, so this was the countries' first ever meeting.
Four Lithuanians competed in the UK last season, Dino Bauba with the
Elite’s Edinburgh Capitals and the others with EPL sides, while their
goalie Arunas Aleinikovas was with Solihull Barons and Bracknell Bees in
season 2005-06.
Tomorrow is a rest day – yours truly is going sight-seeing in Trieste –
and Wednesday’s game with Slovenia is a late one so I’ll be filing my next
blog on Thursday evening after the Hungary game. |
(15th April 2007) Stewart reports on
Britain’s surprising defeat of Japan, one of the favourites, in their
first game in the World Championship in Slovenia.
The first thing you should know about
Britain’s unexpected 4-3 victory over Japan in their first game of the
2007 World Championships is that Britain can play much better.
Don’t take my word for how Britain played. Ashley Tait, the Coventry
captain, who scored GB’s third goal, was quick to point out that “It takes
time for us find each other. Practice is one thing but being under
pressure in a game is what counts.”
The Brits – and it’s important to note that there are only two dual
nationals on the squad, Nottingham’s Mike Ellis and Cardiff’s Nathan
Rempel – were almost falling over each other at times in the first period,
but they still outscored Japan 2-0.
After successive defeats by the Japanese in the last two world games, the
roar that went up from the 150-odd travelling Barmy Army when Danny Meyers
scored after less than four minutes was one of surprise as much as
delight.
The fast skating opposition were somewhat flattered by standing 10 places
above GB in the world rankings which, on today’s performances, might just
look a bit silly by the end of this week. But we mustn’t get ahead of
ourselves.
In the last two minutes of the period – always a tricky time – Paul
Thompson’s men turned on the pressure and were rewarded with a second
goal, this time from Greg Owen.
A two-goal margin after the first 20 minutes was almost perfect, but it
was spoiled by a boarding minor to Matt Myers. Now GB would have to start
the second a man down.
On the powerplay, the inevitable happened and Iimura scored for Japan.
Czech ref Husicka then made the Barmy Army, er, sick, when he missed a
call on a Japanese only to throw Tait out moments later for a similar
offence.
The Coventry skipper got his revenge, though, when he latched onto the
puck as he came out of the box and fired past Haruma in the Japanese goal.
That bit of poetic justice was even more satisfying when Haruma was taken
off and replaced by his back-up, Kikuchi.
After yet another Brit penalty, an ironic cheer went up from the fans when
the first Japanese was at last thrown out. Again, things went Britain’s
way and before he returned he was joined in the bin by a team-mate.
But GB failed to put any shots on Kikuchi during the five-on-three when
they unusually tried the Gretzky Office play, moving the puck around
behind the net and trying to pass out front.
Then with three minutes left, Paul Sample - whose hard work throughout the
game led to his man of the match award from his coach – beat Kikuchi with
the third shot after a spell of sustained GB pressure.
With a 4-1 lead, the need to pace themselves for an intense, short series
of games, and no worry about having to pile up the goals - games are now
decided on overtime and a shootout, not goal difference – Britain were
content to hold on. They were helped in this by the indiscipline of the
Japanese who gave the distinct impression of having already been defeated.
GB should have remembered the 2005 championships when the Japanese scored
– if memory serves – three times in the dying minutes to win 5-3.
The fans did, and all hearts were in mouths after first Nishiwaki and then
captain Suzuki made it 4-3 with a minute to go. But this time Britain held
off the remorseless attacks for a morale boosting first game win, their
first since 2001, also in Ljubljana.
This was a most impressive performance by Britain, with almost everyone
playing the best they could bearing in mind their preparation was not
ideal.
The exception was Tony Hand who never quite seemed comfortable and failed
to score a point. But as Dave Simms, the team’s PR man, pointed out:
“He’ll suddenly hit a purple patch and then watch him go.”
Next up tomorrow is Lithuania whom GB have never met before.
Unfortunately, GB could be without forward David Clarke who has a bruised
knee after colliding with a Japanese defender. |
(10th April 2007) Stewart reports on the use of penalty shots and the
effects of 'zero tolerance' on the sport's showpiece game of the season.
The hero of the Elite
League’s Play-off Finals weekend was Nottingham Panthers’ keeper,
Rastislav Rovnianek, whose remarkable play will hopefully make the league
think again about using penalty shots as a means of deciding the outcome
of a major final.
‘Rasto’, as the 37-year-old former Slovakian international is more
comfortably known, only joined the Panthers just before Christmas but he’s
already one of the most popular players in the long history of the sport
in the Lace City.
He cemented his reputation flamboyantly by single-handedly winning his
last three games of the season, perhaps the most important contests for
the Panthers in the modern era.
The quarter-final win over deadly rivals, the Steelers, in Steel City, was
followed by the crushing of Belfast Giants in the semis, then the 2-1
final victory over Cardiff Devils.
I don’t use the word ‘single-handedly’ lightly. All three games were
decided on shootouts - goalie versus sniper - and the Slovakian saved all
seven shots he faced in the three games.
Nottingham’s coach, Mike Ellis, was quick to give his goalie credit. “We
lost most of our shootouts before ‘Rasto’ came in,” he said. “But we’ve
only lost one since, and that was when the league was all but decided.”
GOALIE DANCES FOR THE FANS
The netminder’s flamboyant bit came at the end of the second semi-final.
After his saves from Jeff Hutchins and Mark Dutiaume had handed Belfast
Giants a 2-1 defeat, the diminutive goalie skated to the far end of the
ice and did a little dance for his adoring fans. Then as he skated off the
ice, his team-mates saluted him with their sticks in the air, forming a
guard of honour.
Sporting entertainment at its best.
This was true of the whole weekend which was in stark contrast to last
year’s boring debacle. Personally, I give a lot of credit to ‘zero
tolerance’.
Apart from hastening the end of ‘goon hockey’ (fingers crossed), this has
given the players room to skate and stickhandle, spectacular arts which
once seemed to be dying out - though I agree with those who say more work
needs to be done on how to dish out a legal bodycheck.
ZT was originally designed by the NHL to help increase goal scoring. But
it has yet to achieve this, either here or over there. Last year our
Finals weekend produced 11 goals, while this year there were only nine.
This dearth of goals in our sport is a worldwide concern.
While for me the free-skating 2007 games were far more entertaining than
the hack-n-chop 2006 version, ZT has not stopped coaches from employing
sophisticated defensive systems, even in this modest league, and it has
not been in use long enough to allow forwards to become more proficient
round the nets than the men in front of them.
LONGER OVERTIME NEEDED IN FINAL
After the final, Ellis told the press he wanted to bring in more skilled
forwards next season, “to take advantage of zero tolerance”. But while
coaches like him continue to sign goalies like ‘Rasto’, this seems a
pretty pointless (pun intended) exercise.
Finally, to return to my original topic, here's my suggestion for the
league's bosses. Before going to a shootout in a major final, extend the
sudden-death overtime period to 20 minutes, like they have in the World
Championships.
Yours truly is off to Slovenia this weekend to watch GB in the World
Championships and I’ll be blogging back to Blighty after each game.
With a new coach in league winning Paul Thompson of Coventry Blaze and the
controversial return of veterans Tony Hand and David Longstaff, my only
prediction about GB is that this championships is the most unpredictable
one since Chris McSorley’s first in 2001 when they won a silver medal.
Let’s hope this one is as successful. |
(3rd April 2007) Stewart reports on
the success of the Elite League's shortened playoffs.
That was probably the most exciting
weekend of the season, maybe the best for several seasons.
The playoff quarter-finals, where the crowds have plummeted by a third
since the Superleague days, were limited to one weekend this year to try
and create more excitement. What a smart decision by the league (never
thought you’d hear me say that, eh?).
And what a weekend! Three cracking match-ups, an overtime winner, a
penalty shootout and a near mass brawl. (Giants knocked off the Bison 8-4
in the only predictable result.)
Your mythical Hollywood scriptwriter wouldn’t have dared invent a
storyline like the one followed by the league winning Coventry Blaze and
the defending playoff champions Newcastle Vipers.
The fans couldn’t complain they hadn’t been warned. Like Alfred Hitchcock
turning up in a trailer for his thriller, Psycho, Vipers’ co-owner, Paddy
O’Connor, had promised the faithful: “It will be very intense, quite
physical, and a fantastic playoff series. We won’t let that trophy go
without a fight.”
PLAYOFF GAME LIKE A HITCHCOCK THRILLER
Spot on, Patrick. With Czech netminder, Ladislav Kudrna, a last minute
signing, stopping all 32 shots fired at him by the Blaze, and a goal from
British defenceman Jonathan Weaver, the Vipers won the first leg 1-0.
Astonishingly, Paddy’s powerhouse crew added three more (Cory Morgan,
Weaver again and hard man Andre Payette) after barely 13 minutes in the
Skydome. The Blaze must have felt like the woman in Anthony Perkins’
shower. You can hear that music as the goals went in.
There may have been blood but the Blaze weren’t dead. Far from it. They
pulled themselves up, towelled themselves off, and with ten minutes left,
Danny Stewart’s goal tied the aggregate score 4-4.
Hardly anyone dared to breathe in the overtime until Blaze’s skipper
Ashley Tait knocked the winner past Kudrna. The league champs must have
left the cinema, sorry rink, mightily relieved that the scary movie was
over and they can go to the finals.
The Panthers-Steelers tie was more like a Wild West film, with the NIC
turned into the OK Corral. An eight-man gunfight broke out at the end of
the first leg with Nottingham leading 4-2. The teams shared 251 penalty
minutes in just that one game.
But when the Panthers swaggered into Steel City the next day, the Steelers
were ready for them. The Old Man, Vezio Sacratini, picked one off after
only eight minutes, Speedy Ryan Finnerty plugged another in the second,
and the league’s Top Scorer, Dan Tessier, kept his men in the fight with
their third. The Panthers had scored only twice so it was a 5-5 stalemate.
END OF PHOENIX’S ROAD MOVIE FROM HELL
Overtime produced only blanks, and so came the deadliest shootout of all.
Winner takes the finals weekend. The only snipers to hit the target were
both Panthers, Cory Neilson and Sean McAslan.
Manchester Phoenix’s season was the road movie from hell. Due to the
fiasco of their rink’s long delayed opening, the weekend’s games brought
their total to a mind and body numbing 19 in 32 days.
So it was little surprise that though Tony Hand’s squad won their home leg
2-1 over Cardiff Devils (my tip to win the playoff championship, if you’re
not reading this too late to nip down the bookies), they lost 3-1 in the
Bay.
Personally, I shall miss watching the sport’s only holder of the MBE this
weekend in Nottingham. So I’ll leave our Great One with the last word.
“We’ve had it as tough as in any season I can remember,” he said. “I’ve
told the players they can hold their heads high. They did me and the club
proud.” |
(27th
March 2007) Stewart likes the chances of Coventry Blaze and Cardiff Devils
among the eight Elite League teams who have qualified for the
end-of-season Playoff Championships.
The league that loves to
do things differently is having two big finals in the last days of the
season. Paul Thompson and his title winning Coventry Blaze are the ones to
beat in both the Challenge Cup and the Playoff Championships.
Hands up who knows the Cup finalists? Smarty pants. The Blaze played the
second leg at Sheffield Steelers too late for inclusion in this column.
Though it’s a minor competition, a Steelers’ victory over the league
champs would be a big morale booster ahead of this weekend’s playoff
quarter-finals.
Not that Dave Matsos’s men needed any boosting to get in the mood for
their tie. It’s against their bitterest rivals, Nottingham Panthers. A
pure coincidence, of course, as those of you who read last week's column
will understand.
These teams have met eight times in the league and cup this season and the
Steel City crew have not lost a single encounter. That means little in the
‘second season’ though. Last year, the Panthers came out on top in the
league, then lost 7-0 to the old enemy in the playoffs.
You have to love coaches, don’t you? Have you ever heard them say anything
downbeat before a game? Like ‘Blow me, this lot’s gonna be a real
handful’.
PRESSURE IS ON STEELERS - ELLIS
Like his fellow bench bosses, Mike Ellis, the Panthers’ coach, is a
devotee of the power of positive thinking. “We struggled to beat Sheffield
all year,” he admitted to the local paper, but then added defiantly: “Not
once have we been outplayed by them, so I think all the pressure is on
Steelers.”
Rob Wilson, the coach of Newcastle Vipers, the defending playoff champs,
is also hard to depress. So they’re playing the Blaze, so what?
“I’ve been quietly optimistic throughout my career and that’s not
changed,” he said. “We know it’s a tall order to beat the best team in the
league. But look what happened last year. We won the playoffs and people
thought the same then, too.”
I don’t know about ‘quiet’, Willy, but it’s certainly optimistic after the
rotten season the Vipers have had. And their import netminder, Peter Aubry,
has still not recovered from his injury.
Mark Lee, the teenager who so impressed his coach that he’s on GB’s
reserve list, may be good but as Wilson admitted: “We can win games with
‘Leesy’ in goal but the reason you have an import goalie is he’s supposed
to win you games.”
One useful change the Vipers have made is to bring back Glen Mulvenna -
their former coach who assisted on the bench in last year’s playoffs - to
help out Wilson again.
MEETING OF THE HOMELESS
If the Blaze should stumble, and anything can happen in two intense games,
then I fancy Cardiff Devils who meet Tony Hand’s Manchester Phoenix.
Rather fitting this, as both sides had to play much of their seasons
without any home ice.
The Devils finished only six points out of first place and might have won
the league if they’d not had an awful January. They lost seven of eight
games during a period of turmoil following their move into the new Cardiff
Arena and the sacking of Adams’ predecessor, Ed Patterson, amid pleas of
poverty.
Off the ice, there’s been more activity in UK Sport’s enquiry into the
governance of ice hockey. The Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, has
discussed with UK Sport the confidential report drawn up by Neil
Tunnicliffe after Mr T interviewed ice hockey’s bigwigs. The Minister and
UK Sport are expected to meet again with our leaders, probably later this
month. |
(20th
March 2007) Stewart discovers that the temporary rink in Cardiff is not as
bad as he feared, but finds that some fans are still unhappy with the
Devils' owner.
After all the palava over the new
rinks in Altrincham/Manchester and Cardiff, I thought it was time I went
to see one of them for myself.
So on Sunday, with a friend who visited Altrincham the previous week, I
took in the Devils-Steelers game in the Big Blue Tent on Cardiff Bay.
The description is very apt. The roof of the grandly named Cardiff Arena
appears to be made of blue painted canvas, held in place by metal struts.
(Please excuse my layman’s terminology.)
“Strewth,” whistled my friend, Martin, who’s an architect, “a good, strong
wind could bring this down.” I know the rink is only a temporary one but
apparently the Altrincham roof is made of sterner stuff.
Once inside, however, the warnings I had been given of a cold rink, sparse
crowds and poor sightlines seemed overdone. The place was almost full for
a game that was crucial to the teams’ playoff pairings. Fans stood
downstairs with their noses pressed to the plexi and there weren't too
many empty seats upstairs.
The rink, which is run by Planet Ice, was certainly warmer than my usual
Elite venue, PI’s ‘Basingstoke Arena’. But the sightlines from the seats,
which are all upstairs, definitely left a lot to be desired.
STAND UP FOR THE BEST VIEW
As the front row seats had naturally been snapped up by season ticket
holders, I found the best place to watch was right at the back, but even
standing up I couldn’t see the six feet of ice in front of the boards
below me. Then again, as a one-time regular at Bracknell and Guildford,
this made me feel quite at home.
Martin said the sightlines at the Altrincham rink were just as poor. As
these rinks were prefabricated in Scandinavia where hockey is the national
pastime, I wonder what went wrong on their journey across the North Sea.
In chatting to some of the fans, I discovered that there was still a lot
of animosity towards team owner Bob Phillips, who first upset the Devils’
passionate followers when he pulled the side out of the Superleague.
His current ‘crime’ is that his family owns both the Devils and Sheffield
Steelers, that night’s opposition. “Bob’s going to make sure Devils win
this game,” I was told conspiratorially by a long-time fan.
The thinking was that if the Steelers lost, it would almost certainly
leave them in a position to meet the Panthers home and away in the playoff
quarter-finals this coming weekend. This local rivalry is a big money
spinner for both clubs.
WAS THE GAME FIXED?
As it happened, the Devils did win, thanks to an overtime goal by Mark
Smith, their best player and the current runner-up in the league’s
scoring. Whether or not the result was a ‘fix’ is not the point.
Personally, I can’t believe proud athletes could be persuaded to stoop so
low even in this wacky sport. But the fact that the league has left itself
open to this sort of accusation does nothing for its credibility.
I also wonder why the league still persists in using the system of first v
eighth, second v seventh, and so on for the playoffs. This only encourages
teams to jockey for position at the end of the league season. Far better,
surely, to have a blind draw on the last night.
To return to the Big Blue Tent. The future of this structure is unclear as
I write. It is supposed to be replaced by a permanent 5,000-seat arena in
the proposed International Sports Village on the Bay.
But with Cardiff failing to secure a super casino - or any sort of casino
- with its resultant cash spin-off, even the best estimates don’t
anticipate a start on the ISV until 2010. Let’s hope there’s no really
strong winds down the Bay area before then! |
(13th March 2007) Stewart
looks forward to a chequered climax to the Elite League season and praises
an innovation by the new GB coach.
Lovely spring weather we’ve been having. Playoff time must be almost upon
us.
Not in the Elite League, thank you, at least not yet. For the first time
in the modern era, the playoffs in our top league have been down-sized to
two weekends.
There’s been no official explanation of this departure from tradition but
it seems reasonable to blame the fans. Many have stayed away from the
playoffs in the past as they don’t understand this very North American
thing - unless the aim is promotion to a higher division, and we won’t go
there now.
Instead, more by accident than design (there’s a fine British tradition),
the league is staging three big finals - the Knockout Cup, the Challenge
Cup and the Playoff Championship - in the last three-and-a-bit weeks of
the season.
The first final, the KO Cup, was played the day after I wrote this. This
competition brought new meaning to the word ‘meaningless’. Originally
conceived by the league to fill some spare dates, it was derailed by the
endless postponements to the opening of the Altrincham rink.
Eventually, ten games were played before Coventry Blaze met Cardiff Devils
in Wednesday’s clash. But only two of the eleven were actual cup games.
The rest doubled as league contests. Please, no one mention the Disney
word.
WEAVER THE SCRAPPER
The second leg of the Challenge Cup final - between Sheffield Steelers and
those Blaze again - takes place a few days before the playoffs begin. At
least that’s an improvement on previous years when it was staged during
the playoffs!
The race to make the league’s top eight effectively ended last weekend
with Hull Stingrays and Edinburgh Capitals all but mathematically
eliminated from the playoffs.
The Caps, who lost their three best imports a few weeks ago, stumbled to a
7-2 defeat in Cardiff and a season-worst 10-1 loss in Nottingham.
But the biggest battle was the ‘four-pointer’ between defending playoff
champs, Newcastle Vipers, and Elite newcomers, Hull Stingrays. The 3-0
Vipers’ victory produced two unlikely heroes, both Brits.
Newcastle’s teenage keeper Mark Lee (he recently made the short list for
the GB team) enjoyed a 34-save shutout, and their normally mild mannered
GB defenceman, Jonathan Weaver, surprised and delighted team-mates and
fans alike by having a rare scrap with Hull’s Lee Mitchell. Judged an
honourable draw, you can catch it on
www.youtube.com.
Talking of GB, coach Paul Thompson has made a smart move. He’s persuaded
referee Moray Hanson to school the players in the art of avoiding the
officials’ wrath in the forthcoming World Championships.
HOW TO STAY OUT OF THE COOLER
The Scots stripey has a lot of international experience and is the only UK
official to have worked in the world’s elite pool. “Moray will fly down
from Scotland in the middle of our training camp, prior to our flying out
to Slovenia,” said Thommo, who is an old friend of the ref. “He will
explain how games will be called at the championships and how the
refereeing style differs from what we see week in, week out.”
Hanson will then take charge of the exhibition game in Coventry’s Skydome
(April 11, 7.30) in which the national team will be playing an under-25 GB
side. The game will be played to strict IIHF rules.
While this is unquestionably an excellent idea, it’s somewhat ironic that
it’s been introduced after a season of ‘zero tolerance’ when British club
games have been cleaner than they have been for years. |
(6th
March 2007) A week is a long time in politics, one of our harassed prime
ministers once said. After the events of the last seven days, Elite League
chairman, Eamon Convery, knows just what he means.
It started when the NHL
announced, out of the blue as far as the Elite League were concerned, that
two NHL teams would be playing games at the end of September in London’s
fabulous new 18,500-seat 02 Arena (formerly the Millennium Dome).
Great news for hockey fans but exasperating for the Elite teams who also
play games at that time. The news left the league with the lose-lose
scenario of cancelling games and losing income, or playing games and
losing fans and income.
Mr Convery put a brave face on it, declaring in a press release that the
league are ‘currently in discussion with the relevant international and
national governing bodies of the sport’ to try and overcome the clash in
dates.
According to The Ice Hockey Annual’s expert on international ice hockey
relations, the NHL were not out of line technically, as the latest
NHL-International Ice Hockey Federation agreement no longer calls for the
league to consult with domestic governing bodies about playing games in
their country.
NHL DISCOURTEOUS TO UK HOCKEY
But our man was surprised that the NHL had not contacted Ice Hockey UK (of
which Mr Convery is a director) as a matter of common courtesy. If the
games are properly handled, the whole UK sport could benefit. Let’s hope
goodwill prevails.
After the arrogant North Americans, Mr C had to deal with some greedy
Italians. Sheffield Steelers recently signed two players from Pietmonte in
the Italian League: Vezio Sacratini - a former Cardiff Devil whose wife
and new-born baby daughter live in the Welsh capital - and his Pietmonte
team-mate, Agostino Casale.
The Steelers had deliberately waited until the Italian team had been
knocked out of the playoffs before approaching the forwards, who were then
out of contract. They expected to play in the Steel City last weekend but
were prevented from icing because the cheeky foreigners refused to sign
and fax the players’ international clearances unless the Steelers coughed
up £6,000.
On the face of it, the Italians are guilty of restraint of trade as the
players are not under contract, so Mr Convery and the IIHF should quickly
make this Italian job redundant.
Meanwhile, back on the ice, home-grown goalies were making waves. No fewer
than five second stringers performed well under pressure when injuries or
poor form sidelined their club’s number one.
LEE IS BEST OF NEW BRIT GOALIE BREED
Dan Green, 24, was man of the match for Basingstoke Bison when he replaced
an unusually leaky Curtis Cruickshank; Tom Chamberlain, 19, helped Hull
Stingrays to beat Manchester Phoenix; Mark Lee, also 19, and Newcastle
Vipers upset Cardiff Devils; Nottingham’s Geoff Woolhouse, 22, backstopped
the Panthers over the Phoenix; and another 22-year-old, Davey Lawrence,
went between the posts halfway through Sheffield Steelers’ 7-2 rout of the
Stingrays and allowed only one goal.
Viper Lee is the teenager of the moment. He was selected as the third
netminder on GB coach Paul Thompson’s provisional 30-man World
Championship roster which he announced this week.
The Sunderland-born keeper was heavily promoted for the position by his
club coach, Rob Wilson, who is Thommo’s assistant on the GB side. “For a
kid his age to come into the Elite League and perform night after night is
a big ask, but he’s been really phenomenal for us,” said Wilson. “All [the
GB coaching staff] believe he is ready now.” |
(27th February 2007)
As the season approaches its climax, reports Stewart, Coventry Blaze are
the odds-on Elite League favourites and Manchester Phoenix have managed to
play a home game at last.
When the
going gets tough, the tough get going, is the old saying. As the league
reaches the climax of the season, Coventry Blaze are proving to be the
toughest of the Elite’s teams with a six-point lead and games in hand at
the top of the table.
With bookies Betfred making the Blaze odds-on title favourites at 1-12
(9-4 for a league, cup and playoff treble), some are already bestowing the
title of champions elect on Paul Thompson’s team.
Coventry have received not a little help from the previous leaders,
Belfast Giants, who extended their losing streak to five at the weekend
with losses at Nottingham Panthers and - good grief! - last place
Edinburgh Capitals.
Even having coach Ed Courtenay back in uniform was of little help to the
Giants as the boss failed to get a point in either game.
You can imagine the scene in the sparsely populated 3,000-seat Murrayfield
arena as Martin Cingel scored a late, short-handed winner for a 3-2
Capitals’ victory. The 940 fans, all desperate for their team to reach the
playoffs, chanted "easy, easy" as the hooter went to signal the end of one
of the best games they’d seen so far this season.
16-SHOT SHOOTOUT IN BASINGSTOKE
Disappointment and disbelief best summed up the emotions of a similar size
crowd in Basingstoke. But though the score ended 3-2 in favour of the
visiting Sheffield Steelers, they couldn’t complain they hadn’t been
entertained.
Chippy players and a fussy ref produced a constant stream of players to
the sin-bin, but the Bison led 2-0 so who cares? Until it all flared up in
the last ten minutes when local hero/fighter Brad Cruikshank had a
punch-up with Steeler Shane Johnson. Though ‘Cruiker’ won the battle, the
Bison lost the plot, big time.
Their normally mild-mannered player-coach Doug Sheppard turned into
Superman, or rather Slagoffman as he stormed off the bench and circled ref
Tom Darnell during the break in play. He wasn’t asking him about the
weather, either, as Darnell slapped him with a ten-minute misconduct.
With the influential Sheppard in the cooler, Johnson got his revenge with
a goal and Shaun Sutter tied it 2-2. After a scoreless overtime, the teams
engaged in the longest penalty shootout the league has seen so far this
season - 16 shots.
With the 15th (Steelers’ eighth), GB international Jonathan Phillips beat
Curtis Cruickshank and put Steelers into runners-up place in the league
(despite a 4-1 home loss to Cardiff Devils the next night).
HOMELESS SAGA IS OVER
Steelers’ new signing, Ryan Finnerty, was a revelation, a fast skating,
hard working forward that I fancy we might see more of next season as his
game perfectly fits the new ‘zero tolerance’ game. For my money, he’s a
vast improvement on the player he replaced, Brett Clouthier, a man
described by Sheffield’s coach, Dave Matsos, as “so tough he couldn’t buy
a fight in this league”.
The Saga of the Homeless of the North is over at last, thank the hockey
gods. Manchester Phoenix played their first home game in the Altrincham
Ice Dome on Sunday in front of a restricted audience of 1,000 as, er, the
rink isn’t quite finished.
Now Tony Hand and his men have to battle through a backlog of 16 league
games - 13 at home - plus a Knockout Cup semi, amounting to a game every
other day to the end of the season!
Finally, Neil Tunnicliffe, the former Rugby Superleague chief charged by
UK Sport to talk to ice hockey’s movers and shakers, has completed his
interviews and submitted his report to the Minister for Sport, Richard
Caborn. Watch this space. |
(20th February 2007) The
Elite League is our most competitive top flight for years, says Stewart,
but the Altrincham Ice Dome has become an embarrassment.
For all
my criticism of the Elite League, there’s one thing they have got right
this season - it’s easily our most competitive top league for years.
That’s no mean feat for a league where some clubs draw 4,000 fans and
others attract nearer 400.
Take my local side, Basingstoke Bison. Player-coach Doug Sheppard (good to
see him back on the ice after his injury) and his boys may be in seventh
place in the ten-team circuit but they’ve beaten all the top three teams
twice. The latest was a 3-2 thriller at home to the league leading Blaze
which was one of the best games I’ve seen this season.
And the Bison don’t win with boring, defensive hockey, either, something
their fellow stragglers, Hull Stingrays, are regularly accused of. Not
last weekend, though. Stingrays went bananas, hammering the Giants 7-2 in
Belfast and - sadly - knocking off the Bison 4-2 in Hull.
The four points lifted the ‘Rays off the bottom of the table and had them
dreaming of making the playoffs. They’re only four points away from the
cut-off eighth place with 12 games left. “From now on we’re playing every
game as though it’s our last,” said coach Rick Strachan.
No one has quite put their finger on the Giants’ troubles, but goaltending
must rank high on coach Ed Courtenay’s blame list.
MANCHESTER STILL HOMELESS
Mike Minard shipped seven goals on 21 Hull shots, while his opposite
number, Miro Bielik, allowed only two in 41 attempts. In their last three
games (they also went down 3-1 in Sheffield), Giants have conceded 18
goals, leaving Minard ranked tenth in the league on save percentage,
despite his team’s runners-up position.
Now it’s hair shirt time. My apologies for saying last week that the
Altrincham Ice Dome would be open that weekend. I can’t believe now that I
said that.
Manchester Phoenix’s scheduled games in the Dome were cancelled not once
but twice, Edinburgh Capitals on Saturday and Newcastle Vipers on Sunday.
Vipers were distinctly unimpressed as they had also been the victims when
the Cardiff Bay rink opened late.
That, however, now seems the merest inconvenience compared with the almost
total departure from reality suffered by the Phoenix owners and the
builders of the Altrincham Ice Dome which was supposed to have been ready
last September.
Steve Rattle, the former hockey player turned builder, told the Manchester
Evening News on the Thursday: “There will definitely be ice hockey played
here this weekend.”
Within 24 hours, he was having to explain that Saturday’s game had to be
postponed because “the ambient temperature inside the building over the
past 48 hours is not low enough for the ice to set as hard as it needs to
be for a game to take place”.
SUNSHINE STOPS PLAY
So when Sunday’s game was also postponed, only five hours before face-off,
even Neil Morris’s attempt to explain things away failed to raise a smile.
Said the boss of the Phoenix, presumably with a straight face: “Because of
the sunshine we have had, the ice plant has had to work a lot harder and
some areas of the ice are not as thick as others.” Come on, Neil, pull the
other one. Sunshine, in Manchester!
But hats off to the supporters who bought almost 1,200 tickets for the
first game, despite knowing from the photos of the unfinished rink on the
club’s website that they were taking a chance, even though the club
promised to honour them when the building is eventually ready.
More than that, around 100 Phoenix fanatics rolled up their sleeves over
the weekend in a last-gasp bid to get the place ready. No greater love
have ice hockey fans than this. |
(13th February 2007)
Stewart reports on the Elite League's big weekend clashes, and the record
crowd at the Scottish National League game in Glasgow.
The big
match at the weekend was the top-of-the-table clash in the Coventry Sky
Dome between Blaze, the league leaders, and their rivals, Belfast Giants.
But it was a bit of an anti-climax. Some fans moaned that most of the
Giants never got off the plane, others that Belfast’s Ed Courtenay acted
more like a statue on the bench than an animated, passionate coach.
Whatever, the final 8-0 score in favour of the Blaze gave the Giants their
biggest hiding of the season (and first whitewash) and Coventry goalie,
Trevor Koenig, his fifth shutout of the year. Most important, it put the
Blaze two points ahead of the Giants, with two games in hand.
In many people’s eyes, this game was overshadowed by the latest episode in
the Steelers-Panthers’ saga. That’s assuming you judge games by the number
of fans who turn up. Almost 13,000 (12,838 to be precise) watched the two
games in seven days, home-and-away series.
But this great rivalry often brings out the worst in the game, rather than
the best. The second clash, a 1-0 Panthers’ loss at home, certainly
brought out the worst in Nottingham. It took their record against the
Steelers to five straight league defeats.
It also brought out the worst in some of the players as the teams shared
134 minutes in penalties, with two Panthers, skipper David Clarke and
import Ryan Shmyr, being thrown out.
THREE-GAME BAN FOR PANTHER SHMYR
Shmyr was slapped with a three-game ban for throwing his helmet on the ice
in protest at one of ref Moray Hanson’s decisions, and Clarke’s alleged
crosscheck to Shane Johnson’s face was being investigated by the league.
The game didn’t bring out the best in Hanson, either, if Nottingham
Evening Post reporter, Mick Holland, is to be believed. Mick, who is no
lover of the men in stripes, reckoned the Scot’s erratic handling of the
game brought it close to the infamous bench-clearing brawl between the
sides in 2001. Hanson “had no sense of the occasion”, fumed the scribe.
The two contests definitely brought out the worst in the league. Its
see-saw decisions over the icing of Panthers’ coach Mike Ellis made us all
dizzy. It seems that the league not only has registration rules the fans
don’t know exist, but it also has a rule that says you can change rules
between games, without bothering to tell anyone about the change or the
first rule.
But the losses and the antics haven’t fazed Ellis. Despite everything,
he’s managed to keep his sense of humour. Looking forward to the playoffs,
he told the Post: “We’re not worried who we play, apart perhaps from
Sheffield. They are now officially our bogey team.”
By the time you read this, the Altrincham Ice Dome should be open for
Manchester Phoenix’s long awaited first home game. I never cease to be
amazed at the patience and dedication of fans, players, owners and
sponsors at times like these.
RECORD CROWD IN GLASGOW
But it doesn’t change my opinion that the league’s decision to allow the
Phoenix (and Cardiff Devils) to take a full part in all the Elite’s
competitions without a home rink shows that the UK’s top circuit is
founded not on the quality of a team or its building, but simply on
whether its owner’s face fits.
Perhaps more proof of this was the news that a crowd of 2,436 turned up at
Glasgow’s superb Braehead Arena for a Paisley Pirates-Aberdeen Lynx
Scottish National League game.
OK, the tickets were given away as a promotion, but surely this is the
right way to christen an ice facility. (I think we can safely ignore the
five Superleague games played at Braehead four years ago.)
First get your rink, then bring in your team, regardless of standard.
Pirates have given the sport some much needed positive publicity, compared
to the public relations - and economic - disasters produced by the
impatient Phoenix and Devils. |
(6th February 2007)
Stewart confesses to being a fan of the Sports Minister, Richard Caborn,
who initiated UK Sport's current review of ice hockey. But he has little
time for the Knockout Cup or Canadian forward Steve Simoes.
I have a
new sporting hero. No, it’s not Jonny Wilkinson and it’s not an ice hockey
player, or even an athlete. When he started in his job, he couldn’t even
answer some simple sporting questions.
That’s right, it’s Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport. He set a record
this week as the longest serving sports minister, outlasting Dennis Howell
who held the post back in the Sixties.
Mr Caborn hasn’t set his longevity record by accident. From the reports
I’ve read, he’s played a major role in modernising the running of many
sports. As the Sunday Telegraph put it: ‘many of the governing bodies are
now led by young, thrusting types with solid business backgrounds’. The
paper described the minister as ‘a safe pair of hands’.
He celebrated - if that’s the right word - his anniversary by chairing a
stormy meeting of all the Premiership football chairmen on Thursday.
His task was to persuade them to adopt salary caps, quotas for home-grown
players and financial transparency. Now you’re beginning to see why I
admire him. These are just the things I’d like to see throughout ice
hockey.
UK SPORT’S ‘VERY THOROUGH’ REVIEW
It’s too early to say whether the current review of our game which Mr
Caborn has asked UK Sport to conduct will produce such results. But I
understand that so far this has been very thorough.
That’s the expression Joanne Collins of the Players Association used when
she told me she had spent two-and-a-half hours with Neil Tunnicliffe who,
as I mentioned last week, is interviewing the sport’s movers and shakers
on behalf of UK Sport. English IHA chairman, Ken Taggart, said he spent
around 90 minutes on the phone to him from America.
We can only guess at the raised eyebrows and looks of astonishment as Mr
Tunnicliffe listened to the hair-raising tales of how our sport is
‘organised’. One I heard was that Bob Wilkinson, the chairman of Ice
Hockey UK, described their main business as ‘acting as a liaison body for
the IIHF (the world governing body)’. There must be more to it than that,
Bob. But then no one would mistake ice hockey’s boss for a young,
thrusting business type, eh?
Before he became Sports Minister, Mr Caborn was the Minister for Trade. “I
spent a lot of time trying to get trade news into the papers,” he said.
“In this job [sports] I just try to keep out of the papers.”
Ice hockey could teach him a thing or two about this as one thing it is
successful in doing is keeping the sport out of the news. A classic case
came up last week over the British Ice Hockey For Goodness Sake Knock It
On The Head Cup.
WERE BISON OR PHOENIX KNOCKED OUT?
The builders’ yard that will one day be Manchester’s ice rink was behind
the latest farce. The Phoenix’s cancelled opening game against Basingstoke
Bison on 28 January was for both league and ‘knockout cup’. The league
game was rescheduled but the league was silent over how they intended to
handle the knockout bit.
Before the teams were due to play each other again in Hampshire last
Saturday, the Basingstoke paper reported that the Bison had been given a
bye into the cup semis. But after the rematch the Phoenix sent out an
email insisting that their 6-5 victory also counted for the cup and
therefore Manchester were through.
From the league, nothing. Not a whisper of confirmation or explanation,
despite their alleged appointment of a press officer.
I’ll leave you with my least favourite sporting character. After Steve
Simoes was sacked by Nottingham Panthers he had the bright idea of joining
their biggest rivals, Sheffield Steelers.
Not content with this, before the teams met at the weekend the 6ft 2in
Canadian forward told the Sheffield Star: “If I get the chance to run
[Panthers’ 5ft 9in coach Mike] Ellis tonight, I’ll take it.” Healthy
competition always brings out the best in athletes, doesn’t it? |
(30th January 2007)
Stewart reflects on another tricky week for ice hockey as UK Sport begins
its enquiries into the running of the sport and the GB men's senior team
suffers some defections before April's World Championships.
Most ice
hockey fans won’t have heard of Neil Tunnicliffe, the man recently charged
by the government with establishing how well organised our sport is.
This is mainly because our governing body, Ice Hockey UK, is
understandably too embarrassed even to tell us that UK Sport is looking
into how effectively they control the game.
Let me enlighten you. Mr Tunnicliffe has an impressive sporting CV. He was
rugby league’s boss between 1998 and 2000 and helped to set up its
Superleague. Now a sports management consultant, he has advised 28
different sports bodies.
When I spoke to him earlier this week, he told me that during the next
couple of weeks he is holding talks (some face-to-face, some email or
telephone) with around ten high level ice hockey people.
By the middle of the month, he will send a report on his findings to the
Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn, who is then expected to call a second
meeting of all ice hockey’s leading bodies (the first was in December).
“The ultimate aim,” said Neil, “is to decide if UK Sport can put more
investment into Ice Hockey UK.” I’m sure we all wish him every success in
achieving this aim but it’s not likely to be easy.
IS ICE HOCKEY UK TRULY INDEPENDENT?
The first thing Mr Tunnicliffe will want to find out is if Ice Hockey UK
is a truly independent body because UK Sport will need to know exactly
where their money would be going. For starters, from where I stand, Ice
Hockey UK and the top league, the Elite, appear to be joined at the hip.
I shall be following UK Sport’s enquiries with great interest.
“Come on, guys. GB and Thommo are calling. New GB and all that. Your
country needs you, so come and play.”
So said the public relations officer of our men’s national senior team,
Dave Simms, in Powerplay magazine. It’s poor PR, I reckon, for Dave to
draw attention to the fact that the New GB is having much the same probs
as the Old GB.
Comments like this make me think the new management hasn’t yet done enough
to persuade some players that GB is now a really professional outfit which
will finish with a medal this time.
TODD KILLS HIS GB PLACE
Worse, Dave’s plea has made GB look as though it’s desperate for players.
What is it that coaches say about not keeping players on board who don’t
want to be there?
My unease was confirmed when I read Tuesday’s Daily Star, still the only
national newspaper to give our sport regular coverage. According to their
reporter Peter Oakes, Belfast Giants’ Todd Kelman has also decided against
playing for GB.
The Canadian defenceman, better known as ‘Killer’, was all set to get his
UK passport to qualify for his adopted country when he was appointed
general manager-in-waiting by the Giants following John Elliot’s departure
at the end of the season.
“I’ve told Thommo [GB coach Paul Thompson] I just can’t do it,” he said.
“I take over the Giants on 1 May and I’m also getting married in May so it
would have meant I wasn’t around for five of the first seven weeks on the
[Belfast] job.”
Poor old GB. That’s another of the new management’s ambitions up the
Swanee. First, no games against the French, now less than whole-hearted
enthusiasm from some of the coach’s chosen ones. |
Two people have made the headlines
in this week (23rd January 2007), and they’ve made me think ice hockey
might soon be undergoing a Trinny and Susannah-type makeover.
Simon
Potter, the former editor of Powerplay magazine, has been appointed as the
league’s (and Ice Hockey UK’s) press officer. “There’s more to the media
than just newspapers,” he told the mag. “Radio, television and teletext
are equally lacking in ice hockey. That’s something I intend to put
right.”
Let no one doubt that Simon has a huge task on his hands. For the first
time in many years there’s no games on TV, sponsor bmibaby appears to
suffer from terminal shyness, and few of the clubs understand how the
media works.
Add to that the immense hangover the Elite is still nursing after the
binge-spending and mismanagement of Superleague and our new man is really
up against it.
If the clubs could just find a sponsor willing to stump up the cash
necessary to pay for a respectable TV channel to screen some games, his
job would be halfway done. But hang on….
MANCHESTER STILL HOMELESS
I’ve just received the bad but unsurprising news that the Altrincham Ice
Dome will not be open in time for Manchester Phoenix’s scheduled game this
Sunday against Basingstoke Bison. The opening date has been postponed for
at least another week.
Another Cardiff Bay of Pigs fiasco seems to be looming. Simon is going to
need all the skill of a Downing Street ‘spin doctor’ to bury this bad
news.
Speaking of the Devils, I owe an apology to the team and its fans. A
couple of weeks ago, after I watched their decisive 4-1 win in Coventry, I
tipped Gerad Adams’ team for the league title. Since then, they’ve lost
all six of their contests while the Blaze are right up there with the
league leading Belfast Giants.
But don’t be too hard on me, folks. During the Devils’ wretched homeless
spell, the club spent a lot more on wages than they had budgeted for.
Owners’ finances aren’t a bottomless pit, you know.
Incidentally, think of the dividends the sport might have received by now
had the funds thrown at these homeless teams been invested in TV
production costs.
Ice hockey has already had a bit of a makeover, of course, with the
introduction of ‘zero tolerance’. This has been controversial because it
has led, unintentionally, to a reduction in body-checking and fighting.
Some fans who enjoy the rough stuff have apparently given up the game.
SPORT “A TOTAL SHAMBLES” - FAN
So now that we have a fast and exciting game with the hooligan element
virtually eliminated, isn’t it just the right moment to get out there and
sell our ‘new game’ to new fans who will appreciate it?
The easiest and fastest way to reach new fans is via the telly, who were
never overly impressed by the goonery that used to infect our sport. Over
to you, Simon.
The other man in the news is Fife Flyers’ fan Dave Cunningham. Like so
many supporters, Dave is sick and tired of the infighting in this great
game which has left his team - for one - playing in a league well below
where its fan-base and owners’ bank balance says it should be.
He’s written to 40 club owners and hopes eventually to set up an open
forum between clubs and fans. He told his local paper: “The whole sport
should be centrally governed. It’s just a total shambles the way it’s run.
Decisions appear to have been made based on whether the club chairmen talk
to one another, rather than on a hockey decision.”
He’s in good company. I hear UK Sport’s ‘review’ of the way Ice Hockey UK
governs the game is continuing apace, with another meeting of the parties
expected later next month.
This is another makeover I’d love to see. Good luck, Dave. |
This week (16th January 2007)
Stewart urges the fans and players of Manchester Phoenix and the British
national team to be patient, but has little patience himself with the
Elite League's weird format for the British Ice Hockey Cup.
My
regular readers will not be surprised to know that I’m not exactly the
Elite League’s pin-up boy.
I guess being a new league and having more than their share of troubles
(many self-inflicted), they’re entitled to be a bit sensitive to
criticism.
So I’m delighted to report some good news this week - Manchester Phoenix’s
player-coach Tony Hand has signed a two-year contract with the club to be
their Director of Hockey.
This seems a sensible move by our best native player as there’s a good
chance the Phoenix will have their own rink to skate in by his second
year. (Didn’t take me long to slip back into character, did it?)
I do feel sorry for Tony, his team and their dedicated fans. The last pics
I saw on the Phoenix website, taken on 14 January - a fortnight before
opening date - showed the roof barely completed, no walls, seats or ice.
Will the club have to announce that the building is going into overtime,
and if so, who will take penalty shots on contractor Steve Rattle?
IT’S NOT A KNOCKOUT CUP
The league surprised everyone with their decision to bring back the
enormously popular (not) British Ice Hockey Cup.
If you’ve forgotten about this - and many of us were trying to - this is
the Knockout Cup which the league introduced last term to fill the gaps
left when London Racers unexpectedly pulled out in mid-season.
I’m no fan of knockout competitions in ice hockey. This game’s tactics
simply don’t allow for the sort of defensive play needed for the minnows
to beat the big boys.
But as the English Premier League's ‘minnows’ weren’t invited this year,
it’s even more puzzling as to why a league of closely competitive teams
would find a knockout format attractive.
Then to play the opening round of games as part of the league schedule
with a system of qualification which is bound to confuse players,
officials and fans beggars belief, even in this whacky sport.
The players’ and coaches’ main worry is that the cup’s final stages will
clash either with the climax of the league season or with the playoffs, as
they did last time. There’s already a Challenge Cup final to be fitted in.
But then who takes any notice of what the players and coaches, let alone
the fans, want?
NEW GB TEAM, SAME OLD PROBS
I’m a big fan of the senior men’s GB team; have been for years. This
April’s event in Slovenia will be my 20th going back to
nineteen-hundred-and-frozen-to-death.
This year, as you probably know by now, GB has a new look. Ther new coach,
Coventry’s Paul Thompson, has lured veterans David Longstaff and Shaun
Johnson of Newcastle Vipers, as well as Hand out of international
retirement.
The new management team have given themselves the target of raising GB
from 31st in the World Rankings.
So it must have been with a heavy heart that the Blaze’s Andy Buxton, the
new GB team manager, had to admit defeat in his plan to bring over France
for a pre-tournament warm-up game.
He’s still plugging away, trying to drum up some opposition for the week
before the championships, but he explained that he was finding this
difficult because “it’s amazing just how far ahead some countries are
booked up for games”.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, Andy, but it’s better to learn it sooner
rather than later. Just about every one of the 30 nations above us is not
only better organised than GB is, but also better funded, and better
supported by its top club sides.
Until this changes, the fans shouldn’t expect too much in Slovenia,
however willing and dedicated GB’s players and new management are. |
One of the league’s top coaches has been
fired, the governing body wants to stage the World Championships here next
year, and the league’s unofficial spokesman insists they need all their
imports. Stewart reports on an eventful week (9th January 2007).
Ed Patterson, the coach of Cardiff Devils, one of the league’s title
contenders, is the victim of the club's financial crisis caused by the
delay in opening their new rink in Cardiff Bay.
In his short time here, the Canadian, who played a few NHL games in the
early 90s, became one of the Elite League’s most respected benchmen. The
Devils won the Challenge Cup last season under his guidance.
This year he persuaded his men to battle through a long homeless period,
with their morale bolstered only by promises. “I truly believed that the
rink would be ready pretty soon after the season started,” he said.
He wasn’t the only one. Although building work only began at the end of
June, everyone - league, club and the Cardiff council - seemed to have
blind faith in the builder’s cheery promise that the rink - “it’s one
we’ve brought in from Scandinavia specially for you, guv” - would be open
in September.
DEVILS TIPPED FOR THE LEAGUE TITLE
The big question following Patterson’s departure was how his team - now
under player-coach Gerad Adams - would react. I went to Coventry for the
second game of the weekend top-of-the-table double-header with the Blaze
and was relieved to see them in as good form as they were at the start of
the season. I’m going to go out on a limb and tip the well-rounded and
disciplined Devils for the league title ahead of the Blaze and the Belfast
Giants.
The credit for this has to go to Patterson who obviously knows hockey
talent when he spots it. I wish him luck in his ambition to become an NHL
coach. By the way, if he makes it he’ll be following in the skate tracks
of Mike Babcock, the current coach of Detroit Redwings, who briefly guided
Whitley Warriors some years ago.
Talking of rink delays, I hear you asking how the Altrincham Ice Dome is
coming along. From the photos on Manchester Phoenix’s website, not very
well. Although the builder has promised that it will be ready for hockey
in a fortnight (28 Jan), the roof is only one-third completed. My man on
the spot tells me that numerous snags still have to be ironed out.
The chairman of Ice Hockey UK, Bob Wilkinson, has told Powerplay magazine
that the governing body intends to apply to hold the World Championships
(Div I) here next spring, provided they can obtain a grant from UK Sport
to cover the costs.
USE GRANTS TO DEVELOP YOUNGSTERS
He cannot be serious! IHUK lost £45,000 in staging the World under-20
games here two years ago which left a huge hole in their already shakey
finances. And UK Sport can’t be serious. Aren’t they first supposed to be
‘reviewing’ the way IHUK control the sport (or not)?
Assuming UK Sport gives Uncle Bob and his boys a clean bill of health, any
grants should be used to develop young Brits, not for some grandiose World
games.
It’s this sort of woolly thinking which plays right into the hands of
people like Dave Simms who say the league can’t afford to drop any more
imports, partly because the standard of Brits isn’t high enough.
Dave complains that the league isn’t as entertaining as it used to be. I
reckon that's simply because the players are less skilful. The Elite has
imported several from lower leagues this year, following the relaxation of
the work permit guidelines (something Dave was a big fan of), while the
governing body still isn’t producing enough talented locals to properly
staff our top league. And 'zero tolerance' really shows up the weaknesses.
Bob and Dave should sit down together and swap ideas. Now that would be
entertaining! |
This week (2nd January 2007), it’s the time of
year to dig out Old Roberts’s Almanac and see what 2007 has in store for
ice hockey.
Who’s going to win the league? Obviously, it’s easier to predict this
now rather than at the start of the season. Even so, with the leaders,
Belfast Giants, having crazily played eight or nine games more than their
closest rivals, it’s by no means clear cut.
Coventry Blaze and Cardiff Devils (despite their long homeless stretch)
along with the Giants are the elite of the Elite, but as the last placed
Edinburgh Capitals have twice beaten the Giants in the Odyssey recently,
it’s also the most wide open title race for years.
How about the individual honours? The favourite to win The Ice Hockey
Annual’s trophy for the Top British Scorer is that man with the gong, Tony
Hand MBE. Just before Christmas, the Manchester Phoenix player-coach was
lying sixth in the table behind Mark Dutiaume of Belfast, three other
Giants and Sheffield’s Dan Tessier.
Also in the running are Nottingham’s David Clarke and Basingstoke’s Greg
Owen. The fast improving Owen, 25, was a couple of points ahead of
Newcastle’s more experienced David Longstaff and Jonathan Weaver, and
Coventry’s Ashley Tait.
AUBRY AND SHEPPARD FOR HONOURS?
The best netminders so far, surprisingly, are two who have spent much of
the season on the last placed team, Newcastle Vipers. Peter Aubry tops the
save percentages just ahead of Curtis Cruickshank, the man he replaced
when Cruickshank was sacked. ‘Cruicker’ has bounced back and helped
Basingstoke Bison to turn their season around.
Bison’s player-coach Doug Sheppard has been receiving rave reviews for his
work in his first season behind the bench and is on my short list for
Coach of the Year. Where the teams finish will probably be the deciding
factor here.
The league’s Best Young British player? The strongest contender is Hull
defenceman David Phillips, 19. He was the surprise hit on his
international debut in last year’s senior World Championships and is
continuing to show a remarkable maturity in his first Elite League season.
Away from the ice, the Almanac points out how well our sport is doing. Our
under-20 national team is now ranked 13th in Europe and though the crowds
are dwindling, there’s still around 25,000 watching games live every week.
Yet hardly anyone outside the sport knows of its existence.
SPORTS NEEDS PUBLICITY IN 2007
We all expected that ice hockey would receive some publicity when the
league did a deal with a budget airline. A rumour appeared on the web that
bmibaby ran a regional advertising campaign over Christmas but I’ve heard
nothing official. Still, it’s a seven-year contract so we must be patient.
The finest way to expose any sport is through television but,
mysteriously, the league has been content to restrict this season’s games
to the internet. Old Roberts is clear that this is a wrong-headed idea and
must change, hopefully in 2007.
While I’m still fuming about the lack of publicity for our under-20s, the
Almanac usefully suggests that the new GB senior coach, Paul Thompson,
could go some way towards making amends by picking a couple of the
unusually talented Class of ’87 for April’s World Championships.
If you do, Thommo, please make as big a song-and-dance about it as you did
about bringing back veterans like Longstaff and Shaun Johnson. And if you
need encouragement to select teenagers, look how well Dave Phillips did
last time.
Finally, it’s no secret that ice hockey’s administration leaves a lot to
be desired - except for the people running our junior national teams,
obviously.
UK Sport will, predicts Old Roberts, uncover many unsatisfactory things
during their two-month investigation into the sport. But if in doing so
they can persuade ice hockey to adopt a stronger and more practical
structure, 2007 could be a landmark year. |