The British Hockey Thread 2016-17

[archibalduk]

Not bad! Although he did kind of slip!

[Calv]

Baliffs called in to the Ryde Arena and have changed the locks (by request of the landlord). Worrying times

[archibalduk]

The press release from the landlord suggests that they are significantly in arrears. I guess Solent and Gosport would be the nearest temporary rink but I think they have a lot of junior teams and I wonder if they'd have the capacity for two IoW teams (let along any junior teams). Maybe Basingstoke? But that rink is in bad shape at the moment...

[Calv]

The press release from the landlord suggests that they are significantly in arrears. I guess Solent and Gosport would be the nearest temporary rink but I think they have a lot of junior teams and I wonder if they'd have the capacity for two IoW teams (let along any junior teams). Maybe Basingstoke? But that rink is in bad shape at the moment...

Yes, since the landlords have not refurbished the cafe/bar etc they have not been able to generate enough money to pay for the rent. They have been trying to negotiate a lower rent since the landlords apparently promised to refurb these areas but they have not agreed so far

The Raiders kit is still in there, the home game this weekend is cancelled but they're still planning on playing their away game. Sad situation, it wouldn't surprise me if the rink closed down and got replaced by houses etc. No one seems to be able to make any money out of it.

[martinmiller1986]

Away game cancelled aswell now

[Calv]

Away game cancelled aswell now

Very worrying Hopefully it gets resolved sooner rather than later.

It's good to see the EIHA are trying to cut down on the brawls we've seen recently in the South. Things have been getting out of hand a bit and I don't think it does the reputation of the sport any good.

[archibalduk]

David Savage has been released from Streatham "for a team in the league above". I would love to see him back at the Flames (we sorely need some defencemen) but he is rumoured to be joining Basingstoke.

[Calv]

Bison just lost Alan Lack as well, so they're now 2 short (Turner was the other).

Couple of interesting points from the Storm game I went to last night. First Nottingham goal looks like it goes in under the goal frame (3:10 onwards in the hightlights), and Storm had a goal washed out as the ref blew his whistle although from the highlights it seems the puck was in the net before the whistle (6:00 onwards in the highlights).

Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_9pqF4Xn3E

[archibalduk]

Lack is a cracking player - a great 2nd/3rd line D-man. He's tiny but incredibly strong. I remember he gave Kristoffersson a bit of a beating a couple of seasons back (two punches and Kristoffersson was down) which is mighty impressive given the 8 inch difference in height!

I will check out the Storm highlights in a while. I need to catch up with the Flames' highlights too.

[Calv]

He was a favourite of mine at London Raiders as well

[marksbros6]

Interesting the players leaving the Bison? (Maybe we'll be able to get something off them at their place).

Up and down weekend for us at the Lightning, cracking game to beat Telford, but blew it vs Hull really got schooled by them on the Sunday!

[archibalduk]

Yeah it sounded like a real hammering. In fairness, Hull seem to be playing very well this season. Unfortunately I will only be going to one more game this year as I have spent far too much on flights recently (going to the Phoenix game this weekend) but hopefully I'll be able to watch Hull at Guildford at the end of February.

[marksbros6]

To be fair our guys put in a massive effort to beat Telford, I imagine a long away-trip to Hull the day after wasn't what the doctor ordered?

Looking forward to getting Lopuski and Cownie back in the line-up, though wondering where Russell will fit everyone in!

[archibalduk]

We have re-signed David Savage which I think it very positive news. I just wonder whether a season in the NIHL will have affected his game. He's a cracking player when he's on form, but he is prone to the occasional gaffe. I remember a couple of years back when he scored an own goal on his own empty net...

[Calv]

Interesting that this was given as 5+Game and no extra punishment on review: https://twitter.com/AVFTB/status/786260348273823744 Doesn't look like the hardest slash ever, but what an earth was he thinking?

[archibalduk]

And yet another loss for the Flames tonight. We just can't hold on to a lead or even keep the number of goals conceded down. I was at the Flames v Phoenix game last weekend and thought we'd played well for perhaps the first period or so but then ran out of gas - which is crazy given how much larger even our bench is compared with Manchester's. The Flames seem always to go through a bad patch each season, but this is the worst I've seen them play in the four years I've been going to their games. Our offence is not as strong as previous years but our defence is more or less the same as last year. I think the issue is a mental/momentum thing. The defence are regularly making the sort of errors that they normally only rarely make.

Interesting that this was given as 5+Game and no extra punishment on review: https://twitter.com/AVFTB/status/786260348273823744 Doesn't look like the hardest slash ever, but what an earth was he thinking?

Crazy. There was that lady doing a PHD on hockey safety who was very critical of DOPS. But what I can't understand is why she has spent something like 8 years studying the EIHL. I wonder what sort of career a PHD like that would lead to...

[Calv]

And yet another loss for the Flames tonight. We just can't hold on to a lead or even keep the number of goals conceded down. I was at the Flames v Phoenix game last weekend and thought we'd played well for perhaps the first period or so but then ran out of gas - which is crazy given how much larger even our bench is compared with Manchester's. The Flames seem always to go through a bad patch each season, but this is the worst I've seen them play in the four years I've been going to their games. Our offence is not as strong as previous years but our defence is more or less the same as last year. I think the issue is a mental/momentum thing. The defence are regularly making the sort of errors that they normally only rarely make.

Flames really struggling so far, paying the price for poor recruitment over the summer.

Crazy. There was that lady doing a PHD on hockey safety who was very critical of DOPS. But what I can't understand is why she has spent something like 8 years studying the EIHL. I wonder what sort of career a PHD like that would lead to...

Having a PhD in violence in hockey is certainly a niche, especially as that part of the game is being phased out.

Sad to hear the news about Wightlink.

[archibalduk]

Very say indeed. Hopefully they can figure something out for next season.

[Calv]

Went to Manchester - Edinburgh, it was a relatively straightforward 6-2 win for Storm, Caps faded badly after starting out the better team. Cartier got 3 goals and 2 assists for the Storm.

There were 3 siblings of well-known NHL players playing in this game. For Storm, Mark Heatley is Dany's brother, for Edinburgh Jared Staal is one of the 4 Staal brothers, whilst Jaroslav Hertl is bother of San Jose's Tomas Hertl. Funniy enough, Storms's Matt Bissonnette is no relation of Paul Bissonnette.

[Calv]

He looks happy to be training with the Storm! https://twitter.com/Mcr_Storm/status/791025532934684672 (presumably this is the most shared tweet in EIHL/British Hockey History?)

[archibalduk]

Heh I can't believe Justin Bieber trained with the Storm! Apparently he took them all out for a beer afterwards too. Great publicity, but Bieber is a massive idiot IMO...

So the Flames have signed yet another forward import - Tuomas Santavuori. He seems to have a fairly impressive resume (including 240 pts in 464 GP in Liiga). We do however have far too many forward imports now. Especially as it is really our defence that needs strengthening. I guess it was just an opportunity too good to turn down but it does all feel a bit desperate and disorganised...

[marksbros6]

Interested to see if the Toffee to MK rumour comes off now? you've definitely got 'too many' imports now! Though we'll probably just run short till Lopuski is fit again, to be honest we don't look bad at the mo, but running an import short will tell vs you guys, Bison and Telford I think.

Went to see MKL in Swindon last night. good tight game with a narrow 2-1 win for the Lightning. Highlight was Odrobny (netminder) having a go with a shot on Swindon's open net when they'd pulled Lyle at the end. Nearly went in!

[archibalduk]

It is going from bad to worse for the Flames. I watched the stream of the game against the Phantoms last night and we were very poor (particularly defensively). All of the goals were scored by unmarked players - and many of the goals were as a result of leaving the slot completely clear for the opposition. Offensively we had little to offer save for Ben Campbell. The talking point of the game was McKinney's hit on Auzins. Auzins had just cleared the puck from behind the net and McKinney steamrolled him from behind. I really like McKinney but it was a cheap shot.

IMO the issue is as much mental as anything else. Our defence is not much different to last year and it is uncharacteristic that the cause of many goals are mistakes by our established defencemen (as opposed to our forwards failing to backcheck). I see from The Hockey Forum that the players' heads seemed to drop after the Tigers tied it up tonight.

I think the theme of my posts in this thread this year are going to be of a gloomy nature!

On a positive note, it's great to see the Pirates playing so well!

[marksbros6]

Know how you feel a bit Arch. Just got back from Basingstoke and the...want to say 8th straight away-loss to Bison.

Definitely a mental thing. We can beat them in our barn, and have an away victory over every other EPL team at least in the last 2 years, but can never get anything against Bison. Was a 4-0 loss (though that was 1 empty-netter) but we never really seriously looked a threat to them, and seemed to play worse on the power-play than even-strength?

Rene Jarolin must be loving the day we gassed him!

[MWE]

16 year old Liam Kirk scored his first goal for Sheffield Steelers on Saturday in the 9-5 win over Coventry