EHM The Blue Line

Yeah it's nice to see the Storm performing well now that they had a full summer to sign their roster (it was a bit of a rush last summer wasn't it!).

We beat the Bees 8-4 tonight. I think we were in part helped by the fact the Bees have such a small roster. Nice to Maslonka scored two. It was hard to gauge how good he was last night owing to how tired the team was.

There's some shaky footage of a little bit of Ullberg's madness yesterday here (at the beginning of the video) along with the fight that cost us 3 goals (2m 03 secs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwMMl-T8FqM

Been to MK Lightning vs Tigers (pre-season) Bees (last week) and P'Boro (this week).

We're looking good, new import Netminder is a bit different (almost has an aversion to freezing the puck) but has kept the goal's-against stat down. Real find appears to be his mate from the Polish team Miko Lopuski though, he looks like he'll get a good few goals at this level. We still have Jordan Cownie and Tom Carlon due back from injury too, so will have 4 full forward lines when everyone is fit, with good depth across the top-3 lines and even the 4th line of the youngsters Glenn Billing and Luc Johnson (+Carlon/Chamberlain probably) will be useful.

Sam Jones (sadly not the guy who played Flash Gordon in the movie) looks to be a good acquisition as well, good puck-moving d-man with a useful slap-shot.

Also went to see Oxford City Stars beat Streatham 8-5 this evening. Oxford really look to have moved on as a team considering they were relegation-strugglers just over a year ago.

Bees looking like they'll struggle this season, unfortunately I can see them finishing bottom again. The statement of affairs was posted online recently, they owed quite a lot of money to all of their former players as well as HMRC!

Apparently, there was a fight during a shootout in the Bison - Phantoms game Stepanek collides with the Bison netminder after his penalty shot, Long leaves the bench to fight him. Stepanek gets Game for resisting official, Long gets game for leaving the Bench.

Storm lost this evening, poor performance from them. Nothing really clicked for them and it took them too long to realise that Clan were looking to park a guy in front of the net looking for tip ins until they were already 3-1 down. Brilliant goal from Beca, toe dragged past Pacha and flicked it above Clemente's glove

https://youtu.be/15wFNJF9eiM?t=1m35s

Turns out that ice is slippery https://twitter.com/johnwblabla/status/ ... 2911172612

Haha! How embarrassing!

Guildford suffered two big losses this weekend. Today they conceded 5 goals in the second period... We have won 2 and lost 4 so far. I really hope this pushes Dixon/Hepburn to add some depth to the squad. It's going to be a tough season otherwise.

I saw the Telford v Basingstoke game streamed this evening. It was a cracking game. Telford looked a lot better compared with last week. They have some big guys - especially Doug Clarkson. He scored a pretty decent goal.

Meanwhile, in the NIHL North, Payette and Bennett do the usual: https://www.facebook.com/groups/8520923 ... 095732060/

Lightning - Hull last night was a bit of a bad-tempered one, but a come from behind win and a smashing of Phantoms in the first period today keeps our 100% record.

Watch us run into a 'reaction' next week vs your 'lot' Arch

...and Bison ditch two imports today just to frustrate those of us who are trying to keep the rosters up-to-date...

MK, Telford , & Hull all looking good this season in the EPL

Basingstoke look alright too. They played well against Telford until they tired out. Rumour is they're close to signing a quality import. The Phantoms' new Aussie signing sounds interesting.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how he gets on. He outperformed a number of EIHL players who went over there this summer. (Mental note: add him to GB update spreadsheet!)

Ullberg gone from Flames

Seems a shame, but I guess it's to make way for Jakub Kubis who we have signed today. Ullberg is your stereotypical intense type of goalie. When he's in the zone he's great but when things start to go wrong then he seems to go to bits. That said, I don't think it's his fault this time though - we lack depth and the defence has struggled as a consequence (and that is why we are leaking goals). I wonder who we will bring in as a replacement. Apparently Rocky was at the game last weekend. I am a fan of his, but I felt he was losing his edge in his final season at the Flames. I wouldn't put my trust in Mike Will either. Presumably we'll be taking a Brit goalie in light of Kubis signing.

Kubis is a very interesting signing - his stats do not suggest much of a goal scorer. I wonder if he's more a two-way kind of player. That would probably be a good thing as the defence needs a helping hand. His +/- stats are a bit concerning though.

The news item on the Flames' Facebook page suggests that more news is incoming. What I don't get is why we are doing this now and not two or three months ago. Everybody has commented on the lack of depth as it was plain to see. What were Dixon and Hepburn thinking?...

I feel really bad for Ullberg...

Skinns, Baston or rotating Rocky and Will?

Bad for Ullberg but I think the writing was on the wall for him when he pulled himself out of the game last weekend.

Ullberg replaced by a very similar looking netminder in Joonas Kuusela

Yeah it's all very confusing...

We now have three goalies with Skinns joining too. Allegedly we'll be playing Kuusela when we're playing against a team with an import goalie and then with Skinns/Will when we're not.

The IHUK are discussing the possibility of a single governing body with the SIHA this week (they discussed the same with the EIHA a short while ago), more interestingly they are also discussing a new EPL involving clubs from all nations as well (BPL?). I wonder if this might tempt the likes of Fife or Edinburgh down A Scottish team at that level would provide a better pathway for Brits to the top level, maybe Solway would join?

http://www.icehockeyuk.co.uk/2016/09/28 ... -scotland/

It's an interesting idea - provided that all of the associations merge into a single association. I wouldn't be surprised if the EPL teams were particularly interested given MK's future departure and the uncertainty surrounding Bracknell and Manchester.

Your boys did alright tonight Arch.

I'm really surprised by the scoreline. I thought the failure of the coach/owners to bring in another defenceman would result in us continuing with our slump. Nice to get a big win!

Maslonka is starting to get some goals. Did he fight last night or was it just a bit of shoving?

I read that MK didn't really play that well last night, so perhaps we were lucky to play you on the day we did! You've got Bracknell tonight and so I would expect you to bounce back.

Steelers beat Braehead 5-3 last night to win their first league game of the season

Yeah, Maslonka kicked(!) out at Lopuski during a crowded change-over. Griffin charged in and dropped gloves and they had a brief scrap before the officials split it up.

We definitely had an off-night. Took us two periods to get going and by them the damage was done.

Sounded like a close game tonight at Bracknell too but the right result for us.

Nice goal from Hoog last weekend: https://twitter.com/SwinWildcats/status ... 9062165508