Coventry Blaze vs Belfast Giants Review – Part 2
They say familiarity breeds contempt and never has a cliche been so clearly played out as it was in the second game of this huge Erhardt Conference double-header. If day one was the early stages of the relationship then day two was the stormy, tempestuous end to it. There’s nothing for it but to file for divorce as these two sides had the bust-up from hell. Where do I even begin?
The first period lasted AN HOUR.
While I let that simple fact sink in, I would just like to take this opportunity to say – I am not a violent person. I love the aggression of hockey and the hard-hitting North American style of play that is usually embodied within the Elite League but I’m not a fight enthusiast as such, preferring a spontaneous scuffle borne out of the desire to protect a team mate than a staged glove-dropping incident.
That being said: when two of the most notorious enforcers in the league drop the gloves from face-off, it spices up a game in a way nothing else can. The first bout (yes, I said first) between Belfast Captain Adam Keefe and hulking Coventry Blaze tough guy Benn Olson was not spectacular in fighting terms, probably a draw, as Olson held Keefe at arm’s length which, unfortunately for Keefer, meant none of his punches could connect being as that he’s half Olson’s height, but it set the tone for an absolutely electric encounter that was nothing short of the best game of hockey I’ve ever witnessed in person, probably at all (please remember at this juncture this is just my third season as a hockey fan).
Yes, I’ve had more emotional connection to other games – who could not adore the feisty short-handed Vipers side who beat the Panthers 6-5 at Whitley Bay in the twilight of their existence – but in terms of pure spectacle in every area, this game left the lacklustre efforts I’ve witnessed time and time again in my season and a bit as a neutral dead in the water. Yes this is going to be a long post. But yes, it deserves it, and I am going to savour the writing of it almost much as I savoured the action and drama unfolding in front of me on the night. Care to join me for the ride?
It was hockey you could write poetry about. In fact, I probably will. Plenty of words rhyme with Keefe, after all. Without a second viewing of the first period I will find it hard to recreate for you the specifics, gripped as I was and completely unable to even think about lifting a pen to record the detail. There were hits. HARD ONES. And lots of them. There were skills. Silky ones. Lots of them too. Goals? 8 of them. Fights? Several. Game misconducts? Yeah, some of those too. Dodgy refereeing? Arguably. Holes in the ice? Why not! If it could happen in a hockey game, it did. Shall we just list some of the highlights or we’ll be here all day:
1) Blaze strike the first blow, catching the Giants sleeping just 1:26 into the game, Matt Beleskey the scorer, making up for his lack of presence the previous night.
2) The home side take a two goal lead in the sixth minute through Mike Schutte – are the wheels coming off for Doug Christiansen’s side already? They undoubtedly would have hoped to come out all guns blazing to redress the balance following yesterday’s defeat.
3) 11:33: Brad Leeb is incandescent following a missed slashing call and proceeds to completely lose his mind in the direction of referee Andy Carson. He receives not one but two misconducts for abuse of official. Carson is lucky to stay on his feet so ferocious is Leeb’s rage. A big loss for the Blaze so early on in the game, Leeb having been the standout player in the first of the two games.
4) The Giants come back into the game following one of the sweetest power play goals I have ever seen, Noah Clarke firing home following some incredible build-up play from Robby Sandrock, Mark Garside and Jeff Mason, as they reel the Blaze’s penalty kill unit in with ease and carve through their defences like a knife through butter, leaving Hirsch with no chance. Simply stunning.
5) Brown stuff hits the proverbial fan in spectacular fashion at 14:25 as fights break out in different areas of the ice leaving stunned spectators with no idea where to look: on the red line Olson offers Robby Sandrock. Behind the Blaze net Greg Stewart dishes out a brutal battering to Steven Chalmers. Peter Hirsch leaves his crease to leap to his teammate’s defence. Mike Egener takes on Greg Stewart in retribution, leaving the bench in order to do so and landing some killer blows. Mayhem. You want a slugfest? You’ve come to the right place.
6) The fallout from the madness takes the officials some time to work through, and results in match penalties for Hirsch (third man in) and Egener who apparently left the bench to join one of the altercations. I assumed that was correct as I had my eyes elsewhere. Highlights reel required.
7) Would it all calm down after that? Not likely. Blaze back-up netminder Adam (variously referred to as Luke and Matt) Goss took to the net and steadied Blaze nerves with a couple of early saves – it was to be a baptism of fire for the young goaltender.
8) More hits, more handbags, oh and some goals as well. We go into the first period break emotionally exhausted and unable to believe there are still two further periods of hockey left to play. Belfast lead 3-2.
Upon remarking to a colleague in the period break that these were the first live fights I had seen since the demise of the Vipers I was reliably informed ‘well you certainly won’t be seeing anymore this game.’ Mmm, you’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? Surely the fire lit beneath both teams would have extinguished after the calming influence of a nice 15 minute rest? Not one bit. The second period picked up where the first had left off, fierce and feisty, ferocity still in evidence across the ice. It was in danger of becoming a Belfast whitewash though; with the Blaze now 3 keys players down the Giants opened up a 2 goal lead 3:30 into the period and they looked to be taking control. Blaze were to lose one more as Benn Olson accepted Adam Keefe’s invitation to dance once again.
Two things:
1) Benn Olson: a surprise to me in a number of ways. He has an impressive fight card in the league but he didn’t strike me as a particularly natural fighter on Sunday, tall yes but narrow and seemingly unwilling to throw a great deal of punches. Yet he goons it up like a good’un, goading the opposition left right and centre ice, offering all and sundry and playing his ‘big bad wolf’ role with a kind of grim glee. It’s the opposite of the kind of intelligent enforcement I talked about last season in relation to Colt King.
The goon role is of course entertaining to a point but if I was a Blaze fan I might start to worry that he could become a liability – his antics were detrimental to his team in this game at least. Of course he accepted Keefe’s invitation; that’s his job. It was more surprising perhaps that he’d lasted that long, and this may have simply been down to a lack of willing adversaries. If I’m not mistaken he at one point actually said ‘boo’ to an unfazed Darryl Lloyd (who to his credit remained impassive). Well, I suppose it was the Halloween game after all.
2) What a fight! Pound for pound Adam Keefe has to be the best fighter in the league. He fights more rarely this season, with less to prove having laid the groundwork last season and with the role of Captain to take seriously. But he comprehensively beats Olson, a fighter with the better part of a foot in height over him and the reach of a gangly ape. He lands some crushing blows and takes to the penalty box to engage in some tongue-in-cheek banter with the Blaze fans – pure entertainment. Keefe is an incredible character, and without a doubt one of the most 3-dimensional players in the league right now. All in all, a bit of a legend, really.
I will stop short of further gushing to talk about some of the hockey which broke out between fights. The Giants were taking a stranglehold on the game, working their systems to great effect and not giving an inch. The score line leapt to 6-3 in a frenzied minute of action following the fight. This was Belfast back to their imperious best.
But as has been rightly repeated many a time so far this season, this Blaze side just do not know how to quit. Four imports down, key ones at that, but would they lie down? Not for any man. When they broke through the Giants defence good lord did Stephen Murphy know about it – the line containing Dustin Cameron and Captain Shea Guthrie an absolute joy to watch, Cameron with the triple threat combo of speed, skill and physicality, the quintessential power forward, his first goal an absolute beauty, and Guthrie with the best hands since Jade Galbraith, his work on the puck breath-taking at times.
Could we really only be halfway through the game? It seemed incomprehensible. 10 goals had been scored. 4 players kicked out. Somebody pinch me.
Yet still the intensity didn’t let up, the pressure end to end, Cameron scoring a second on the powerplay. 6-4. A few moments later Noah Clarke gets his second. 7-4. I was losing track. Still the Blaze came – when would the wind leave their sails? Surely this was one game misconduct too far. The second period limped to a close and it was as if the life had been sucked out of the building, the Blaze fans deflated, exhaustion in both the stands and on the ice.
The third period had to be quieter. It HAD to be. These were players who had been all out battling for two periods of immense hockey. The telltale signs of a tired side started to creep in but not to the side you would expect – the Blaze, outnumbered and the victims of a perceived injustice were suddenly to be feared. A wronged enemy is like a wounded animal; they could not be trusted to lie down and take the beating Belfast should rightly have been dishing out.
Suddenly the whispers of hope began to ripple around the Skydome as the home fans urged their side on, and the exertions of the previous two periods started to take their toll on the Giants. They backed off, checks remained unfinished, forechecking a sudden absentee, and the Blaze seized upon the moments of weakness (or tiredness, or even complacency?) and took advantage, closing the gap to 2 goals. 7-5. Surely we could not be looking at another third period collapse from the Giants, another epic comeback from the Blaze? It seemed a tough ask.
With Giants fans increasingly frustrated and Coventry looking increasingly like a side on the powerplay, every remaining Blaze player hassled, hit and harassed the weary Giants, niggling away, breathing down their necks, Mike Schutte menacing and involved in every area of the ice, James Griffin and Ross Venus the standout Brits and young netminder Goss making a raft of impressive saves despite the immense pressure he must have been feeling. Retreating back onto my fence, it was an outstanding game for the neutral. Fierce passion, relentless pressure, and the skill level never dropping, Cameron and Guthrie tearing up the ice at every opportunity, both inextricably intertwined with everything good that happened for the Blaze.
The tension was more than palpable. It was a solid object. You could almost choke on it. The Giants intensity had dropped and it was left to Stephen Murphy to keep them in the game. He stepped up to the plate. But finally his side woke up, began to work the corners again and order was resumed, Belfast finally able to hammer a nail into the Blaze coffin with a second goal from Davey Phillips and the Giants breathed a little easier – their blip nothing but that as they regained composure and saw out the remaining minutes. Not without some further controversy however, there were handbags, there were facewashes, and there was a protracted chant from the Belfast fans explaining exactly whose reject the now Giants defenceman Phillips actually was.
Is there anything I haven’t told you about the pure slice of hockey genius that was this game? It had everything. It wasn’t all about boring old skill. Oh no there were some comedy falls. Some fluffed passes. Don’t you worry about that. Darryl Lloyd was unusually on the end of more hits than he delivered. And poor Steven Chalmers must have wondered what he did to deserve the treatment he was delivered, his beating at the hands of Greg Stewart compounded by an almost plexi-shattering hit from Captain Keefe in the final period. The lad would have needed a good long lie-in the morning after that’s for sure. The final score was 8-5. Everyone applauded both sides for some time following the final buzzer. It would be easier to list the players that DIDN’T have a fantastic game than those that did.
***
The morning after the barnstormer before. And I thought I was bad for hockey. I might just throw in the towel right now and not attend any more hockey games because I can’t see how it can possibly top what was witnessed in the Skydome on 4th November 2012.
The beauty of the experience was not necessarily embodied purely by the numerous fights, altercations or even the pretty goals that were scored, instead lying in a combination of the pure dominant brilliance of the Giants in the first two periods, at their ominous best combining physicality perfectly with ruthless discipline and tactical nous, and the resilient fightbacks from a never-say-die Blaze side who battled adversity time and again. Two sides representing British hockey at its absolute stellar best; a hard-fought, beautifully presented, electric hour of hockey perfection.
Sporting entertainment does not come any better than this. Buy the DVD that I have already demanded be made. Tell your friends. That game was the best advert for the sport that we have seen in our fair isles in quite some time.
Watch it. Live it. Fall in love with it. Write a poem about it – there really are plenty of words that rhyme with Keefe.
