Domish loss overshadows Blaze win
Coventry Blaze hosted the EPL’s Telford Tigers in what has become a yearly fixture; the Blaze take on an EPL side, playing EPL rules regarding imports and icing etc. This allows some of the younger British players in the Blaze system to get some extra ice time as well as the Telford players being able to pitch themselves against a better quality set of imports and senior British players.
To that end, Blaze iced young netminder Brandon Stones in nets and the four imports were Matty Soderstrom, Mike McLean, Matic Kralj and Owen Fussey. It is usually a sign of which imports Paul Thompson believes are underperforming as they are iced in an extra game to boost the confidence. Soderstrom can be excepted from this, since he’s only be back in the side for a weekend. Russ Cowley was the only regular Brit not to ice, and the ENL Blaze supplied four players (Matt Selby, Rikki Bryniarski, Michael Steventon and Josh Nicklin).
From a hockey perspective, the game was a bit of a damp squib, but that is only to be expected in a mid-season friendly. There was a good wedge of ice time for the ENL guys and Stones played the whole match in nets, earning himself man of the match honours. The Blaze ran out comfortable 7-3 winners, Telford took the shots they got well but for both sides it was little more than a training session. A useful one mind, since the young players need that experience.
However, the success in this game was overshadowed by the news that defenceman Jerramie Domish is to miss a significant portion of what is left of the season as he has been told he requires surgery on a knee injury. Domish had appeared to have been carrying an injury for a while and has now been forced out of the line-up. Cowley is expected to drop back to defence and Ross Venus will step up to a regular spot on the forward lines.
