It’s a (Christmas) Cracker
Anyone who hasn’t realised that the Elite league of British Ice Hockey is currently providing some of the best sporting entertainment in the country must be living under a rock. Okay, I realise that probably runs to a fair few million folk in the kingdom who would have to be classed as subterranean but still, in a week in which Nottingham Panthers owner Neil Black spoke out about the league, it seems he was absolutely spot on in his assertion that it’s in better shape than ever.
But wait, he was talking about the finances, wasn’t he? Oh dear. Just two weeks after the Coventry Blaze’s desperate appeal for financial help, and in a season in which it’s no secret that more than just one or two of the Elite League clubs are struggling against financial constraints to offer the best possible on-ice product, Black’s remarks were at best ill-advised, but more realistically blinkered, short-sighted, and lots of other words that imply he’d not actually thought it through at all. Cue a frantic back-pedal a few days later with his suggested league reforms which seemed to acknowledge that not everyone can afford to put out a team that includes the likes of Champagne, Beauregard and Kowalski (who sound like a firm of Hollywood divorce lawyers). It’s been made patently clear that their organisation do not feel the pinch that other clubs do. Some teams sound more like a cockney debt collection agency (Frank, Dobben and Voth). But do we love them any less? Of course not! (No offence to the fine gentlemen of the Cardiff parish. Comic effect is everything). Now I’ve ruined the joke, haven’t I? Sorry.
Anyway… The financial argument rumbled on throughout the week, rearing its ugly but unavoidable head as it tends to do at numerous points throughout the season, but putting it aside for a moment, there really is no denying that in terms of entertainment, the league this season is a nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride from top to bottom. If we could bottle this and sell it, we wouldn’t be in these financial doldrums in the first place. We should be marketing the crap out of this bad boy.
So, shout it from the rooftops good people of Hockeyland! Ice hockey is here and it’s AWESOME! Unlike in recent seasons, NOTHING can be taken for granted which makes every game a potential classic. Take this weekend as an example of how unpredictable the Elite League has become: Nottingham WON’T win every game on home ice! Fife CAN lead by four goals against the likes of the Steelers! The Edinburgh Capitals can and WILL go on their travels and take the lead in some of the most challenging rinks in the country! And they will NOT concede 15 goals a game! No-siree-bob! It’s all true – hold the front page hockey news writers – because you really can’t write the script for how a hockey weekend is going to go anymore.
The Weekend Revisited
Try Saturday for starters. A typical day in the Elite League. On paper, you’d have had the four scheduled games down as home wins, and comfortable ones at that. But as the stories unfolded around the country, you’d have been forgiven for thinking you were seeing things. Or perhaps on drugs of some sort. Coventry Blaze travelled to the National Ice Centre in Nottingham and appeared to take a 3-0 lead in the first period. Sheffield were mysteriously unable to break the deadlock against Fife on home ice in their first period. Edinburgh apparently went 1-0 up in Cardiff’s Big Blue Tent. Did I need my eyes testing? Or a strong drink? (I opted for the latter).
As the games progressed, momentum began to swing back in the direction of the logical. Nottingham pulled back level, the Blaze unable to capitalise on their opening period onslaught. Sheffield went 4-0 up on the Flyers and looked to complete a demolition on their Scottish opponents. Early in the third period, Cardiff cruised into the lead against Edinburgh with three goals in four minutes. And Belfast were 4-2 up on Dundee at the Odyssey Arena. Would all be right with the world after all?
Not before some last gasp excitement. In a reversal of fortune (‘Weakest Link’ mode engage), the Steelers conceded three quick goals to make their game a last gasp affair, Colt King scoring the decisive goal with seven seconds remaining to take the win for the Steelers. In Cardiff, the Capitals also pulled a goal back to make the Devils sweat for the final ten minutes of the game, but the home side held on to take the points. In Belfast, Dundee had their fair share of the score line, pushing the Giants to within a one goal margin, eventually losing 5-4. And in the surprise of the day, Blaze won the penalty shootout in Nottingham to take a precious and unexpected two points back to Coventry.
The action was just as frenetic on Sunday, four more games, and a total of 36 goals scored. Edinburgh once again took the lead on the road, taking a two goal lead in the first period against the Blaze, who promptly got their acts together in the second period and went on to cruise to a 7-2 victory. Hull were involved in their second Sunday spectacular in as many weeks as they took on Cardiff at home, the lead changing hands on several occasions before the Devils took control of the game in the third period to take the win, 5-3. Braehead were the only team to make short work of their opponents all weekend, quietly despatching Dundee 7-1 in a fuss-free effort, a hat-trick for the inimitable Jade Galbraith and a brace for Captain Krestanovich.
The Clan have played the least games of any team in the league aside from the Steelers, and it’s worth noting that if they win their game in hand on Cardiff who sit one place above them, they would move within a single point of the Welsh side. Dark horses? What did I tell you.
In the final tie of the day, Sheffield travelled to Fife to complete a home/away double header, and there was a shock to the system in store for the pretenders to the top spot as Fife scored five past them with only one in reply to take a four goal lead into the third period. This was unthinkable! Hockey fans around the country waited with bated breath for news. Doug Christiansen and Corey Neilson must have had the champagne on ice (‘why, did he injure himself?’ I hear you cry! Ba-dum cha! I’ll get my coat). But, goal by goal, the Steelers clawed back the deficit, finally evening the score at 5 goals all late in the third. So to overtime, where they almost immediately struck the killer blow to the gutsy home side, Mark Thomas scoring in just over 30 seconds to take the extra point and delay a potential miracle until another day. Hockey fans released their collective held breath. It smelt a bit like pies.
The weekend summed up everything that is good about the league this season. Last season, the hapless Edinburgh Capitals were on the end of double figure drubbings on a weekly basis. This year? Nothing of the sort. The Caps are proving themselves more than worthy adversaries on a regular basis, and new kids on the block Fife have proved nothing like the whipping boys that many thought they would be; after overcoming a slow start they now have the Danny Stewart factor and are taking it to opponents like Sheffield and Belfast week on week. It has to be good for business.
It’s all about the money
Aside from the over-arching league-wide financial debates, there were more player movements this week, the most notable being Belfast’s Brock McBride, who signed for HDD Olimpija Ljubljana of the Austrian first league, much to the dismay of the Northern Irish fans. He proved what a massive miss he will be for the Giants by picking up five points in his final game on Saturday, going out with a bang instead of a whimper.
So what does it take to command some loyalty from a player in this league, or, like the English lower leagues in football have become to an extent, is the Elite League merely a breeding ground, a nursery, or perhaps in the case of some, a retirement home? Can we really ask for loyalty when better money is being offered elsewhere? It’s a game of high player turnover at the best of times, but in the ‘current climate’ (how I hate that phrase), it’s even more difficult to prevent a player’s head being turned by the promise of riches elsewhere.
It has to be bad for the sport in the UK; the fans put their support behind a player, buy a shirt with his name on, only to watch him wave bye-bye as he jumps on the next plane to Wherever two months later. Ice hockey is more volatile and fragile than most UK sports, especially in this market, and it’s definitely ‘that’ time of year again as the comings and goings pick up pace around the leagues; injured players are replaced, unsettled players move on.
Following the departure of Luke Fulghum Coventry Blaze signed Frankie Bakrlik and Woo Sang Park on a permanent basis. Hull parted company with captain Josh Mizerek. Dan Ceman moved from Dundee to Fife. There’s an air of tension that I remember all too well from last season as you wonder who could be the next through hockey’s notorious revolving door of employment. It’s nigh on impossible for a club’s management to command a regular and loyal fanbase let alone drum up new support when those on the ice aren’t even committed to stick around for one full season – a meagre seven months – the blink of an eye, really. Or perhaps that’s unfair. It IS just a job after all.
End of familiar rant. For now at least.
Off-Ice Shenanigans
That’s a sexy subtitle if ever I’ve seen one. The Coventry Blaze ‘risqué’ calendar went on sale. The limp carcasses of swooning women littered the floor of the Skydome shortly afterwards. The Sheffield Steelers ‘Rockstar’ video aired for the first time at their Saturday home game. And then a few hundred more times as it was viewed on Youtube by hockey fans around the country. Whilst not quite matching up to the glorious camp-fest that was the Belfast Giants 2010 Christmas video, it features Jeff Legue playing the guitar, outdoors, in just his undercrackers, Jonathan Phillips and a sheep, and Colt King being just about the coolest creature ever to have graced the soil of Sheffield. It’s quite delectable.
So apparently off-ice shenanigans this week directly translates as being semi-naked, singing, or singing whilst semi-naked. Glad we’ve cleared that one up then.
And so into the Christmas period. There’s no logic to the fixture list. There’s no regular Saturday and Sunday fix. There are a lot more mince pies and turkey. There will be expanding waistlines. And there will be a trip to Murrayfield. See how that goes in my next instalment of What Katy Did Next (apart from eat chocolate).
Here are those semi-naked shenanigans.
