Reviews and previews: Part one
The final weekend of the regular season. This time last season, the Vipers faithful had their final game at Whitley Bay against Dundee, and travelled there the following day to complete an unforgettable season and say goodbye to Danny Stewart’s tireless and amazing squad. It was pretty momentous, especially in consideration of all that came to pass in the following weeks and months with the club being dissolved, so it was understandably less of an occasion for me personally this time around. It came and went in the blink of an eye. I sat at home on the sofa mostly, quaffing a variety of alcoholic beverages and eating curry whilst watching scores come in on Twitter. However the weekend contained more drama and talking points than the prior few weeks put together, as the warm weather seemed to spark players into action as they caught scent of the playoffs on the spring breeze, and it really set the tone for what looks to be a thrilling series of playoff encounters.
Despite there being almost a full schedule on Sunday the quarter-final berths were settled on Saturday. So I’ll pass comment on the weekend’s activity team by team, in a playoff preview style. Come along for the ride, we’ll do two today and two tomorrow. Bitesize previewing, if you will. Big bites, but still.
1st v 8th – Belfast Giants v Dundee Stars
Belfast had just a single game for their final weekend, and they hoisted the Championship banner at the Odyssey before taking on a Panthers side they had seen a fair bit of in recent weeks, losing the Challenge Cup final and seemingly building up a bit of tension between the two sides as the game turned out to be rather feisty, with a fair bit of rough stuff between the two sides. The most agitating agitator in all of British hockey-dom, Darryl Lloyd, threw himself into the game 110% and succeeded in getting under the skin of Panthers defenceman Brock Wilson and a six-man brawl ensued, resulting in a fight between Giants captain Jeremy Rebek and heavyweight Guillaume Lepine. Still waiting for the decision on that one, although hats off to Rebek for getting involved with one of the league’s best fighters. It sounded like a fantastic, hard-fought game and resulted in a late win for the Champions, Craig Peacock netting in overtime to put a cherry on top of an already very tasty and exceedingly large cake. It could safely be said that these two sides are ready for some playoff hockey, and could potentially meet in what would be a very juicy final at the NIC.
But first things first, Belfast enter into a two game quarter final series with the Dundee Stars, whose late spate of wins to lift themselves into a playoff berth seemed to catch up with them somewhat in the final weekend. They managed an overtime win against Fife after a low-scoring 1-1 game before being soundly beaten by 7th place Hull on Sunday, however, with what is clearly the toughest quarter final draw on offer it could conceivably be argued that the Scottish side were right to try and preserve their bodies, as they will need every ounce of energy at their disposal in next weekend’s double header.
The tie will take Dundee over to Northern Ireland for the first leg before both teams return to Scotland to contest the second leg, and Belfast will undoubtedly be looking to get the job done in front of their home crowd and take an unassailable lead back to Dundee, who cannot be underestimated, having run Belfast surprisingly close on almost every occasion that the two teams have met so far this season.
Prediction: As hard as Dundee will work for this one, it’s a tall order and I can’t imagine any outcome other than a Giants win. However I do think it will be a closer tie than the gap in league positions suggests. I’ll plump for an aggregate score of 10-6.
2nd v 7th – Sheffield Steelers v Hull Stingrays
Sheffield had something of a topsy-turvy final weekend as they travelled to the Scottish capital and pummelled its inhabitants 13-2, before returning home on Sunday to face the Glasgow contingent in the Braehead Clan, who were able to pull out a massive victory at the Motorpoint, beating the Steelers 5-4 with just 3 seconds remaining in regulation time, and posing questions over the Steelers’ mental toughness going into what could potentially be a tricky quarter-final match-up for them. It’s their fourth loss in five games, one of those being against their quarter final opponents. Could it be that Ryan Finnerty’s side have let the pressure of a long season get to them? They will need to show their mettle if they want to avoid disappointing an orange army who will be travelling the short distance to Nottingham en masse for the playoff final four weekend and will fully expect to see their team a part of the action.
Hull had a mixed final weekend, losing to Braehead before beating Dundee to secure 7th spot, a place which has been theirs for some time and never seemed in doubt despite their mixed fortunes this season, as they mixed some great wins in with some unacceptable defeats, but they have toughened up of late and will be fully prepared to dig their heels in and take this one to the wire.
The head to head statistics make interesting reading: the Steelers dominated the opening exchanges between the teams but the scorelines became closer and closer until the Stingrays were finally able to beat their Yorkshire rivals just last weekend. Have they learnt what it takes to beat the Steelers, and more importantly can they do it twice? Key for the Steelers, the fitness of Jeff Legue, who was the star of the weekend for them as he has been so many times this season, scoring 5 goals in two games and proving his consistency to be one of the main reasons Sheffield remained in contention for the title for such a long time. His ability to score clutch goals will surely come into play and in a tie that will finish in front of home fans at Ice Sheffield on Sunday, Hull will need to have a commanding lead in order to give themselves the best possible chance in Sheffield, who will not be easy to beat on their home ice, despite the more limited crowd size of IceSheffield which rather strangely is where the tie will be played.
Prediction: I think another close encounter is on the cards with Hull’s recent good form against the Steelers. I think they can win the home leg, but I believe Jeff Legue and the Steelers will dominate the second. Aggregate score? I’m going for 7-6
Part 2 tomorrow…
