ENL South Round-up week 19

LONDON, UK – The top two met again in a crunch clash but elsewhere it was a depressing week across the ENL as another rink battle emerged and a pipe caused a postponement.
 
After the bad news emerged of the possible closure of Bristol ice rink later this year, there was more bad news as Romford Raiders revealed that their home at Rom Valley Way is now also under threat.

 
Perhaps most famous for featuring in BBC 1’s pre show ‘skating penguins’ jingle, Romford ice rink has been under threat for a while but it now appears that Havering council are ready to sell the land to a retail development and then use the cash to build a leisure centre elsewhere.
 
In the interim, the Raiders and all of the other junior and recreational teams could be without a home until 2014 (the date the leisure centre is scheduled to be completed). After casting admiring glances at Streatham’s temporary home in Brixton and drawing parallels to their own situation Romford (or at least a user of the rink) have launched an e-petition to persuade the council to treat them in a similar way to their South London rivals and make sure the new leisure centre includes an ice rink.
 
Not for the first time on these pages, a piece of transfer activity was missed last week. No it wasn’t the Wightlink Raiders signing more Northerners, Peterborough raiding Invicta’s squad or even Romford or Chelmsford boosting their threadbare squads with another quality player.
 
It was in fact the return to Swindon of former Oxford City Stars players Gareth Endicott, Richard Wojciack, Wayne Fiddes and Andrew Shurmer. The four former Stars have all decided to drop a league to play for the ENL Wildcats and by remarkable fate, lined up against their former club’s ENL2 side last weekend.
 
Oxford and Swindon aren’t usually the greatest of friends on the ice and the quartets return to Oxpens Road certainly added spice to the fixture. In the end the game finished as a 6-6 draw, which is of great credit to the Stars given the experience on the Wildcats bench including Robin Davison who despite his advancing years is a class act.
 
The EIHA finally made a judgement on the abandoned 17th December game between Invicta and Cardiff. Regular readers may remember that Cardiff refused to finish the game after an altercation between the visiting bench and the home support plus some unsavoury events on the ice.
 
Both teams got a £250 fine, Invicta were awarded the game 5-0, Andy Moffatt got a shut-out, Jack Tarczycki claimed two assists, and Cardiff were deducted a further two points. Individual player suspensions included bans for Grant Baxter, Ali Band and Ryan Giles from Invicta, with Cardiff Coach Mark Cuddihy and Richard Sadler getting individual bans for Cardiff.
 
Invicta’s professional and well detailed press statement was a credit to the administrators and management of the club but thanks to the unique layout and design of their Silverblades rink they will always be fighting a tough battle.
 
With a penalty box set within the crowd and the visitor’s bench situated beneath and between some excitable Dynamos fans, the problem could only be solved by situating away fans in that area, but then denying regular home support mid ice seats with the best views.
 
On a personal level, I have to say I am surprised it has taken this long for such an incident to occur. As one of the most placid players in our league it does take quite a lot to get me annoyed (to my detriment in a physical game like hockey), but when you have worked a nine hour shift, driven to Kent, are losing heavily and with the prospect of a cold shower that is similar in consistency to a Chihuahua cocking its leg on your forehead, then it is hard to keep cool when some bloke with anger issues is hurling prolonged personal abuse at you every time you come off the ice.
 
I suppose in a close game I can understand the intimidation factor but I have been in games losing 10-0 and still stood with my team getting it both barrels. It just takes one person to snap, especially in an unprotected penalty bench with no surrounding glass or netting.
 
I have to point out though that Invicta fans are in the main excellent examples of how to passionately support your team and I always say to young team mates in games in Gillingham that it is games like that you should enjoy and make the most of – even if you usually end up losing.
 
It may not be of NHL standard but when the crowd are packing the rink and creating a bouncing atmosphere it is one of the best venues to play in the ENL and has been for years. The up close noisy crowd in a busy rink with local players on the ice complimented by a couple of imports is sadly the closest thing we get to what the lucky players in the late eighties got to experience across the country.
 
Unfortunately however, we are seeing increasing levels of vitriol from isolated fans of a number of ENL teams towards players and I hope we do not see a ‘football fan’ mentality become prominent in our rinks at this level. It would be a real shame and I am sure the vast majority of hockey fans will agree with me.
 
To cap off a pretty miserable week, Absolute Ice in Slough became an absolute disaster as a major leak in a pipe under the ice forced the rink to close and all fixtures this weekend be abandoned.
 
With no ice, the ENL Jets clash with MK Thunder was cancelled, which probably does the Thunder a favour as they are now without star Slovak Maros Stefanco who has had to return home for personal reasons.
 
Chelmsford spent the week basking in the previous weekend’s glory and announced that local sponsors Grants Seat would be giving fans the chance to win a car at the upcoming home game against Romford.
 
Fans had to buy a raffle ticket and the winner then had to choose two envelopes out of fifteen and match them to win the motor. Admittedly a long shot of winning but all proceeds headed to Autism Anglia so a win-win situation all round.
 
Chelmsford are not the only team to offer a car as a prize during a hockey match. Who can forget the famous ‘Hyundai Hotshot’ competition that Durham Wasps would host during period breaks in the early 90’s.
 
Each game a ‘lucky’ individual would get to stand on a carpet mid ice and fire a puck from the red line towards a wooden board with a small hole at the bottom. If the puck went through the hole you won a Hyundai, if not then you had nothing to take away the pain from the fibreglass splinters now lacing your hand from the battered Koho stick you were forced to use.
 
We once checked out the Hyundai hotshot board behind the zamboni as kids and the hole was pretty much the exact width of a puck so you would probably have to have a slap shot with the power of Wightlink’s Dom Hopkin’s combined with the accuracy of Romford’s Juraj Huska to get close to wedging the puck through to glory.
 
Saturday
 
Streatham hosted a Cardiff side struggling to make it to Brixton on time thanks to some less than helpful directions from former Redskins forward Louis “I know the way on my BMX” Lockwood. When the game finally did face off, we (Streatham) couldn’t take advantage of Cardiff’s bus legs and found ourselves shorthanded for ten minutes of the first period, allowing them to settle into the game.
 
It was a close match throughout and Cardiff eventually skated away with a 3-2 win with a solid display of hard work and quality passing earning them the victory.
Having said that, I think we look a totally different team to the one that struggled in the first half of the season and we have three strong lines with competition for places in all areas.
 
Unfortunately we have a small mountain to climb if we want to escape a last place finish and we are in a run of tough fixtures at present, we need to keep battling and not give up but the encouraging thing is that the extra bodies around are giving everyone a kick up the bum so to speak.
 
The impressive Jamie Hayes was on target for Cardiff along with Adam Harding and Chris Jones. Russ Stevens put in a stormer of a performance for Streatham and got a well deserved goal for his hard work, as did Warren Rost, who rolled back the years combining with old pal Norm Pinnington for the other.
 
Romford bounced back from last weekend’s misery by thumping Bristol Pitbulls 9-2 at Rom Valley Way.
 
Danny Marshall, Matt Turner and Anthony Leone all hit two goals each for the home side with Andrius Kaminskas, Tyrone Miller and Tom Davis getting the others. Martin Lee and Steve Osman were on target for the Pitbulls, who have now lost their last five games on the bounce.
 
Wightlink Raiders fans must have been nervous ahead of their team’s visit to an improving Bracknell, especially given the previous weekend’s slip up in Slough.
Jeremy Cornish’s men made sure of the win this time thanks to a 4-2 win courtesy of a brace each from Joe Rand and Alex Murray.  
 
Danny Hughes and Ryan Webb scored the goals for Bracknell who pushed the Raiders all the way to the end in this game.
Steve Gosset was ejected for high sticks and Hornets forward Matt Ovenden was taken off injured in a separate incident.
 
Sunday
 
The top two clashed for the second consecutive weekend with Romford looking for revenge over a Chelmsford side that had humbled them in their own rink last time out.
 
This time however it was the boys in blue and gold who had their travelling army of fans celebrating with an impressive 5-2 win. Grant Taylor, Billy Phillips, Juraj Huska, Matt Turner and Shaun Yardley were all on target for Romford with Gary Clarke and Danny Hammond getting Chelmsford’s goals.
 
The best news of all though was the bumper crowd of 1132 although it was not reported as to whether anyone of those present drove off with the star prize of the Seat car.
 
The win for Romford puts them four points clear at the top although Chelmsford do have a game in hand. Before the end of the season the Raiders have to travel to Cardiff twice and Wightlink once, so Chelmsford will probably thinking that those fixtures will provide the toughest obstacle to the Raiders who now have their destiny in their own hands.
 
Chelmsford still have to go to Invicta and Wightlink also, so their run in against teams around them isn’t really much easier in comparison.
 
The final game took place in Kent, where Invicta Dynamos despatched the Bracknell Hornets 9-3 in a routine win.
 
A hat trick from Andy Smith did the bulk of the damage with Ryan Ellis hitting two and Anthony Lennon, Nicky Lewis, Callum Fowler and Ryan Noble all getting on the score sheet for the rampant Dynamos.
 
For Bracknell Tom Fisher hit a brace and Alan Lack capped off a hard working display with a lone goal. Invicta’s Dan Fudger was ejected midway through the game for roughing and back up goalie Lee Freeman got some valuable minutes as he replaced Andy Moffatt in the Mo’s goal towards the end.
 
 
Results
 
Saturday 21st January 2012
 
Streatham Redskins 2 – 3 Cardiff Devils  
Romford Raiders 9 – 2 Bristol Pitbulls  
Bracknell Hornets 2 – 4 Wightlink Raiders
 
Sunday 22nd January 2012
 
Invicta Dynamos 9 – 3 Bracknell Hornets  
Chelmsford Chieftains 2 – 5 Romford Raiders
To sign the Romford petition please visit the link below:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/6496
 
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com