ENL South Round-up Week 29

LONDON, UK – With the league title decided, attention switched to the play-off race with the famous five competing for the fantastic four qualification places. Meanwhile in Kent, the Invicta Dynamos faced a mini crisis.
 
All attention during the week was on the Invicta Dynamos Coach Kevin Parrish who publicly slammed his players in the press after losing three of the four previous league fixtures. The Dynamos are making no secret of the fact that individual player attitudes are the cause of their slump; however Parrish has never been as scathing as he was when speaking to Kent News after the home loss to Romford last weekend.

 
“It’s not everyone, but we’ve had too many bad days at the office this season” raged the Invicta supremo.
 
“Some of the guys have shown a total lack of respect for their team-mates and for the organisation”
 
“We’ve talked about it plenty of times but there are only so many times you can tell them. They think its okay to just look after number one”
 
“I don’t know if that’s the way they’ve been brought up because you might be able to get away with that at junior level but at senior level you will get found out”
 
Damning words indeed, but more worrying was the admission that the team could be tempted to write off the rest of the regular season. There are certainly benefits to resting key players but there is also something to be said for hitting the play-offs in good form, something that the Dynamos certainly won’t be.
 
More intriguing still is the fact that Parrish has spent the last few games observing matters from the stands, whilst the highly qualified yet inexperienced Ryan Giles has stepped in to run the bench. Gilesy knows the game well for a guy of his age and it is good to see that he has found a place in the Dynamos organisation since his season was ended early through a recurrence of an injury.
 
Will Parrish be back on the bench for the play-offs? Time will tell.
 
Back in South London, an upbeat locker room of the Streatham Redskins was boosted by the news that last season’s top scorer Louis Lockwood would be back in the line-up for the remainder of the campaign.
 
Louis is a quality player if a little odd at times, and as reported in Pro Hockey News last season, he is the 50 Cent of the ENL, having survived a stabbing a few years ago. Don’t let anyone say that this column doesn’t get any exclusives.
 
Talking of which, it seems the rock band formed by MK Thunder players, namely ‘Blood Fire and Death’ appear to be either the worst band ever or a fictitious fantasy. The latter description is probably the most accurate so apologies to any Pro Hockey News readers who suddenly scoured the NME or MK Bowl websites for further information on the group.
 
Romford Raiders held a successful race night on Friday night, raising over £500 for the club. I previously thought that such evenings were a Northern speciality so I was pleasantly surprised to see the Londoners/Essex boys holding one.
 
For those of you that don’t know what this entails, it is basically a good excuse to get drunk whilst gambling on sealed taped recordings of horse racing. You can buy a horse or simply bet on the race and win some cash.
 
Every Race Night I ever went to up North as a kid was marred by accusations of cheating and it is good to know that the Southerners are just as crafty, with Raiders GM Ollie Oliver admitting he had tried getting the better of the house, on the Raiders forum.
 
Wightlink Raiders basked in the glory of their league win conducting numerous interviews with magazines, local radio and even local television. As a reward, or perhaps just how the fixtures were devised, they had a lovely weekend off to enjoy the sunshine engulfing the UK.
 
The hockey world was rocked during the week as 15 year old Slough junior player Alfie Skelton died in a tragic fishing accident. Just like the popular Jack O’Donnell last season, Alfie was another talented teenage hockey player taken before his time and our sympathies reach out to his family, including his Grandmother Pauline Rost and Uncle Warren Rost, two big characters in UK hockey over the years.
 
An impeccably observed minutes silence took place prior to the Redskins v Hornets game and Warren dressed for both games over the weekend for the South London side, showing great nerve.
 
Saturday
 
After their public dressing down in the press, you might expect that the Invicta Dynamos would come out flying against the Milton Keynes Thunder, but alas not. The one piece of good news prior to the game was the return of Anthony Lennon to the Dynamos line-up.
 
In fact the Dynamos were 5-1 down with seven minutes to go before staging an amazing comeback to 5-5. This followed a bench clearance at the end of the second period, started by MK goalie Mark Woolf and his opposite number Andrew Dickson of Invicta.
 
One man who had been waiting for weeks for such an event was Thunder enforcer Mike Lucas, who reportedly dropped three different Dynamos with as many punches.
 
Meanwhile, Woolf ended up with nice shiner and poor Jack Tarczycki reportedly had bleeding ears following the mass brawl. The poor team physio’s Nefra Germain and Jess Osborn had a busy time patching up the Thunder and Dynamos players respectively. Thunder defenseman Lee Featherstone was taken to hospital after a skate blade sliced his lip open.
 
Thunder scorers were Jamie Randall, Ross Bowers and Connor Goode with one goal apiece and Maros Stefanco with two. Dynamos goals were scored by Karl Lennon, Daniel Borges, Tim Smith, Liam Chong and Adam Copland.
 
Two play-off contenders met at the Hive as Bracknell Hornets faced off against the Streatham Redskins. Streatham fans opted to hold a beach party for this game due to the usual high temperature inside the rink, and came in shorts, sunglasses and more worryingly some cheap looking fake tan.
 
The bemused home fans looked on as various inflatables and flags were placed all over the rink by the less than sane visiting support.
 
Thankfully the team did not let the supporters down as Bracknell were stunned by a 4-2 Redskins win. Streatham’s goals came courtesy of a classy brace by Peter Molnar, a well worked shorthanded effort by Liam Rasmussen and an empty netter from Tomas Valko. Hornets’ scorers were Danny Hughes and Ben Duggan.
 
This win secured a play-off place for us (the Redskins) and must be the first time we have made things easier for ourselves all year. It isn’t Streatham if there is no drama, so Gennadi Yufit made up for this, by breaking his hand in four places following a heavy check into the boards. Get well soon G.
 
At Frogmore Street, the bottom two were in action as Bristol Pitbulls hosted Swindon ENL Wildcats. Swindon were pretty much guaranteed last place before this encounter and took a short bench to their near neighbours with Shannon Taylor, Brian Clark and Stephen Whitfield missing amongst others.
 
Both sides played out an entertaining 4-4 tie, as the ENL Wildcats grabbed their first point on the road since September when they had a shock win in Bracknell. The Wildcats came back from 4-1 down at one point and had former Oxford goalie Andy Webster to thank for some fine saves that kept them in the game.
 
Bristol scorers were Mike Smith with two goals and Peter Korff and Steve Osman with the others. Martyn Gray, Sam Feeney, Ryan Burgess and Jamie Newton were all on target for Swindon.
 
Chelmsford Chieftains and Romford Raiders clashed at the Riverside with both sides jostling for position ahead of the play-offs in front of an amazing crowd of 1038. Despite leading 3-1 at one point, the Chieftains allowed their fierce rivals back into the game for a 3-3 tie.
 
On target for Chelmsford were Tom Long, Danny Hammond and Alex Green. Romford scorers were Juraj Huska, Jason Buckman and Pierre Wilhelmsson. A brief scuffle between Tom Davis and BT Williams provided a further talking point.
 
Sadly Romford goalie Michael Grey suffered a season ending knee injury during the encounter, which leaves the Raiders with only Glen Jackson for the remainder of the campaign. Jackson has been a back-up pretty much all season despite some good displays for Oxford last season, so now he will get a chance to show what he can do.
 
Sunday
 
Streatham faced off against an MK Thunder side, who were patched up following their antics against Invicta the night before and ready to battle hard for two much needed points.
 
The Redskins locker room was buzzing following our play-off qualification, and when a red eyed Lois Lockwood breezed into the room having just landed from Canada that morning, it is fair to say that the lads were all up for the game.
 
After a strong start, the Thunder succumbed to a Redskins display reminiscent of earlier in the season. A 3-1 win delighted the home support that included former Redskins supremo Adam Goldstone.
 
Joe Johnston continued his recent goal scoring form with two goals and Liam Rasmussen grabbed a good solo effort for Streatham. Tom Mboya got the Thunder’s goal.
 
The result is bad news for Milton Keynes who now need to go to Cardiff and win whilst hoping other results go their way.
 
Cardiff ENL Devils faced off in front of one of their biggest ever home crowds against the Bracknell Hornets, as they had a ticketing deal following the Elite League side’s game that faced off immediately prior.
 
With an estimated 1000 fans in attendance at the start of the game, Cardiff’s ENL team blew their play-off rivals out of the water with a convincing 8-2 win. A brace each for Tim Burrows and Steve Maile plus goals from Steve Fisher, Luke Piggott, Gareth Dixon and David James took the points for Cardiff.
 
Whilst Cardiff will be overjoyed with play-off qualification, this result leaves Bracknell with a lot of work to do. They face Streatham and Oxford next weekend and probably need four points to guarantee qualification.
 
Bristol Pitbulls may not make the play-offs this year but they will take home a special memory from the year as they stunned the Invicta faithful by beating the Dynamos 8-7 in Gillingham.
 
The Dynamos had a couple of guys missing from the line up and seemingly all three of their regular goalies, however this should take nothing away from the Pitbulls who sealed a famous win with a brace from Swede Henrik Sahlin and lone goals from Mike Smith, Mark Marcroy Smith, Phil Dibble, Steve Osman, Richie Hargreaves and former Dynamo Peter Korff.
 
Daniel Borges hit a hat trick for Invicta; Liam Chong got two with Tim Smith and Mike Timms getting one goal each.
 
Regardless of what is said about who was or wasn’t playing, Bristol have looked good in recent weeks and it is good for the league that the second bottom team can compete with the likes of the Mo’s. Invicta now lie in fourth position, only one place above the Redskins and there is a real chance that the two old ENL rivals could come face to face in the play-offs.
 
Oxford had a chance to make sure of their play-off place with a tricky road trip to Romford; however despite leading 2-0 at one stage, the Stars couldn’t hold on and ended up losing 7-2.
 
Gareth Endicott and Ken Forshee were on target for the City Stars, with Romford’s goals coming from a Frankie Harvey hat trick, two from Juraj Huska and one each for Anthony Leone and Adam Smith.
 
Oxford now need to beat Bracknell at home next weekend or hope that other results go in their favour otherwise they will fail to qualify for the play-offs.
 
Swindon hosted Chelmsford in a meaningless game at the Link Centre; however the home side did put up a good display before fading in the third and eventually losing 8-1.
 
In an uneventful game, Danny ‘the Mayor’ Wright hit a rare brace to add to goals from fellow Chieftains Ross Brears, Danny Hammond, Kyle Jones, Blaho Novak, BT Williams and Tom Long.
 
Swindon may have finished bottom of the league however relegation is not a certainty. Rumours of league restructuring and also doubts whether Solent would step up should they seal promotion, mean that this may not be the last we will see of the Wiltshire side at this level.
 
Results
 
Saturday 26th March
 
Milton Keynes 5 Invicta 5
Bracknell 2 Streatham 4
Bristol 4 Swindon 4
Chelmsford 3 Romford 3
 
Sunday 27th March
 
Streatham 3 Milton Keynes 1
Invicta 7 Bristol 8
Romford 7 Oxford 2
Swindon 1 Chelmsford 8
Cardiff 8 Bracknell 2
 
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com