SWINDON, UK – Well, if you thought last week was a bit sparse as far as news was concerned, then this week was about as prolific as the number of sunny days in a British summer.
However, one of those bright patches occurred in Slough where the Jets re-signed netminder Gregg Rockman for a forth season. Rockman had a superb run last time out with a save-rate in excess of 91 per cent, just a susurration adrift from Lightning’s Alex Mettam in third spot. And when I say susurration I mean of course a fibril, a mere wisp, or translated into a practical application Rockman conceded one more goal to about every one hundred shots faced when compared to Mettam.
Such narrow margins are, for all intense and purposes, pretty meaningless, and a bit like arguing the toss on the number of light-years to the planet Zog – whether it is ten or twelve really makes no difference to us ordinary folk.
Or how about the separating of the top ten cars on a formulae 1 grid by a second, and sometimes between individual cars by a zillionth of a second, a distance that can be the equivalent of less than it takes to blink an eye? At the end of the race such a microscopic advantage, which actually gets enhanced to produced several yards advantage on the starting grid, counts for nought because even close finishes aren’t THAT close.
But hold that though for a moment. An F1 car can travel about twice the length of an average ice rink in a second, while a fast puck can travel the same distance in just over two seconds. As far as a netminder is concerned you must deduct a quarter of a second for the human brain to react to any incoming shot, and as we are talking about an arbitrary distance for a shot which on average will of course be a lot less than the length of the rink, so a hundredth of whatever that distance is will be in the case of Rockman and Mettam in reality about the thickness of a coat of paint.
Last season the top ten regular netminders were separated by a spread of just over four shots per goal conceded which meant number one goalie Ben Bowns of the Steeldogs conceded a goal every fourteen shots, while tenth placed Steve Fone of the Phoenix conceded a goal every ten shots. Easy to see, then, such an overall difference could be a matter of game-changing importance, but there must also come a point within that group when the differential is irrelevant.
With the exception of Bowns the next four netminders were separated by a range of just about one shot per conceded goal, and the bottom five by a spread of a-shot-and-a-half per goal. Somewhere in there, if you converted those shots into times and distances some of those goalies were in practical terms of the same standard, which makes you wonder why we differentiate on save-rates to more than one decimal place when they are recorded as 0.918, for instance.
Meanwhile in the real world, or more precisely Guildford, the Flames added British forward Stuart Potts to the roster for a ninth season which if all goes well will give him a shot at passing the 500 games milestone, a feat achieved by only six other players in the Flames’ history.
The Lightning recalled former GBU18 and GBU20 international D-man Lewis Christie for a fifth season, while the Wildcats re-signed British D-man Joe Baird who having missed a chunk of last season through injury returns for a forth time.
Yet another player, GBU20 forward Andrew Melachrino, made the move to Basingstoke from the Jets making that six so far with the likelihood he won’t be the last.
The Steeldogs, though, re-signed British D-man Lloyd Gibson for a seventh time, and Latvian forward Edgars Bebris who while still only 20, is back for a third time.
All of which just leaves the Phoenix and something of a mystery. Not so perplexing was the signing of utility player Ben Wood, who re-signed for a forth season, or, in fact, the acquisition of Canadian-born Andy McKinney who played for Manchester in 2009 before moving to the Tigers and a season split last year with the EIHL Hull Stingrays, but by Joachim Flaten.
Flaten, a Norwegian forward has been playing for one of his country’s oldest ice hockey clubs, Frisk Asker, founded in 1935 and for most of that time a member of the top league in Norway GET-ligaen. Flaten, now 25 and a former U19 international has been ‘confirmed’ as signing for the Manchester side on the basis of reports in the local Norwegian press, but the Phoenix are saying nothing.
OK, so maybe not that much of a mystery and hardly even likely to raise the curiosity level by a notch if compared to just how it is possible London mayor Boris Johnson might become prime minister. For more mysteries and intrigue look out for next week’s EPL Roundup.
For more EPL facts and figures, stats news and more take a look at www.iceman-epl.com
Contact Bill.Collins@prohockeynews.com
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