EPL Roundup – It Never Rains, But It Pours

SWINDON , UK – What can you say? Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water following the Raiders’ sinking, Jon Rowbotham jumps overboard and resigns as head coach of the Scimitars, and from his directorship with the Sheffield Academy. While the club are giving little away, the financial thin ice it has been dancing on has been known for some time, a knock-on effect from the problems at EIHL neighbours Sheffield Steelers? Apparently the club has informed league bosses they need £40,000 to be able to survive the coming season, on top of £8,000 owed for rink-hire and goodness knows how much already pumped in from personal sources, but rumoured to be in triple digits. But, knowing nothing about the Sheffield set-up, you can’t help wondering if a catchment area of just over half a million can support two teams, especially of differing standards and rules and compared to say Manchester. But, while Scimitars’ director Gary Aspley confirmed the trouble, on a bright note he said both teams were talking and making progress with what he referred to as ‘potential’ new owners.
 
So while Rowbotham’s departure is a sad blow for hockey and pure speculation raises the question as to whether he is a victim of these talks it doesn’t really answer why he also resigned from his coaching roll with the GB Under 18s. I mean, it isn’t as though he would be the first coach to be rootless, so to speak, yet still manage a national side. On the other hand, he is a man who knows enough to know when to come in out of the rain, as my old grand-pappy used to say, so probably knows what he is doing.
 
With nothing leaking out of the US team Dubuque Fighting Saints who chose to ignore journalist inquiries about Phoenix forward Robert Farmer and his team trial, it meant a simple internet search was necessary to see the young Brit was unsuccessful. The Saints website displays those players who have been signed, and as only two imports are allowed and two were already showing, well…. But two days later the official press release did make mention of a couple of NHL scouts who had made enquiries about Farmer. Hmmm. NHL, isn’t that up the ladder a bit, so maybe a blessing in disguise?
 

Farmer has presumably returned to the Phoenix, who have also been noticeably quiet on the issue, so coach Tony Hand can now set about filling the final places on his roster. To help him, forward James Neil said the coach must bring in more physical players when he decides on his imports if the team wants to improve on last year, a sentiment with which Hand agrees because he is reported as saying although he is talking to a couple of European players, he needs more muscle from his imports. ‘I am building a team to win the league.’ Hand commented, but added, ‘I am in no hurry to get things done.’
 
And now for some ‘drizzle’ news. The Bees had recently signed British forwards Alex Barker and Ben Duggan both from the Hornets, bringing their total ENL input to five. Barker scored an impressive three-plus points per game average last season, and Duggan over two, but coach Gareth Cox came under fire that with so many ENL signings his team might not be up to snuff when it comes to making a physical presence known. As Cox rightly pointed out, the EPL isn’t as rufty-tufty as it was just a few years ago and these guys are not mere lambs anyway. Plus, some people might have missed the fact the Bees have Nicky Watt, Jaroslav Cesky, Michal Pinc and Shane Moore all of whom were top twenty penalty-takers last season, and with Andrius Kaminskas created the best, or worst, team record in the league depending how you view that sort of thing. But despite a staggering 535 penalty minutes between the current four, more importantly from the critics point of view I would have thought, is they all have been known to waggle an angry finger or two at an opponent in support of a team-mate.
 
Finally the good news. The Bracknell side also re-signed netminder Carl Ambler who finished last season just outside the top ten on the netminders’ chart but had faced the highest average number of shots per game.  
 
Telford , meanwhile, signed ex-Latvian junior international Andrejs Maslovskis. The forward joins from Estonia were he was averaging two points per game.
 
Greatly improved British forward Andy Hemmings, who last season more than doubled his previous EPL points tally, re-signed for the Bison. Coach Steve Moria said he thought last season at times Hemmings was ‘outstanding’ while the twenty-one-year old said he had set himself a target of twenty goals this time out and looked forward to his first league hat-rick.
 
Also re-signing was Lukas Smital who returns to the Flames. Last season the Czech forward achieved 73 points in the league, just four behind Flames’ top scorer Martin Masa.
 
Coach Cruickshank of the Phantoms said of his British forward Warren Tait, ‘…he is the best penalty-kill player in the league’, and was always his number one target to re-sign. So naturally he was delighted when Tait put pen to paper for another season.
 
Teams on the newsless bench this week were the Wildcats, Jets and Milton Keynes, and although there will be more to come on the Scimitars’ predicament next week, lets hope the rain doesn’t develop into another flood. After all, it is summer now.
 
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Contact the author Bill.Collins@Prohockeynews.com