SWINDON, UK – Another fairly quiet week although not without its mysteries which reminded me of a conversation I had with my fanatical horse racing uncle ‘Galloping Gordon’, the bookies favourite son, the other evening in our local the Slipper and Salmon. He wanted to know why I bother writing about rumours. ‘You need to stick to facts and figures,’ he suggested, ‘rumours are no good to man nor beast. Waste of energy.’ And this from a man who will spend hours on the phone trying to find out if it was actually true Roman Rocket, who was scheduled to run in the 3.30 at Kempton, did or did not sneeze while have his early morning feed.
So, holding that thought about tidbits and morsels makes you wonder what is happening at the Phoenix as the rumours of almost mass moves abound. While some will undoubtedly prove correct like the announcement Canadian Curtis Huppe had departed, so-say for the Flames, others are a bit more fanciful. As an example of what is being talked about we hear Greg Wood is moving to the Steeldogs along with Ben Morgan and Ukrainian D-man Pavel Gomeniuk.
Steeldogs Coach Payette, however, perhaps in an oracular fashion announced he had ‘four new players signed’ but said he wouldn’t reveal their names until a supporters’ function in early May when he would also identify the ‘new’ captain.
However, with feet firmly planted on Manchester soil Coach Hand signed for another three years with the Phoenix, on top of the one to go with his current contract. Hand apparently has the option to cut back on his actual ice time although as the leading EPL points scorer that doesn’t look like a pressing concern. But despite rumours of departures the Phoenix coach said, ‘I am happy with the way things are going and we are close to announcing our first few signings.’ More enigmatically he added he had a ‘top class British centre signed up’ and still wanted to re-sign top-scoring Marcus Kristoffersson.
Meanwhile at the Bees Coach Gareth Cox confirmed owners Katie Eleftheriou and Stuart Robinson would, in fact, be with the club for another year thereby clearing that matter up. Cox commented that having ‘inherited’ many players last season he had not been in a position to control things as he wanted. ‘We felt we needed a bit of a shake up,’ he said, ‘I want to put my own stamp on things.’ His stamp included the signing of forward Shaun Thompson from the Cup-winning Jets and, while Lukas Smital is already on board as player-assistant coach, Cox said Greg Randall, who occupied that role last year, should not be ruled out as a returnee.
Also supposedly going to the Bees is top British D-man Leigh Jamieson, although as yet not conformed.
One player who will not be returning to his previous club is eighteen-year-old James Griffin who having iced for two seasons with the Wildcats and a couple of games for Elite League Coventry has now moved to the Blaze permanently. Flames’ Neil Liddiard, also linked to Swindon through family and recently by talk of a move there, is apparently back in the grey zone.
Latvian forward and top ten EPL points scorer Maris Ziedins re-signed for the Phantoms while D-man Joe Graham, recently discarded by the Flames, has also been snapped up. The brothers Ferrara, forward Luke and D-man James, are also back on the Phantoms’ roster.
As the Flames continued their purge Rob Lamey was the latest who it was announced would not be re-signed although the long-serving forward had been absent a lot of the season through injury. Rumour HQ reports Flames British D-man Andrew Melachrino is in talks with the Jets from where Joe Greener is about to cross him in the street on his way to the Flames.
The Jets, for their part, are being pretty quiet about everything with just reports of Coach Russell scouting but no news of any names in the book.
So what a week of mystery and imagination it was, bearing in mind what has been mentioned is just the tip of the gossip iceberg and obviously doesn’t include the snippets that have by-passed me.
Now, what was that stable lad’s name in Kempton I had to ring? For more EPL facts and figures, results and news why not try our mailing list by clicking the link on www.iceman-epl.com Contact the author Bill.Collins@Prohockeynews.com
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