Buckets, bans and sin-bins | Pro Hockey News

LONDON, UK – The ghosts of hockey past came back to haunt the league as the buckets came out again and long-time fans of the NIHL South endured the sinking feeling of reality.

4 point Raiders (John Scott)

The build up to the weekend was dominated by a crowd funding appeal by Milton Keynes Thunder, who followed in the footsteps of Invicta Dynamos hoping to raise £10,000 towards operating costs.

Almost £6,000 had been raised at the time of writing which is at least some positive news.

At risk of stating the obvious, the admission by the Thunder now calls the future viability of the competition into question at all levels below the EIHL. Assuming the Mo’s and Thunder want out of the current arrangement next year, a six team league won’t fly in NIHL South and there’s no guarantee the likes of Streatham or the Raiders would feel able to compete in it either.

So then that asks questions of those teams in NIHL 2 and also in the North, where the disparity between clubs is also evident. There is no solution to keep everyone happy but one must be found.

As the Prime Minister recently said on Brexit, ‘Life is about compromise’ but that’s the line the EIHA took last time, and after crowdfunding appeals and warnings of mid-season pull outs, the governing body will have a less convincing tone if that rhetoric is repeated next summer.

There can’t be many NIHL clubs who have iced as many different netminders as Invicta in recent seasons, so it was perhaps not that surprising when it was announced that Adam Long would be leaving the club.

Long had reportedly been commuting down from Peterborough to Kent so at least he has the solace of not encountering the Dartford crossing with quite such regularity, especially around Christmas when ferocious zombie-like characters descend on Bluewater and Lakeside shopping centres refusing to filter into lanes and raging on a regular basis.

Long tweeted offering his services to any other clubs following the announcement and hopefully he finds a team soon.

Phantoms look for glory

There was outcry in Basingstoke as the EIHA announced that livewire forward Liam Morris had earned himself a six game suspension following his match penalty of head butting against Bracknell Bees. The kicker for Morris being that he can’t even jet off for Christmas as the ban falls short of a trip to Romford two days before Santa unloads his sack all over the globe.

The Bison fans were particularly incensed due to the fact that Bees forward Josh Martin was shown felling a linesman in footage of the aftermath, posted on social media. It can only be assumed that the officials report following the game deemed the incident not worthy of sanction, but this was not stated in the EIHA report.

For the stattos amongst our readers, before the weekend Morris led the league bad boy list with 72 minutes in penalties. In second place was the evergreen Ryan Watt on 61 minutes and Martin in third place with 57 minutes. A big shout out to Bracknell’s Ivan Antonov and Peterborough pair Nathan Pollard and Nathan Long who are all ever presents in their respective teams with no penalty minutes at all. Who will win the NIHL Lady Byng? One of them could be in contention – if a trophy can be knocked up by then.

Happy SCORO Christmas

The celebrations continued in South London after teenager Alice from Southfields fired the puck through the SCORO board in the period break at the previous weekends Streatham game against the Swindon Wildcats. The board famously denied former Oxford University women’s player and NIHL media guru Nancy Carpenter when it was launched, and for many months was considered ‘a fix’, but has now seen two jackpot winners with Alice bagging £455.

The first leg of the Autumn Cup final took place on Wednesday evening with Peterborough Phantoms travelling up to Sheffield to face the Steeldogs in Ice Sheffield.

The Dogs took a 2-0 lead through Duncan Spiers and Ashley Calvert only to be pegged back to 2-2 courtesy of Phantoms goals from Glenn Billing and Ales Padelek.

Full highlights can be viewed by clicking HERE . The second leg takes place this coming Friday in Peterborough and should be a cracker.

Saturday review

Swindon’s title challenge took a dent as the Raiders shocked them 5-2 at the Link Centre.

The Cats were again without injured Player Coach Aaron Nell and could find no answer to the Essex side who are beginning to turn a corner after a poor start to the season.

Aaron Connolly, Juraj Huska, Blaho Novak, Dan Scott and Ashley Jackson were all on target for the visitors with Loris Taylor and Chris Jones the scorers for Swindon. The game marked the 500^th appearance in Swindon colours for Sam Bullas and both sets of fans helped raise £520 in a bucket collection for the Thunder.

Thunder scare Phantoms (Lucy McGill)

MK fought Peterborough Phantoms all the way before going down 5-3 on an emotional evening at the Thunderdome.

Goals from Ross Bowers, Hallden Barnes-Garner and Trevor LeBlanc for MK were not enough as James Ferrara, James White, Martin Susters, Scott Robson and Glenn Billing sealed the points for the league leaders.

In Bracknell the Bees eased to a 5-1 win over basement side Invicta thanks to a brace from Roman Malinik plus lone goals from Ben Paynter, Aidan Doughty and Stuart Mogg. For the Mo’s Anthony Leone got the consolation.

Basingstoke continued their impressive run of form with a 5-1 win over Streatham in Hampshire. An early RedHawks goal by Adam Wood was all that the travelling fans could cheer as a double from Michal Klejna and lone efforts from Robert Bordowski, Adam Jones and Tom Ralph sealed the win for the Bison.

Sunday review

The Raiders capped off a stunning four point weekend on home ice as they came from 2-0 down to beat Bracknell Bees 4-2 in Essex.

JJ Pitchley, Aaron Connolly, Blaho Novak and Ashley Jackson were the goal scoring heroes for the Gold and Blue with netminder Michael Gray also earning the plaudits facing 19 more shots than his opposite number. Bees’ scorers were Shaun Thompson and Ben Paynter, while Ryan Watt moved to the top of the PIMs leaderboard with a game misconduct.

Mo’s and Bracknell face off (Kev Slyfield)

The home crowd also witnessed Sean Barry and Josh Martin drop the gloves in the third period.

Peterborough cemented their spot at the top of the league with a 3-2 overtime win over Swindon at Bretton Way. Glenn Billing was the hero with an overtime winner, adding to an earlier James Ferrara double in regulation. Toms Rutkis and Adam Harding earned a point for the Cats with a goal apiece before they fell to Billings’s winner three minutes into OT.

The Phantoms are now two points ahead of the Cats at the top of the table with two games in hand.

The Bison made it a four point weekend with a 5-1 win in Kent against the Invicta Dynamos. A brace from Michal Klejna and lone efforts from Richard Bordowski, Tom Ralph and Ashley Tait sealed the win for the Bison. Callum Best scored the consolation for the Dynamos who weathered heavy pressure in the game.Despite their recent good form however, Basingstoke are still six points behind the league leaders.

After a week of drama and pulling of heart strings, MK Thunder Coach Lewis Clifford and his team got a timely reminder of why they put themselves through the grinder as they beat Streatham 5-1 in South London.

Sean Norris scored twice for MK as did Tomas Rubes with Gareth O’Flaherty getting the other. For Streatham Alex Roberts got the consolation. Lets hope the win and the funds that come in over the coming days give the team enough impetus to carry on past the 16 December deadline. The league would be poorer without them, above and beyond the loss of fixtures.

The results mean that the Phantoms begin to pull away at the top of the table, with Invicta cut adrift at the bottom and a whole bunch of teams now simply waiting for the Play-Offs for a shot at glory. In an eight team league in which everyone qualifies for a spot, it’s not the greatest scenario, however there is still a little window for a twist. Maybe a surprise is just round the corner.