LONDON, UK – The Essex Cup warms up a midweek winter evening and a popular Swede leaves Bristol for the delights of Telford. Aside from that, normal service resumed in the English National League South as the new ice at Brixton was laid at last.
Bristol Pitbulls fans received bad news during the week as it was announced that Swedish forward Henrik Sahlin had transferred to Telford Tigers in the English Premier League.
Cardiff edge past Skins (Tim Bowers)
The news will come as a surprise to a lot of ENL followers as Sahlin did not put up many points in his time with the Pitbulls despite being a solid presence up front for the team.
Sahlin was a popular character in Bristol and was always helpful to Pro Hockey News from the minute he was announced as heading to Frogmore Street from Bergen in Norway, so we all wish him well in his new role playing for the Tigers.
“Henrik is a really top forward and is a gritty player. He can do pretty much any job and put the puck in the net as well” said Tigers assistant coach Greg Blais, who played in Scandinavia himself at one stage in his career.
“His size is very useful and he is not afraid to stick up for his team-mates”
“At this level, you never quite know what a guy can bring to a team, but he did well in Bergen, which is a similar level to the EPL, so there is no reason why he can’t do well here”
Romford manager Mick Cahill hit out at referee Jurijs Solovjovs after the Latvian whistler officiated a rare midweek game between the Raiders and Chelmsford Chieftains in the Essex Cup.
The Raiders lost the game 5-2 in an ill tempered affair that saw forward JJ McGrath ejected after reportedly ‘losing the plot’ and shooting the puck at Chieftains goalie Ben Clements after the whistle had already blown, before launching a tirade towards the referee.
Accounts differ as to McGrath’s actions after he left the ice (mostly involving a personal refurbishment of the Riverside) but it is universally accepted that he wasn’t a happy man, and nor was his coach Danny Marshall who also got a ten minute misconduct from Solovjovs.
“I’m probably going to get into trouble for speaking my mind but I have to say that I simply don’t trust this referee to call a senior game anymore” explained a seething Cahill in an interview with the Romford Recorder.
New rink in Brixton
“It’s a personal opinion but the evidence has built up over more than a year. In my view, his game management skills are non-existent and although I’m not actually accusing him of bias, it does seem that every time we have this man in charge, we end up with a ridiculously high penalty count”
“Last night, Chelmsford took 12 minutes in penalties – we racked up 96. He even added a penalty after the game to a Romford player he’d thrown out in the second period”
“We had major problems with his officiating last season, so much so that there was regular dialogue between the Romford organisation and the Referee-in-Chief”
“Whether it was an EIHA plan or a coincidence, I don’t know, but Mr Solovjovs hasn’t been in charge of a Romford game since well before last season’s play-offs. Until last night that is”
Cahill went on to explain that the Raiders will be submitting a formal complaint about the official so it will be interesting to see how that works out.
“We have our own ideas about whether it will make any difference” added Cahill with a possible touch of sarcasm.
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The EIHA response will be interesting, especially in light of the 5 year ban on Jack Robinson. Will the hard line continue with further punishment on McGrath or will Solovjovs get the chop? One can already hear the hamster wheels turning in EIHA towers, and to be fair to them, they probably could do without the aggravation.
Back to the game and indeed Chelmsford must have been pleased with their nights work and it will be an interesting return game at Rom Valley Way.
Scorers for Chelmsford were Alan Green with a brace, Jakub Klima, Danny Wright and Gary Clarke. Romford’s goals came from Danny Marshall and Matt Turner.
Sean Wallis and Dwayne Newman dropped the gloves, as did Michael Ranby
and Tom Davis as both teams gave the crowd at the Riverside plenty to talk about.
What do the winners of the Essex cup get anyway? Possibly a VIP evening in the county’s premier nightspot Sugar Hut in Brentwood? A quick check of the dress code could rule out a few guys already…
Strictly No: Baseball caps, Polo Shirts, Ripped clothes, Hooded tops of any kind, Shorts, Trainers, Gloss Designer Trainers, Timberland Style Boots, canvas type footwear.
(Box fresh deck / boat shoes are acceptable).
A few hockey player staples in that list!
Raiders v Thunder (icehockeyphotography.co.uk)
Cardiff’s Phil Manny and Milton Keynes Joe Edwards had a tough week as they both had hospital visits courtesy of hockey related injuries, so let’s hope both make a good recovery. It is often overlooked that a lot of guys suffer a lot of pain away from the game night action to play the sport they love and to entertain the fans, but the dentist,
doctors and hospitals do get a lot of ENL related traffic.
Last but not least, well done to Slough ENL Jets forward Andrew Melachrino who travelled out to Germany with GB Under 20’s for the World Championships Division 1. GB are in a tough group with Slovenia, Belarus, Germany, Norway and Austria so Melachrino and his team mates will have to be on top form throughout.
Saturday
Milton Keynes Thunder faced a tough task as they hosted Romford Raiders at the Thunderdome. It looked like there may be a shock on the cards at one point with the score at 3-3 however the Raiders quickly pulled away with three quickfire goals to win 6-3.
Bristol fans find crayons
Romford goals came from Danny Marshall, AJ Smith, Matt Turner, Jason Buckman, Anthony Leone and Andrius Kaminskas. Scorers for MK were Steve Maile with one and Maros Stefanco with a brace. Goalie Rob McGregor got an assist to his personal delight, confirming another mad trait in ENL stoppers.
No one is more eager to look at the game sheet following a game than a goalie who believes he should have had an assist. They seem to love getting them more than any other player with the exception of Tony Hand and Danny Marshall!
The only other game of the night took place at Bristol where the Pitbulls faced a Wightlink Raiders side boosted by the return of Grant Rounding.
Rounding got on the score sheet for the visitors who won 5-4 despite losing import Joe Rand after only ten minutes thanks to a checking to the head game penalty. Wightlink’s other goals came from Richard Facey with two and one goal each from Steve Gosset and Niall Bound.
Bristol goals came from Alan Armour, Richie Hargreaves, Steve Osman and Steven Fisher.
Sunday
Basement side Streatham travelled to Cardiff and nearly pulled off a shock win after taking a 3-1 lead. Sadly we just didn’t have enough to hold on and the Devils scored two shorthanded goals to take command and then add a couple more for good measure.
Facey firing (flyfifer.co.uk)
The final score was 7-3 in the Devils favour and their goals came from Luke Piggott with four to his name and Chris Jones, Jordan Powell and Rob Sedlak with the others. Piggott could have had five had he looked up and not hit the bar from close range on an empty net after Streatham had pulled goalie Shane Kemp. ‘Taxi for Piggott’ doesn’t have the same ring to it when he has already hit a hat trick.
Streatham scorers were Liam Rasmussen with two goals and Adam Mahoney with a slapshot from pretty much the red line that flew into the top corner of Mike Brabon’s net.
Invicta skated to a predictable home victory over the Oxford City Stars with a 9-3 win. Oxford never seem to have a good time of it down in Kent, and so it proved again as Callum Fowler, Ryan Giles and Justin Noble all hit two goals each, with Andy Smith, Ryan Ellis and Dan Fudger getting the others.
Darren Elliott, Shannon Taylor and Martin Lee were all on target for Oxford who are now without a win in twelve games.
Oxford goalie busy (Tim Bowers)
Chelmsford Chieftains enjoyed a straightforward win in Slough against the ENL Jets with an 8-2 score line. Slough actually led 2-1 at one stage but the league leaders cemented their place at the top of the standings thanks to a brace each for Jakub Klima and Gary Clarke added to lone goals from Darren Brown, Danny Hammond, James Ayling and Tom
Long.
Scorers for Slough were Zoran Kozic and Juris Galajevs.
The weekend results leave Streatham at the bottom and Chelmsford leading Romford by one point at the top however Romford do have a game in hand.
Results
Saturday 10 December 2011
Bristol Pitbulls 4 – 5 Wightlink Raiders
Milton Keynes Thunder 3 – 6 Romford Raiders
Sunday 11 December 2011
Invicta Dynamos 9 – 3 Oxford City Stars
Cardiff Devils 7 – 3 Streatham Redskins
Slough Jets 2 – 8 Chelmsford Chieftains
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com
