LONDON, UK – The top two teams went head to head this weekend in the ENL South and a young British talent headed abroad with his skates packed. Elsewhere in the league there were new signings, plenty of goals and a big shock.
Cardiff shutout Invicta (Tim Bowers)
Much of the news across the ENL during the week consisted of former Oxford City Stars players finding new teams. Interestingly enough for a struggling team it appears that virtually all of the Stars players who want to continue playing hockey appear to have been gladly welcomed by rival teams.
It was Bristol Pitbulls turn to boost their squad this week as they announced the signing of Shannon Taylor and Kiwi Martin Lee from the remaining carcass of the Stars and also concluded their negotiations with goalie Chris Douglas with a positive outcome.
Most pleasing of all however was the transfer of young 18 year old prospect Josh Oliver who took up an offer from German club Red Devils Bad Nauheim to play the remainder of the season with the clubs youth section in the land of sausage, lederhosen and of course big breasted frauleins laden with steins of beer. The German side signed former Stars youngster Mike Whillock during the summer so Oliver will have at least one familiar face in town.
Regardless of the hockey, the chance to live abroad and sample another culture will do Oliver (and indeed any young Brit) the world of good. Bad Nauheim is a town famous for past residents including Elvis Presley and a certain Franklin Roosevelt who spent some time there whilst his father used the famed salt springs to try and cure a heart condition.
Not only that, but Bad Nauheim hosted the Saudi Arabia football team during the 2006 World Cup. Now that is a talking point right there.
With rumours of Romford’s rink closing, Raiders Player Coach Danny Marshall came out in the press advising the local authority to take a look at the new Brixton rink south of the river as an example of what could help his team in the interim period of the current rink closing and a new one being built.
Douglas and Taylor in kennel (flyfifer.co.uk)
“The ice was lovely, there was a bit of an atmosphere with only so many seats, but it does what it needs to do” explained Marshall in an interview with the Romford Recorder.
“If they do knock down Romford ice rink, it’s all we need to tide us over”
In the same interview, Marshall complimented the Redskins side that his team had beaten on both evenings the previous weekend.
“They were a completely different side from when we first played them” added the Raiders all-time top scorer.
“They will start turning teams over. They are not the worst team in the league at all”
There was more excitement on the Isle of Wight, as the Ryde Arena announced a massive event for the residents on the island. No it wasn’t the upcoming visit of London’s coolest hockey team (Streatham of course), or indeed the fact that Raiders Player Coach Jeremy Cornish has just bought a cute Irish terrier named Obi.
The Peter Andre ‘Up Close and Personal’ Tour, featuring special guests hits the Cube on the 14 December of this year with fans already speculating who the ‘Mysterious Girl’ singer will have accompanying him.
Pro Hockey News has heard rumours that the Raiders North East connection of Dan Murdy, Liam McAllister, Daniel Pye and Nathan Taylor are planning to form a band to support Jordan’s former husband and adapt the classic Lindisfarne track Fog on the Tyne and rename it Fog on the Solent with lines such as ‘sitting on the Sea Cat eating sickly Sausage rolls’, ready to send Andre’s fans into a frenzy.
Ryde goes insania for Andre
Obviously that last paragraph was a lie, but one bit of news that did cause surprise in the build-up to the weekend was the announcement from Cardiff that they had signed defenseman Ross Wilkinson from their ENL 2 side.
At first glance the signing did not raise any eyebrows until it was pointed out that Wilkinson had 480 penalty minutes in only 36 games. Cynics drew parallels with the signing of Ogie Ogilthorpe ahead of the Syracuse Bulldogs clash with the Charlestown Chiefs in the movie Slapshot, but surely the timing of Wilkinson’s signing ahead of the game against Invicta was coincidental?
“I’m looking forward to stepping up to the challenge that Cudd and Lyndon have given me, they have put their trust in me and I’m not going to let them down” said Wilkinson, who is by all accounts a decent player as well as a scrapper.
“Playing alongside the great players in ENL 1 like Stoney (Jason Stone) and Jamie Hayes is going to be fantastic for me. Let’s just say I’m going to add a lot of spice to this squad”
Saturday
Streatham travelled to the Isle of Wight to take on a Wightlink Raiders side in good form of late. For the first time I can remember in a Redskins jersey we took pretty much a full strength team to the island and the opening stages were quite close.
Wightlink ended as deserved 6-2 winners however I would like to think we gave them a good game and had we not been punished on the power play it may have been a different story. As it was, two goals for Dom Hopkins and one each for Nathan Taylor, Jeremy Cornish, Joe Rand and Arran Strawson did the damage for the Raiders with Jerry Pavlus and Norm Pinnington getting the goals for Streatham.
The rink was pretty full thanks to some initiatives by the Raiders and the atmosphere turned up a notch with four minutes to go when Pavlus and Cornish clashed and when Jerry whacked the big man with his stick, the mist descended and the Raiders Player Coach dropped his gloves and gave chase.
Luckily for Jerry he is very quick and he turned Cornish inside out before diving elegantly over the boards and to safety. It was like a scene from the game British Bulldog (Google it if you don’t know).
Brabon spells it out (snapshot-hockey.co.uk)
Realising he wasn’t going to get the chance to send Pavlus to the dentist via his fists, as would have been likely, the only thing left of the diminutive Slovak on the ice (namely his stick) was promptly sliced in half over the boards in front of the Streatham bench as the rest of the Raiders team descended and there were handbags from both teams.
A fuming Cornish was kicked out by referee Pickett and Jerry was left to face the music in the form of hundreds of home fans making chicken gestures and looking rather delighted at the little twist to the end of the evening.
I can understand why Cornish was fuming at the slash as it was a bad one but I can also understand why Pavlus legged it. Maintain some kind of kudos in front of an arena of people you don’t know and end up sipping the pink drink at the dentist the following day (plus the bill), or dive over the boards and have a few people take the mick, quite an easy decision when hockey is not your primary income.
Some people may say, don’t cheap shot if you can’t stand toe to toe, but in truth the pair had been having words off the play so only they know what lead to it all kicking off. Regardless, the fans probably went home feeling they had got good value for their money and that is a positive.
Predictably the game in Cardiff didn’t turn out to be the bloodbath some expected. The EIHA are still yet to announce the result of the game between the pair in December which was abandoned mid-way, however Cardiff made no mistake on home ice with a 3-0 victory over the Invicta Dynamos.
Devils goalie Mike Brabon celebrated an excellent shut out against the Dynamos who had lost their three previous games on the road before this. Jamie Hayes, Adam Harding and Ricky Deacon were on target for the home side who enjoyed a bumper crowd of over 600 fans.
Dog leads Chieftains to victory
Chelmsford posted a straightforward 8-3 victory against Slough ENL Jets at the Riverside ahead of their big clash with Romford the following day.
Jakub Klima hit two for the home side with Danny Wright, Darren Elliott, Danny Cox, James Ayling, Alan Green and Ross Brears getting one each. Stuart Mogg, Zoran Kozic and Jurijs Galajevs getting the goals for Slough.
Romford also had an easy warm up for Sunday with a 7-0 road win in Bracknell. A Juraj Huska hat trick and goals from Danny Marshall, AJ Smith, Shaun Yardley and Grant Taylor gave Romford the two points.
Sunday
The big clash of the evening took place at Rom Valley Way where a big crowd gathered to see the top two sides in the league go head to head. Romford aimed to continue their long unbeaten home stretch whilst Chelmsford needed to win to stop a gap appearing at the top.
With both squads full of talent it was somewhat surprising that it was the visitors that took a relatively comfortable 4-1 win in a game full of incident played out in front of two noisy sets of supporters.
Arguably it was the Raiders who let the occasion get to them. Certainly not lacking in effort or application, it was the constantly bubbling emotion and lack of discipline that undid the home side as Chelmsford simply sucked it all up and punished Romford with some clinical and at times excellent hockey.
Some of the visitors goals would not have looked out of place at a higher level, and this was typified by Tom Long’s blistering slap shot that flew in off the inside of goalie Glen Jackson’s post to seal the game.
Chelmsford’s other goals came via a brace for the impressive Danny Hammond and a snipers effort from Gary Clarke. The ever willing Anthony Leone got Romford’s consolation in a game that ended in disappointment for the majority of the fans present.
Clarke appears to have molded his side in the same way that his former coach Nick Poole always does at MK Lightning in the EPL. A squad full of players with speed, who are comfortable on the puck and work well as a unit. Most of the squad have a passive temperament on the ice with a couple of agitators to combat aggressive opponents. Overall they appear to be a balanced team.
Romford may have lost this game but the season still has a long way to go and they have just as much chance of lifting the league title as before. In Huska and Kaminskas they have two quality imports and Marshall is still a quality player, but in this game the Raiders Player Coach could have possibly done with someone like the experienced Scot Dean Birrell who was assisting his opposite number Clarke, organising the Chieftains bench.
Lack Attack
As a neutral watching with interest, I have to say I thought the referee and his linesmen did an exceptional job in difficult circumstances. There was a lot going on throughout, especially as some of the Raiders more aggressive players got frustrated as the game went on and indeed some of the abuse dished out from the crowd towards the officials between the period breaks would make Frankie Boyle blush.
It does make me wonder why anyone would want to be a referee or a linesman in situations like that. I think I would rather clean the hamster cages at the Pets at Home across the road for an hour or so each weekend instead.
The biggest shock of the weekend came at Absolute Ice Slough where the ENL Jets pulled off a shock 3-2 victory over the Wightlink Raiders.
Carl Thompson hit a brace for the Jets and Mogg got his second of the weekend to send the Jets three points clear of Streatham at the bottom of the table. Joe Rand and Dan Pye got the goals for the Raiders who were missing Jeremy Cornish through suspension.
Bracknell made up for the previous night’s showing with an impressive 3-1 win over MK Thunder. Alan Lack, Tony Barclay and Danny Hughes were on target for the Berkshire side who are improving every week.
The last game of the evening took place at Frogmore Street as Invicta salvaged their weekend out west with a 5-2 win over the Bristol Pitbulls.
Callum Best scored two for Invicta with their other goals coming from Adam Copland, Ryan Ellis and Callum Fowler. Shannon Taylor scored on his return for Bristol and Yousif Abu Saada also scored for the Pitbulls.
Results
Saturday 14 January 2012
Bracknell Hornets 0 – 7 Romford Raiders
Chelmsford Chieftains 8 – 3 Slough Jets
Wightlink Raiders 6 – 2 Streatham Redskins
Cardiff Devils 3 – 0 Invicta Dynamos
Sunday 15 January 2012
Romford Raiders 1 – 4 Chelmsford Chieftains
Bristol Pitbulls 2 – 5 Invicta Dynamos
Milton Keynes Thunder 1 – 3 Bracknell Hornets
Slough Jets 3 – 2 Wightlink Raiders
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com
