EPL Roundup – where are they now?

SWINDON, UK – The big news of the week was the release of the fixtures for the coming season. The Bees appear to have been the quickest off the mark with the announcement, including news of their challenge matches arranged against neighbours Bison and Jets, but by the time I snuggled down after completing this piece just after midnight I could only find one site that had all the EPL fixtures – MINE! Ha!
 
Anyway, nothing more on the Scimitars situation this week, at least not directly. Indirectly, though, is a different matter. My ears pricked up with the news from the Phoenix that Ukrainian D-man Pavel Gomeniuk had signed on with them, according to their site from EIHL Hull. Didn’t a Pavel ‘Gomenyuk’ sign on for the Scimitars in June from the same club, I wondered? In fact, it is one and the same person as the Manchester club kindly confirmed and so is, apparently, their spelling. So read into this move what you will, but a little digging produced the allegation the Scimitars players had all been advised to seek employment elsewhere, so the sooner this is all settled the better for everyone.
 
Two other moves that didn’t quite go according to plan were the reported signings of Brits Stuart Bates and Simon Harrison to the Tigers blue line. Apparently both decided to stay with the ENL Titans. But former Tigers captain Daniel Croft did manage to put pen to paper and rejoins the club he left for a years sabbatical following its withdrawal from the EPL a year ago. Croft has maintained his fitness during this sojourn by training with the Titans. The Tigers also announced one of their pre-season games against the Coventry Blaze at the beginning of September.
 
Coach Ryan Aldridge at the Wildcats finally got his man when Welshman Steve Fisher joined from the ENL Cardiff team where he was top scorer with an average of over two points per game and finished in third place in the ENL. This move was first rumoured two months ago and in between Aldridge has had to fight off competition from Steve Moria at Basingstoke and Fisher’s home team.
 
20-year-old British forward Carl Thompson re-signed for the Jets for the sixth consecutive season and as a product of their junior programme it means he has been playing there since about, oh, I don’t know, the age of three, so what a marvellous testament for development programmes.
 
The final move of the week was announced by the Flames who recalled British D-man Neil Liddiard, a former GB international, who re-signed for an eighth season with the Guildford side where he has clocked up more than 400 games.
 
A quick look at the rosters suggests the Bison and Bees have almost completed their lineups which leaves about forty places still to fill in the league. A couple of names conspicuous by their absence come to mind, namely Phantoms’ forward James Knight who ended the season in the top ten British assist chart and forward Gary Clarke of the Flames who finished as a top ten British goal scorer. Two top ten netminders, Finn Pasi Raitanen of the Scimitars and Bison’s Davey Lawrence, also seem to be missing, although I admit to no great effort having been made to account for their whereabouts so they could all be sat in front of my tele with a can apiece watching the cricket for all I know.
 
But netminders we do know about so far include those at the Wildcats, Bison, Jets and Phantoms where only one appears in residence, while the Scimitars have three and the Flames are the only team to have an import fill that spot. And talking of imports, the Phoenix still trail in that department with just the one signed so far, followed by the Tigers with two while all other teams have at least three.
The Jets and Bison are the only two teams so far to have committed to five D-men, but of course there are still plenty of slots to fill.
 
And in the quiet corner this week? Milton Keynes as usual with Basingstoke, Sheffield and Peterborough so that’s it for another week and another week closer to the big off. Now let’s go and see if they left me any space in front of the tele.
 
  For more EPL facts, articles, figures and news try my website – www.iceman-epl.com Contact the author Bill.Collins@Prohockeynews.com