SWINDON, UK – The Top Ten Charts showed a couple of changes last week with Bison’s Chris Wiggins usurping Neil Liddiard of the Flames as the leading penalty-taker. Greg Wood took over the Game Points Average Chart displacing Tony Hand who, of course, has been unable to defend that position for some weeks now. Wood also jumped to the top of the British Goals Scores Chart removing Tom Carlon of the Jets, while team mate Joe Greener now heads both EPL and Brits in assist scoring. As far as D-men go, Paul Dixon replaced his Guildford team mate Jez Lundin at the top of the Brit chart, while Phantoms’ Chris Allen still rules the EPL top ten chart. Not much change in netminders with Alex Mettam still safely ensconced at the top while Wildcats’ Tom Murdy drops a tad with Carl Ambler, Tom Annetts and Jets’ Greg Rockman all moving up a bit.
Onto the week’s news and just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water in Peterborough, someone throws another rock in their pool as the announcement netminder Steve Wall asked to be released. With all their recent troubles, you might have been thinking it was just a matter of treading water for another week until Ondrej Lauko arrives and possibly Warren Tait returns. Then this happens.
It would be easy to jump to the conclusion there is something seriously wrong in the club, to which I referred last week, with the number of player losses sustained so early in the season, but looking at the various reasons behind the departures it is difficult to see a common thread, so the sooner the Phantoms are up to strength and competing on a level field, er, rink, the better for them and the EPL. Having said that, there are rumours of unrest in the boardroom, and you can bet your bottom dollar, or pound if you can find one, there is more to come.
But it is shame to see Wall go. He is a top goalie and has done the club proud but however sad his departure may be his understudy Damien King is now presented with a marvellous opportunity to make the position his while bringing on Dan Lane. Wall said he doesn’t rule out playing again, even with the Phantoms, but ‘having grown more and more unhappy’ felt it was time for a break.
Sounding more like a Soap every day, the local press said Wall is not guaranteed the starting slot for what will be his final weekend as though it is some sort of rite of passage out of the club or the only acceptable sign of respect. Is it not Coach Chris Allen who decides what is best for the club on game night, and by Wall’s own admission he is not a happy camper, so this is the sort of decision he is paid for, so let’s let him get on with it. I doubt Wall himself believes he has some sort of divine right to the net on his last game, but if Allen thinks he is best suited, so be it. Amen.
Still with the Phantoms, Ondrej Lauko said he arrives in England after the coming weekend and will start training with the squad on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Jeff Glowa, who was taken to hospital at the weekend for what was called by the referee a high-stick injury to the mouth inflicted by Blaz Emersic, said he had fallen on the Lightning player’s skate. His 5-plus match was subsequently downgraded to ‘game’ but, hang on a minute, downgraded? If it wasn’t a high stick, and here it must be said the ref must have obviously considered it was at the time, which is fair enough, how can you downgrade a miscall? Surely it should have been wiped out?
And there is yet more. Warrant Tait, who having made a couple of guest appearances and was reported to be returning to the club, may no longer be available. His current side, the Sheffield Steelers in the EIHL, have suffered the loss of the services of Rod Sarich for what could be several months, so a Tait return is now all back up in the air. Not so uncertain is the future of recent Phantoms’ forward Shaun Yardley and the controversial fitness issue as he signed for the ENL Romford Raiders.
Moving on, at last, Bees’ coach Gareth Cox said he was no nearer finding a replacement for Sam Waller, who some weeks ago moved to the Jets. Apparently a name was in the frame but the asking price was not acceptable so, ‘There is no news at all,’ he said. There was brighter news on the condition of Brad Watchorn and James Galazzi, both out injured and who Cox said he expected to return for the weekend.
More injury news as it was announced Aaron Connolly of the Jets was out with a sprained knee and would at least miss the GBU20 warm-up game Thursday, while Lightning’s Grant McPherson, who missed last Sunday’s game, is out with a shoulder injury sustained against the Steeldogs and could be out until Christmas.
Mid-week saw Lightning beat the Bison in Milton Keynes in a game all about ‘seconds’. Leigh Jamieson opened the scoring for the home side before the paint was dry, and while the Bison equalled half an hour later, the lead lasted just seconds again as Adam Brittle restored the lead. The Bison again equalised just after half way and after a pause for Jamieson and Chinn to have a slight disagreement over how long you should flambeau Beef Peppercorn, the home side again took the lead ending it all with an empty net seconds from time.
Saturday saw the return to the EPL of Andrew Sharp with the Flames who with their current top ranking, makes you wonder why they need more muscle. Perhaps the answer was in Swindon where Sharp accumulated not a minute in the penalty box but claimed a debut goal. Could it be he is a secret scoring weapon? Who knows but after half an hour the Flames suddenly looked seriously like throwing the whole shebang out the window as they gave up a 3-goal lead. It all began when Michal Pinc led the revival and Jaroslav Cesky added a short-handed goal minutes later with Nicky Watt equalising with five minutes to spare. But visions of a prospective point or better were short lived as less than a minute later Nathan Rempel returned the Flames’ lead by a fortunate deflection that gave Tom Murdy little chance and an empty net goal allowed the Flames to breath again.
Tigers’ assistant coach Greg Blais said in the week of the coming encounter with the Bison, ‘They have some good imports and British players, but there is a bit of a weakness in their goaltending. We need to crash the net.’ As it turned out the Bison, at full strength, dominated the first period but let in two goals they probably shouldn’t have and then through the import trio of Marcel Petran, Viktor Kubenko and Daniel Volrab went 3-up in almost as many minutes by the half hour. In the third, what was almost like a death wish kicked in and the Tigers punished them almost for not having put them out of the game already with a cracking shot from McKenzie equalising five minutes from time. So overtime it was and when the red light went on for Bison’s Joe Miller the ref said no and the Tigers snatched both points on penalties while Miller snatched ten minutes for misconduct.
In Bracknell the Bees went a goal down after a quarter hour, but were by no means overawed although half way through goals from Martin Cingel, Tom Duggan and Jaroslav Spelda pretty much sealed it for the Phoenix despite all equal on shots. A change of goalie to Annetts for the third didn’t make a great deal of difference despite the continued absence of both Hand and Steve Wallace.
The Steeldogs visited Slough and took a two-minute lead thanks to Ashley Calvert but the Jets had it all equal by the first break. The second period saw the Jets pull away and part-way through the third with a goal by Pavel Gomeniuk it looked like the visitors might be back in it and again minutes later when a second from Calvert five minutes from time followed the Jets’ forth. The climax was the expectation the Steeldogs were going to force the overtime, but it was not to be as Joe Greener slotted in his hat-trick on the empty net.
In Milton Keynes the Lightning hosted the Phantoms and with both sides missing players and matches between these two often close and tense affairs it was perhaps a bit surprising when Jeff Glowa put the visitors ahead, especially with the home side’s current form. Not only that but Luke Ferrara doubled the lead early in the second and when Blaz Emersic drew the Lightning back in with a goal minutes before the end of the period it was the Phantoms who were still looking in control. And that is how it remained for the third period, or at least until the final seconds when the Lightning snatched and equaliser and went on to claim the two points on penalties.
Sunday and the Phantoms took the brunt of the Wildcats’ wrath as the visitor’s goals came thick and fast. Coach Allen said he gave netminder Steve Wall the option to play this his last game, but he declined which was probably one his most astute decisions of his career as Nell kicked things off after ten minutes and by the end of the period had a hat-trick safely wrapped up in his lunch box. Glowa managed to claw one back for the Phantoms just after half way, but by then the chances of coming back from a seven goal deficit were about as likely as croquet becoming an Olympic event and no-one turning up. Oh, it was, was it? Apparently in 1900 and one person did turn up, so odds about right then. But to be fair, the Phantoms are still with just two lines, so hardly surprising it is difficult for them to get through a weekend and then recover in just six days.
The odds of the Phoenix at home beating the Bison must have been a lot higher, having done so already three times this season, so with goals by Slava Koulikov and Martin Cingel inside ten minutes it was looking like more of the same. But then the Bison pulled one back and shortly after Ladislav Harabin took a stick to the face and retired for a while and the visitors added two more for the lead. Mid-way Harabin was back and in a burst of brilliance carved through the Bison fending off a lot of dubious attempts to slow his progress to snap up the equaliser on his knees! But with twelve minutes to go Nicky Chinn put the visitors ahead again and despite throwing much at the visitors including a six-on-four, it wasn’t enough to stick.
Slightly fewer goals were produced in Sheffield where the Jets went ahead early in the second period through Joe Greener, carrying on where he left off the night before. And that was it. This second leg of a weekend double-header was a lot tighter than their two previous encounters, both of which the Jets won, and in fact taking four points off their nearest rivals allowed the Lightning to jump the Steeldogs in the league table. This meant the Steeldogs have now only collected three points from their last five games, and that against the Tigers and Bees, so could it be their momentum is faltering? As a physical side with enough penalty minutes to scare a monkey, you have to wonder if it is a policy that can be maintained for a complete season.
On the move, albeit downwards a place, were the Bees. The home side started the scoring through Ben Campbell after four minutes with Rempel adding a second minutes later. In the middle of the period those two jolly scamps Sharp and Brad Watchorn were introduced to each other, a meeting that was probably pencilled in on both dance cards weeks ago, and which ended with a tentative agreement that in future they would sit down with a nice cup of tea and discuss any differences before resorting to unpleasantness. And it must have worked because Sharp claimed his second goal of the weekend, and the Bees managed to stem the flow for the second half although still suffering a shut-out which gave Flames netminder Mark Lee a record fourth for the season.
And finally, in Telford after their heroic win against the Bison the night before the Tigers went down to the Lightning who were on the board in under a minute. But, the lapse in concentration didn’t prove really damaging until half an hour later when two quick goals from Lukas Zatopek and Tom Norton then made it an uphill struggle for the home side, especially against the tightest defence in the league with just forty-eight goals conceded.
So although the league table is beginning to spread out, there is still only eleven points separating the top eight and, in fact, with the recent slide in the Steeldogs’ position only five points between the middle five teams. So loads to still play for with more than half the season still to go. Can’t wait.
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Contact Bill.Collins@prohockeynews.com
