Keyholes, comebacks and the BBC

LONDON, UK – Who lives in a league like this? David it is over to you as we go through the EIHA keyhole.

Collisions at the Hive (Kev Slyfield)

It was a busy week off the ice for Invicta Dynamos as Ashley Jackson and his sick flow departed the NIHL in a blaze of publicity.

Not content with a big piece in the Daily Telegraph highlighting the Great Britain field hockey stars’ brief 6 game flirtation with the on-ice game, the Dynamos also managed to get BBC South East down to Silverblades for a TV feature.

Jackson is of course a long time Invicta junior player and played for the NIHL 2 Mustangs side briefly in recent years. However he is a massive star in field hockey and he will be spending the next six weeks playing in India for the Ranchi Rays.

“There’s not much that goes between the one sport and the other, just hand-eye co-ordination and I’ve been more worried about tripping over my own skates” said Jackson, who scored 4 goals and 3 assists in his time in a Mo’s jersey.

‘Obviously I will miss the weather’

“I love ice hockey and if there’s any chance that I can do it again then I will”

The aftermath of the brawl between Oxford and London saw the EIHA punish Raiders forward Ross Wilkinson with a whopping seven game ban, his team mate Tom Davis with a two game ban and Oxford’s Darren Elliott with a reported five game ban.

It wasn’t all bad for Wilkinson as he put his house up for sale and gave everyone a ‘Through the Key Hole’ style look at how an uncompromising bad boy such as himself lives.

Sadly there was no hot tub in the garden with empty bottles of booze strewn over his lawn, nor a rocky style gym with a punch bag and cardboard cut outs of his opponents to throw knives at.

In fact it was a disappointingly (for the purposes of this column) clean and fresh family home described as ‘extremely well presented’ by the estate agent advert.

Any football fans reading this column may remember when then Newcastle Utd boss Big Sam Allardyce put his house up for sale and the estate agent pictures revealed a framed Sunderland shirt in his study.

Devil at heart or included in the sale?

Let’s just say Wilko doesn’t quite bleed blue and gold just yet.. well not till someone frames him a jersey like his Cardiff one.

Naturally this column usually focuses on the players of the league but we like to give the officials a mention now and again and not only to slate them now and again.

Cardiff based referee Stephen Matthews is riding a bike from London to Paris in June and has set up a donation page in aid of the Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust.

Matthews has a target of around £1400 to raise and is over halfway there already so please donate if you can. The link is HERE

Streatham have had a downturn in form recently but defenseman Stewart Tait was upbeat in a midweek interview with the South London Press.

“We made a lot of mistakes that we need to learn from and although it gives us a real mountain to climb, we still have to play them three more times and we are capable of so much more than we showed” said Tait on the loss to Invicta, that was played in front of almost 800 fans.

“It was a top of the table clash and even though we lost I believe it was still a really entertaining game and I would expect most of those fans to return”

“No one wants to play in a half empty rink and if you train hard all year as we have done, it feels all the more worthwhile to skate out and play in front of so many people”

In NIHL 2 there was a surprising announcement as Chelmsford Warriors announced the signing of retired Lithuanian international Andrius Kaminskas.

Kost.. Kostak.. Kostalaks.. ok it’s JK15

‘Bomber’ had of course been linked to Invicta Dynamos and London Raiders in recent months and maintains his popularity amongst the fans of the Raiders in particular.

The Raiders management instead opted to go for young 21 year old Slovak Jakub Kostelansky.

“Jakub skates well, has good stick handling and a great shot and is going to work very well with his new team mates” said the release on the club’s Facebook page.

“He certainly has youth on his side and whilst some will argue he lacks experience, he makes up for that in energy, stamina and enthusiasm”

If you have a spare hour to listen to the author of this column drone on about the NIHL, refereeing, Telford Tigers and fighting then you can hear it all on the Banners on the Wall podcast.

Saturday

Invicta Dynamos and Streatham Redskins did their best to give Chelmsford Chieftains a clean run at the title as they both slipped up to lower placed opponents.

Solent Devils have been playing well recently and finally grabbed the scalp they had been waiting for as Invicta stumbled at Gosport Ice Rink.

Solent joy (Kev Slyfield)

The 6-4 win for the home side was sealed thanks to goals from Alex Sampford with a brace and one each for Steve Gosset, George Norcliffe, Mitch Murray and Ben Lock.

Juraj Huska got two goals for the Mo’s with Billy Phillips and Nicky Lewis also on target.

Devils forward Mitch Murray was ejected by referee Stephen Matthews on a misconduct call and allegedly headed straight over to the country roads of Kent with a box of tacks to cover the road in ahead of June.

There was a scrap involving Alex Cole and Jack Lee and to round off a thoroughly miserable night for the Mo’s, import Juraj Huska was mistakenly locked in the visitors changing room for a few minutes after his team departed for the period break.

If there is one room (maybe also including first aid rooms) in the NIHL nobody wants to spend a minute longer in than possible it is the away locker room at Gosport, so Huska has our sympathy.

Another team who had an evening to forget were Streatham who were outfought by a new look and energetic London Raiders side at the Lee Valley Ice Centre.

A much needed 6-3 win for the Raiders gave most in the building something to smile about as two goals each for new boy Jakub Kostelansky and Jacob Ranson added to lone efforts from Grant Taylor and Alan Lack.

Streatham scorers were Jakub Klima, Sean Scarbrough and Steven Fisher.

Battle of London (John Scott)

It was a night to forget for Streatham and also the match night announcer who was left praying Jack Tarczycki didn’t score, after being unable to pronounce his name in the pre-game announcements and fluffing Kostelansky’s name at every opportunity to ironic cheers from the crowd.

Perhaps it’s time for the new boy to join the long list of Raiders favourites who are for some reason known by two letters.

Bracknell Hornets and MK Thunder battled out a 4-4 tie at the hive with Jamie Line scoring the equaliser for the visitors in the third period.

Line had already scored once for MK, to add to goals from Connor Goode and Alex Whyte.

Bracknell’s goals came from Danny Hughes, Josh Smith, Carl Thompson and Peter Jasik.

Cage race (Kev Slyfield)

Wightlink Raiders had the time of their lives in the last ten minutes of their game against Oxford City Stars as they smashed home five late goals to take a 10-5 win on the Isle of Wight.

Alex Barker and Jaroslav Cesky top scored with two goals each for the Raiders with Damon Larter, Stevie Balmer, Ryan Webb, Craig Tribe, Corey Watkins and Chris Cooke adding the others.

James Pentecost scored two for Oxford with Joe Oliver, Evan Mackintosh and Tom Avery also on target.

This column mentioned in the mid-season review that Chelmsford were not blowing teams away in the manner that their rivals were so up they stepped with a 9-1 win over Cardiff Devils.

Martin Piecha got four goals, Ross Brears got two and the others came from James Ayling, Michael Ranby and Matt Turner.

Chris Hart got the loan goal for Cardiff to end Euan King’s hope of another shutout.

Sunday

Invicta needed a win against Wightlink to keep their title hopes alive and they duly delivered with a 5-1 victory at Silverblades.

Mo’s snuff out Raiders (David Trevallion)

Goals from Michal Oravec, Billy Phillips, Andy Smith, Anthony Leone and Arran Strawson sealed the two points for the Dynamos, whilst Alex Barker got the loan goal for the Raiders.

Streatham were 5-0 down with half the game gone in their return fixture with London Raiders.

The next thirty minutes saw the Redskins pull off an unlikely win with six unanswered goals to send the home crowd into raptures.

Of course the winner came from former Raider Jakub Klima who added to his earlier goal and a hat trick from Steven Fisher, combined with a solo effort from Adam Wood.

Liam Chong hit two for London as did JK15 with Alan Lack also on target.

Solent Devils also found themselves 5-0 down after the first period against Chelmsford, with the normally excellent Chico Cole replaced by youngster Sam Calder for the remainder of the game.

The game ended 10-4 in the Chieftains favour, with Danny Hammond grabbing a hat trick, Matt Turner a brace and lone goals for Cameron Bartlett, Martin Piecha, Darren Brown, Bailey Chittock and the returning Danny Wright.

Solent scorers were Ryan McFarlane, Andrew Magee, Ben Lock and Alex Murray.

Hat trick Fish (John Scott)

A late comeback from Oxford in the Big Blue Tent was not enough to stop Cardiff condemning them to the foot of the table with a 7-6 win.

Cardiff ended a nine game losing streak thanks to a hat trick from Jonathan Nash and goals from Jamie Hayes, David Sadler, Josh Haslam and Kieran Latchford.

Joe Edwards and Adam Harris scored two each for Oxford with Jacob Smith and Tom Avery getting one each.

Hayes also got an early shower after he was ejected on a misconduct call by referee Nathan Ormond.

Bracknell Hornets clung on to their third place position in the league with an impressive 5-0 win in Milton Keynes against the Thunder.

A brace each from Danny Rose and Josh Smith, added to a lone goal from Carl Thompson to seal the points for the Hornets, whilst David Wride enjoyed a shut out.

The game was soured sadly by a serious injury to Thunder’s Connor Goode so lets hope he makes a quick recovery.

The weekend results mean Invicta and Chelmsford are tied at the top on points but the Chieftains have three games in hand. Oxford sink to the bottom but are still level on points with Cardiff.

Saturday 17^th January 2015

London Raiders 6-3 Streatham Redskins

Solent Devils 6-4 Invicta Dynamos

Chelmsford Chieftains 9-1 Cardiff Devils NL

Bracknell Hornets 4-4 Milton Keynes Thunder

Wightlink Raiders 10-5 Oxford City Stars

Sunday 18^th January 2015

Streatham Redskins 6-5 London Raiders

Solent Devils 4-10 Chelmsford Chieftains

Cardiff Devils NL 7-6 Oxford City Stars

Milton Keynes Thunder 0-5 Bracknell Hornets

Invicta Dynamos 5-1 Wightlink Raiders