LONDON, UK – The NIHL South continued to provide many talking points with rainbow tape, free food and lots of goals to keep everyone happy.
Fight night in Bracknell (Kev Slyfield)
The EIHA announced their first Player of the Month awards with Ryan Watt of Streatham and Stephen Woodford of Haringey selected as September’s winners. As Freddy Mercury once wrote, pain is so close to pleasure and no sooner was Watt informed of his award, he was told he would get a two game ban for his match penalty against Swindon last Sunday.
Winning October’s award will be a tough ask for the Scot now, but the field is wide open for the rest of the league’s players.
Everyone loves a branded puck right? Peterborough Phantoms and MK Thunder were the latest teams to have theirs delivered for fans to buy and showed pictures of them on their social media channels. Basingstoke Bison decided to up the ante and show off their branded thermos mugs, perfect for combatting the Baltic conditions in many NIHL rinks. All of this merch sparked a debate in the PHN office as to which team will be the first to produce a snow globe this season.
Phantoms swanky pucks
Invicta Dynamos Media Manager Paul Bennett was the toast of Romford during the week as he did the decent thing and put together the highlight reel of the Mo’s 11-1 smoking by the London Raiders. Editing video is a thankless task at the best of times but when most of your players and supporters would probably rather watch the Eldorado box set than re-live the pain, it’s certainly a selfless gesture to do it for the opposition. You can watch it by clicking HERE
Cardiff Fire Coach Mark Cuddihy signed a new goalie during the week, whilst also revealing that experienced duo Luke Takel and Joe Myers are not presently available to play. 19 year old Jordan Lawday was announced by the Welsh side who had already conceded 53 goals prior to the weekend action. Lawday had started the season with Ogden Mustangs in Utah, USA, and obviously decided that a rink with a Taco Bell across the street and three nearby mountain ski areas just couldn’t compare with ‘The Diff’. Older readers may also be interested to note that Ogden was the birthplace of family music group The Osmond’s.
“I have long been an admirer of Jordan” admitted Cuddihy, who is also allegedly a big fan of the Osmond’s.
“Jordan was actually to blame for the first ever Cardiff Fire loss, we had 55 shots on him but only managed 2 goals. I did remind him of that in a phone call earlier this week, we aren’t going to forgive him for that but we are really happy to have him with us now. Jordan is an outstanding goalie. He will undoubtedly join up with team GB 20’s this season and I’d bet on him being the starter.
Not a week can go by without Swindon giving Luc Johnson a publicity task to do and following on from his railway station visit, radio station appearance and antics in a nearby barn, Johnson was this week made to wear a Go Pro in training and you can see the results by clicking HERE
Streatham were in the news thanks to their LGBTQ support and decision to wear Pride Tape in the home game against MK Thunder. Our columnist at Pro Hockey News wrote a piece on why this is important HERE
Finally, the excitement in East London/Essex is building week by week as the countdown to the opening of the new Romford ice rink continues. Some more pictures of the building work so far were published HERE
Saturday action review
Is there anything more mouth-watering in Cambridgeshire on a Saturday night than a Cup clash between Peterborough Phantoms v Hull Pirates? The answer is yes. How about a Cup clash between Peterborough Phantoms v Hull Pirates with free samples of the new Rollover meatballs handed out at the rink.
The local fans ended up with meatball breath and a 17 goal shoot out to observe as the Phantoms won 11-6 on the night. Glen Billing scored a hat trick for the Phantoms, James Ferrara got two goals to add to lone efforts from Darius Pliskauskas, Leigh Jamieson, Owen Griffiths, Ales Padelek, Taylor Romeo and Nathan Salem. For the Pirates it was Matthew Davies with a brace and one each for Lee Bonner, James Archer, James Chilcott and Jason Hewitt.
Bison v Raiders (John Scott)
Phantoms mascot Slasher the dog was allegedly put on a final warning after getting caught smuggling out 10kg of meatball samples after the game.
Food continued to be the theme of the evening as Basingstoke promised a lucky fan a free Papa John’s pizza if either Ashley Jackson, Dan Scott or Aaron Connolly scored the opening goal in their game against London Raiders.
It took ten minutes for the roof to almost blow the roof off Basingstoke ice rink (or was it a slight gust of wind) as fans celebrated Jackson delivering the meat feast with a powerplay goal.
Jackson also scored the final goal of the game in a 7-1 win that saw Ivan Antonov and Connolly both score a brace for the Bison, with Tomas Karpov getting the other.
For the Raiders it was Marek Nahlik with the consolation on a night to forget. Goalie Euan King hobbled off with a knee injury with 13 minutes to go and Captain Tom Davis stepped up between the pipes due to the team back up not travelling to the game. Davis is not the first player to put on the pads in an emergency and it takes a brave player to do so given the technical aspect of the position (don’t tell the goalies we admitted that though).
Enthusiasm from MacPhee
Prior to the game starting, the officials had enjoyed a game of two touch outside the rink, proving that it’s not just the players who enjoy a pre-match kick about. MacPhee, Andersson and Matthews were the stripeys trying to keep the ball in the air in a display labelled as ‘abysmal’ by one onlooker who asked to remain anonymous in fear of reprisals.
In Bracknell the Bees got off to a great start against Streatham with only two minutes on the clock and never looked back, notching a 6-1 win in the first ever league encounter between these two teams.
George Norcliffe scored two for the Bees with Jan Bendik, Frankie Bakrlik, Callum Best and Tom Avery also on target. Streatham’s consolation came from Ryan Webb and the RedHawks went down fighting as Jamie Hayes, Brandon Miles, Jacob Ranson and Ben Paynter dropped the gloves with James Galazzi, Josh Tetlow, Harvey Stead and erm Harvey Stead again.
Bison mascot fails to intimidate the London physio
Cardiff Fire were despatched 7-0 at the Link Centre by a Swindon Wildcats side finding their groove. Sam Bullas scored a brace for the Cats to add to goals from Ben Nethersell, Stephen Whitfield, Ollie Stone, Sam Zajac and Max Birbraer. In the Cats goal Matt Smital enjoyed a 17 shot shut out, his first for the club. Well done Mr Smital.
NIHL media outlet 482 Days took a rare day off from live reporting on hockey and were spotted in a layby just off the A40 with an interior light on and the window opened halfway. Thankfully they were back on the road the following day.
Sunday action review
The Peterborough Phantoms had an early start as they headed to Sheffield for a lunchtime face off in Yorkshire. An early start always feels better if you win and the Phantoms took the two points with a 5-1 victory over the Steeldogs.
Glen Billing completed a 5 goal weekend with a brace to add to lone goals from Tom Norton, Leigh Jamieson and Nathan Salem. Steeldogs scorer was Adrian Palek.
Invicta Dynamos salvaged a little pride but still went down 5-3 at home to Basingstoke with two fights breaking out in the first minute of play!
4 point weekend for Wildcats (Nicky Pearce)
Tommy Ralph and Adam Rehak of the Mo’s took on Bison pair Dan Scott and Tomas Karpov respectively. This was after Callum Fowler had put the Mo’s ahead on 38 seconds. The remaining 59 minutes were not quite as exciting as a Karpov brace and goals from Ivan Antonov, Dan Scott and Aaron Connolly delivered the win for the Bison with Ralph and Colvin on target for the other two Dynamos goals.
Streatham endured a frustrating evening in South London as they went down 3-1 to MK Thunder despite the power of the Pride Tape. The RedHawks took the lead through Alex Sampford but suffered from penalty trouble for most of the second period and the visitors took full advantage with a Ross Bowers brace and a lone effort from Rio Grinell-Parke.
Earlier in the game Hallden Barnes-Garner and Ben Paynter dropped the gloves to get the crowd on their feet!
Michael Gray dusted the cobwebs off his kit to replace the injured Euan King for London Raiders, however as P Head has more rust than an abandoned bus in a rainforest, it was teenage goalie Zach Grandy-Smith who got the nod for the Raiders in their home game against Swindon Wildcats.
The Cats enjoyed a 7-2 win thanks to a hat trick from Sam Bullas and lone goals from Chris Jones, Aaron Nell, Phil Hill and Luc Johnson. For London Ollie Baldock and Callum Wells got the goals.
Bracknell Bees enjoyed a 4 point weekend with a 5-1 win over Cardiff Fire in the Bay. Frankie Bakrlik and Shaun Thompson enjoyed a brace each with Steve Osman also on target to take the Bees up to second place in the league.
Results
Saturday 7 October 2017
Bracknell Bees 6 Streatham IHC 1
Swindon Wildcats 7 Cardiff Fire 0
Basingstoke Bison 7 London Raiders 1
Peterborough Phantoms 11 Hull Pirates 6 (Cup)
Sunday 8 October 2017
Streatham 1 Milton Keynes Thunder 3
Invicta Dynamos 3 Basingstoke Bison 5
London Raiders 2 Swindon Wildcats 7
Cardiff Fire 1 Bracknell Bees 5
Sheffield Steeldogs 1 Peterborough Phantoms 5 (Cup)
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Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com
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