Ram raiding, dog walking, showdowns and more

LONDON, UK – It was cup semi-final weekend in the NIHL, but at the bottom of the table, Oxford and Cardiff were in league action and looking for two valuable points.

Mo’s and Raiders do battle (Nicky Craft)

The NIHL is always throwing up a surprise or two and this year we have had crowd trouble, long suspensions and a stabbing to add to an air of darkness amongst the light from the exciting hockey and resurgence of a number of teams in the league.

Last week added two more bizarre stories to add to the 2014/15 campaign script, namely heroic dog walkers and a ram raid.

As regular readers know, we like to give the news in the style of eating a Sunday dinner. Let’s start with the brussel sprouts of the news, namely the worst bit and that is of course the ram raid.

In the movie Horrible Bosses, the police chief in the movie raises an eyebrow when the character Nick (played by Jason Bateman) claims to have been drag racing in a Toyota Prius, however police chiefs in Cardiff were perhaps less surprised when they realised the vehicle used to ‘gain entry’ to the Big Blue Tent at 3.30am on Monday morning was a Toyota Hilux.

The Hilux has gained a reputation, reports Wikipedia, for exceptional sturdiness and reliability during sustained heavy use or even abuse, and is often referred to as “The Indestructible Truck”.

The Big Blue Tent has never pretended to be indestructible but even it held up pretty well to the attack reported on the Wales Online website.

Has anyone seen the Riverside entrance?!

One rink that is virtually impossible to ram raid is Chelmsford thanks to its elevation on stilts and access by a curling ramp. Indeed only a turbo charged mobility scooter with Takeshi Castle style armour could possibly smash through the doors of the Riverside, so it is safe in that respect.

There were unfortunate rumours surfacing that the rink was about to close, but these were quickly clarified as false thankfully.

With the drama in South Wales unfolding there was also trouble in London as Streatham’s American import Sean Scarbrough had his hockey kit taken from the boot of a car parked at Lee Valley Ice Rink.

Scarbrough then had to train in an assortment of spare kit during the week, which was less than ideal given his side faced Chelmsford Chieftains in the NIHL Cup semi-final.

Then came the good news, or the Yorkshire pudding and beef with lashings of hot gravy if we are to continue the narrative.

Dog walkers had discovered the bag nearby and handed it in to the rink staff minus the elbow pads and leg pads. Thankfully the skates and other equipment were still inside although still a little damp following some extended time outdoors.

Of course the integrity of dog walkers has never been in doubt in the UK, following the discoveries of many dead bodies over the years and now stolen hockey equipment, their stock is higher than ever in the national psyche and in stark contrast to that of cat owners.

Cardiff rink gets raided

Scarbrough’s team mate Steven Fisher was also in the news as he previewed the games against Chelmsford in the South London Press.

“It’s a long season and you win and lose its part of the game. The players know we can compete and win against those teams” explained Fisher, when asked if the recent defeat in Essex would affect his team.

“The confidence is already there we know we have the players to beat them it’s just comes down to on the day which players want it bad enough. The back to back wins we had over Chelmsford a couple of months ago show that we are capable of winning the Cup and the Play-Offs more than we were last season”

The other semi-final, namely Invicta Dynamos v Wightlink Raiders had a less turbulent build up although there was of course the distraction of the impending closure of Ryde Arena to keep a lid on too much excitement.

In a bid to lift the gloom and perhaps boost awareness of the issue, a legends game has been swiftly organised for this coming Wednesday.

The game will feature many of the real characters that have graced the ice in Ryde of the years including Jason Coles, Richie Hargreaves, Norm Pinnington and Tony Blaize amongst many other great names.

Face off is at 7pm and it is fair to say that it will be a nice little trip down memory lane for Raiders fans.

As is customary amongst the hockey family, there was of course the usual sh*t stirring on social media and hockey forums as to what would happen with the gate receipts.

“Once the costs of staging the game have been taken out any profit will be put into a pot for the future should the community trust take over the rink” said club spokesman Andy Shier.

“This was never set up as a fund raising game as there is nothing (as such) to raise funds for at the moment”

Ryde arena’s final weeks?

“It should be treated as an awareness match for our cause and an opportunity to get some old Raiders legends back for a last time should the rink be closing. It’s worth also remembering at this point that the Raiders is also run as a not for profit organisation”

It should not need pointing out to anyone with any reasonable knowledge of British hockey that a hockey club making a profit is virtually unheard of at any level.

If there is one thing the Invicta Dynamos do exceptionally well it is their media output and they added a Vine account to their repertoire last week. Mo’s TV has long been lauded in this column and the Vine account allows them to use the footage for a variety of clips which you can view HERE

The first clip was an interesting one too, as it captured defenseman Arran Strawsons goal from the red line last weekend against Streatham.

After a self-imposed media silence, the familiar opening gambit of ‘You must be delighted Kev’ returned to the Kent Sports News SoundCloud as Mo’s supremo Kev Parrish gave an interview following the win over Streatham and looked ahead to the two legged clash with Wightlink Raiders.

Delighted Kev

“I wish them all the best and I don’t want to see another team go out of the league and I don’t want to see another rink in this country shutting, we should be getting more rinks, not shutting them” said Parrish.

“Hopefully they can resolve what they are doing down there and Steve’s doing a massive job down there to try and keep it open, but I couldn’t care less when the puck drops on Saturday and Sunday as we want to beat them.”

“They are in black, we are in white, we will be in blue and they will be in white and we want to beat them, it’s as simple as that.”

“After the game I will sign any petitions they want me to sign and I will sign it as many times as they want me to sign it to keep the rink open, but we need to get to a final”

Saturday

The NIHL Cup semi finals gave a number of teams the weekend off, however at the bottom of the league Oxford City Stars had the chance to help their cause with a home game against Bracknell Hornets.

Welcoming Mike Whillock back to the line-up, the City Stars grabbed a massive two points with a 7-4 win in front of a delighted home crowd.

American Evan Mackintosh scored a hat trick for Oxford, with Joe Oliver, Joe Edwards and James Pentecost also on target. Bracknell scorers were Josh Smith, Josh Martin, Peter Jasik and Jordan Gregory.

Stars shining (Paul Foster)

The Hornets had Cam Barker ejected by referee Rene Ross and racked up an uncharacteristically high number of penalty minutes with 70 logged by the final buzzer.

Wightlink took a goal advantage into the second leg of the cup with an exciting 3-2 win over Invicta on the island.

The home side were missing star forwards Jaroslav Cesky and Alex Barker for both games, but they won the first leg thanks to goals from Owen Griffiths, Craig Tribe and Jeremy Cornish.

Arran Strawson scored for the Dynamos along with Juraj Huska.

Streatham hosted Chelmsford in the first leg and got off to a flier scoring two early goals only to be pegged back and lose 4-3 in front of an expectant South London crowd.

Chelmsford squeeze past Streatham (Rick Webb)

Darren Brown, Alex Staples, Martin Piecha and Matt Turner scored for Chelmsford with Sean Scarbrough and his damp kit netting twice for Streatham to add to a goal from Jakub Klima.

Normally we only feature the NIHL South but if anything interesting happens in the North we do try to mention it.

So for those of you who enjoy it when a player gets sniped by the invisible fan in the crowd or trips over the blue line… this clip from the Nottingham Lions v Coventry NIHL Blaze is for you.

Sunday

In what must go down as one of the games of the season so far Streatham came from 4-2 down on the night to win 5-4 in Chelmsford and force the semi-final to overtime and then penalty shots.

A brace from Danny Hammond and one goal each for Matt Turner and Ross Brears gave Chelmsford a convincing lead, however a brace from Adam Wood and a goal each from Sean Scarbrough, Dom Hopkins and Jack Tarczycki gave the Riverside fans extra bang for their buck.

Showdown drama (Rick Webb)

After a sudden death overtime stalemate, Chelmsford goalie Euan King saved from Sean Scarbrough and then watched as Steven Fisher struck the underside of the bar (did it go in or not?) and Callum Best fired over to seal a penalty shot win. Matt Turner was the lone scorer for the Chieftains with a finish that would not have been out of place in a higher league.

Invicta Dynamos secured their place in the Cup final despite surviving an early scare from Wightlink Raiders. Carl Graham had give the visitors an early advantage but they couldn’t hold on.

The Mo’s won 7-3 on the night and 9-6 on aggregate thanks to a Juraj Huska hat trick, a brace from Callum Fowler and a goal each from Michal Oravec and Nicky Lewis.

Wightlink’s other goals came from Jeremy Cornish and Craig Tribe.

Great road win for Cardiff

The final game of the evening took place in Milton Keynes as Cardiff secured a massive two points with a 4-2 road win.

The Welsh side certainly needed to pull something out of the bag and built on last weekend’s 3-3 tie with Chelmsford to give Oxford a reminder that they are not out of things just yet at the bottom.

The heroes for Cardiff were Owen Bradshaw with two goals to his name and one each from Jonathan Nash and Josh Haslam.

Piotr Poziomkowski and Josh Nicklin got the goals for MK.

The weekend results mean that Chelmsford and Invicta will battle it out for the NIHL Cup at the end of March and at the bottom of the league, Cardiff sit two points behind Oxford with five games to play.