LONDON, UK – With the Omicron variant now rampaging through the UK and hockey negatively affected again, it’s easy to feel down and anxious about the future. Here are five things that have happened so far in the lower tiers this season to put a smile on your face.
“Petr if you can come over here, we just want to get the scoreboard in shot” – Picture courtesy of Cardiff Fire.
Petr Cech selfies
Not content with holding legendary status as one of the world’s finest football goalkeepers, Petr Cech is now filling up the camera rolls (and social media feeds) of every player and fan in the Wilkinson Conference. Now a netminder with the Guildford Phoenix and clearly a lovely guy, Cech appears to get inundated with requests for photos at every turn, and obliges with a smile. Even in games where the Phoenix have narrowly lost, such as an away game in Cardiff, he still stuck around after the buzzer to pose with his victorious opponents. Lesser goalies may have smashed a stick over the crossbar and swore at fans on the way to the locker room instead, but not Petr – a top man.
Nottingham Lions finally win
Luke Thomas feeling 21 again.
After 1,442 days without a victory, the Nottingham Lions finally snapped an epic winless streak thanks to a 5-3 win over the Solihull Barons.
As the old saying goes, victory always tastes sweeter after defeat and boy have the Lions had a lot of those over a period of four years. In the post game interview Captain Luke Thomas said he felt 21 again after the result, which we can only assume was a golden time for him personally.
A quick Google search for the longest winless streak in hockey yields only NHL results (hello Winnipeg Jets 30 games in 1980/81), however there’s no doubt that the Lions will be right up there in the history books globally for their efforts.
Bristol settle in at home
Who let the dogs out? pic by FlyFifer photography.
The Bristol Pitbulls celebrated a return home in front of a sell out crowd back in late October. The likeable outfit have been on the road for around a decade waiting for the new rink to be built in their city. It’s a story worthy of a movie.
Assuming omicron doesn’t derail things too much, you can expect Richie Hargreaves and his merry band of men and women to continue building the club up to be a serious force in the lower tiers for years to come.
An early sign they’ve made it, will be if Hargreaves and some of the squad take flight in a massive Pitbull themed hot air balloon at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta in August next year. Who would bet against it?!
Crowds came back to the rinks
There was some uncertainty as to whether hockey fans would come back to rinks after the previous peaks of the pandemics, but return they did. Attendance numbers are rarely reported on officially, but by most accounts gates were up, and new fans are still coming through the doors to watch the best sport in the world.
Lockdowns don’t help hockey in many ways, but for some people, the restrictions pent up a desire to get up off the sofa and out and about as soon as they were lifted. Everyone loves a busy rink except the cleaners, and that’s a fact!
British hockey never changes
Milique Martelly making waves – pic by Fusional
The pandemic may have put a halt on proceedings for over a year, but it didn’t take long for British hockey to get back into the swing of things. The usual mix of entertainment and the bizarre.
In the space of four months, hockey managed to pack in the familiar repeated home comforts of fans chasing players, youngsters scoring debut goals, teams forgetting their jerseys, misprinted jerseys, unprofessional social media content, senior debuts aplenty, teams reluctant to take long bus journeys, rink bars and cafes shutting up shop, mass brawls, spitting incidents and tribal arguments across the internet. It was if covid hadn’t happened and everything resumed as before.
There is of course still time for old favourites like snowmaggedon, zamboni breakdowns, admin related points deductions and an ice rink closure due to something unforeseen like a rare bat colony roosting above centre ice. So there’s all that to potentially look forward to – all preferable to another abandoned season.
See you in 2022…. maybe.
Contact the author: davidcarr_2@hotmail.com
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