Snow, f-bombs and semis | Pro Hockey News

LONDON, UK – With Valentine’s day just over ten days away and the action coming thick and fast, the NIHL South failed to get a semi-on, causing frustration, disappointment and in some quarters a humorous reaction.

Phantoms take leg 1 (Kat Medcroft)

Snow fell across the country prior to the weekend, with Basingstoke hit harder than most. A few inches of white stuff caused chaos on the roads prompting national news reporters to return to the area for the first time since the Fleet Services fire of 2016.

By Saturday morning, live images beamed to breakfast television were rather disappointing as the snow had already melted and news cameras were left with a background of free flowing traffic on the M3 for their on-the-scene reports.

By all accounts, Basingstoke ice rink (and more importantly the leaky roof) survived the weather, but sadly Bracknell didn’t cope as well, as the Bees promptly cancelled their Cup semi-final with Peterborough due to an icy approach road and car park.

The pictures tweeted out didn’t do the best job of justifying the decision but as the old saying goes, ‘it’s all fun and games until someone cracks a skull.’ Controversially, a public skating session did take place on the day leaving Peterborough less than impressed – more on that later.

Ice, ice Bracknell

In Essex, the Raiders have been enjoying a decent run of form of late, thanks in part to the scoring form of youngster Jake Sylvester. The 21 year old moved to the top of the league goal scoring charts with a hat trick last week and spoke to Jacob Ranson of the Romford Recorder on Friday.

“A hat-trick is always nice, especially when it helps your team get the win, but I think I was just in the right place at the right time to put the puck in,” Sylvester explained modestly.

“Obviously it’s nice to be top goal scorer but it’s a team effort and without the guys around me I wouldn’t be there.”

Also in the spotlight was Streatham Coach Jeremy Cornish who gave an hour long audio interview to The Biscuit podcast.

The interview covered Cornish’s long career as an enforcer with the host a keen fight fan. The F-bomb gets dropped early on so take a listen with headphones and don’t be like the guy/gal at work who opens the innocent looking WhatsApp video from a group chat and then has some explaining to do when the panting sounds start.

Basingstoke forward Dr Russ Cowley revealed all in an interview with Pro Hockey News, where he covered off the reason behind his birdcage, his 100 mile return commute and the form of the new-look Bison amongst other things. You can read it here.

There were disturbing scenes in Scotland as the Dundee Evening Telegraph published “shocking footage” on its website that immediately had people who had never visited Dundee suddenly considering it.

Campbell goes blue

We’ll take the videos of kids playing hockey on frozen Scottish ponds over genuinely shocking footage of gangs in Westfield shopping centre, acid attacks and football fans wind milling each other any day of the week.

If only smart phones had been around when your PHN correspondent ruined a perfectly good pair of Riedell skates skating down a frozen County Durham street in the mid 1990’s. Now that was shocking… especially the technique.

Down in NIHL 2, Solent forward and long-time player Drew Campbell celebrated reaching 1,000 points in a Devils jersey. He also wins PHN bruise of the week thanks to this beauty pictured. Well done Drew!

Saturday review

With the fixture in Bracknell cancelled there were only two games on Saturday night as Milton Keynes and Swindon won their respective battles with the snow.

In MK, the Thunder bounced back from defeat in Invicta the previous week by beating Streatham 4-1. Goalie Jordan Lawday ended the game with an incredible 98% save average turning away 61 of 62 shots against him, double the amount faced by his opposite number.

At the other end of the rink Tomas Rubes, Rio Grinell-Parke, Tom Mboya and Jamie Line scored for the Thunder with Andreas Siagris getting the consolation for Streatham.

Lawday stands firm (Fusional)

The game erupted at the end as both benches argued with each other, culminating in Thunder blue liner Trevor LeBlanc being ejected on a match penalty. The result snapped a ten game losing streak for the Thunder who travel to Streatham next weekend for the rematch.

The result was also significant in that it pretty much cements the final positions of Streatham, MK and Invicta in 6^th, 7^th and 8^th position, even at this early stage. Barring a hot streak from any of the three or massive slump by the 5^th placed Raiders, the current seeds give the top four something to consider should they drop out of the title race themselves.

In Swindon there would be two winners following the Cats semi-final 1^st leg clash against the Bison. One being the team on the ice taking a first leg lead, and the other the winner of a whopping £1000 50/50 jackpot in the crowd.

Swindon 1 Snow 0

Once again the band of volunteers Swindon seem to have on standby whenever it snows, managed to clear the car park and entrance to the rink to make sure the game went ahead.

Unfortunately for those bearing shovels, it was the Bison who ended victorious on the ice as they took a precious 4-3 road win thanks to a brace from Alex Sampford and efforts from Russ Cowley and George Norcliffe. In reply Jonas Hoog, Luc Johnson and Max Birbraer scored for the Wildcats.

In the post-game interview Wildcats Coach Aaron Nell lauded Bison netminder Alex Mettam’s performance as incredible and claimed one of his saves has been the best he had seen all season – high praise indeed.

Sunday review

The second leg in Basingstoke proved to be a thriller as the Bison surged to a 4-1 lead on the night (8-4 on aggregate), only for the Cats to level it up at 4-4 with nine minutes remaining and with one goal in it.

With the minutes ticking down, the Cats gambled and pulled Renny Marr for the extra skater, but to the delight of the home support the puck fell to who else but Ashley Tait, who fired into the empty net for his second of the night to book a place in the final for his team. This was despite another Cats goal two seconds from time from Chris Jones to tie things up at 5-5 on the night.

Bison head to final (Dave Trevallion)

Cats other scorers were Jonas Hoog, Aaron Nell, Tyler Plews and Max Birbraer, while Bison goals came from Russ Cowley, Adam Harding and Richard Bordowski.

With Swindon offering up a grand in the 50/50, Peterborough’s management team needed to up their game and stunned everyone by offering a meal at the Taj Mahal as first prize in their Twitter competition pre-game.

However a trip to the world famous palace in Uttar Pradesh was unfortunately not in the offing, as the small print revealed the winner would be dining at an admittedly excellent restaurant of the same name on Lincoln Road, Peterborough.

When the game did get going, the Phantoms took a 6-3 first leg win over Bracknell at Bretton Way after a nervy opening.

Slava Koulikov’s men gained the early advantage thanks to a brace from Petr Stepanek and efforts from Ales Padelek, Glenn Billing, Nathan Pollard and Corey McEwan. For the Bees it was Aidan Doughty, Josh Smith and Ivan Antonov with the goals.

The 2^nd leg date has yet to be announced with a midweek fixture a real possibility, however Phantoms Coach Slava Koulikov was less than impressed with the Bees ‘snow off’ in his post game interview. Scathing would be one word to describe it.

Click here to listen.