Tacos, dogs and surprises in NIHL South

LONDON, UK – After an interesting opening week of action in NIHL 1 South, week two decided to turn things up a notch further to the joy and relief of many.

RedHawks and Raiders renew their rivalry (John Scott)

Put questions to the masses and you may not like the answer you get back is something we hear time and time again these days. The management of the Peterborough Phantoms, fresh from shelling out on a dog mascot costume, put the naming to a public vote and now have a mascot called Slasher!

Will Slasher patrol the stands chopping fans across the wrists in a playful manner or will he be outside straddling a running hose in the car park to cheers from queuing fans? The possibilities for fan interaction are endless! For the record, the PHN media team love the new name.

Cardiff Fire and Coach Mark Cuddihy have been magnificently mysterious this summer and up until last week had only announced eight players on their roster. With the days ticking down before their opening weekend they went all Sky Sports deadline day on the NIHL media and fired out announcement after announcement (12 in total) during the week with the help from the wonderfully named Dai Sports website.

Mark ‘Shoreditch’ Cuddihy

Former Billingham utility man David Manning was announced as one of their import choices as was old favourite Rob Sedlak and Swedish defenseman Kalle Allner.

“He’s going to be a very good player in our league” explained the fashionably bearded hipster Cuddihy on the Swede joining the Fire.

“We moved quickly to secure his signature. He’s a great skater and has a very good skill level. Defensively he is really solid and will offer a lot to our offense as well. He hadn’t skated much this summer so it’s frightening to know he’s going to get better than this.”

It’s a common observation made by many hockey players over the decades, however the latest to notice the obvious was Streatham’s Alternate Captain Adam Wood. The feisty utility player commented in the South London Press during the week that people who appear to be ars*holes on opposition teams are usually decent once you get to know them.

“It’s so common to play against players and really dislike them to only find out years down the line that they are great guys,” said Wood in the interview.

“We definitely clashed over the past couple of seasons playing against each other but Bairdy (Brendan Baird) is sat next to me in the changing room and is definitely not as bad as I may have previously thought.”

After Bracknell furnished their imports with a couple of team cars last week, their rivals decided to turn the NIHL into an episode of Top Gear in the build up to the weekend. Basingstoke Bison import Tomas Karpov was asked to head down to Mercedes Benz Sandown during the week and must have thought all of his Christmases had come at once.

Smart wheels for Karpov

A branded Smart Car was probably not his pick of the showroom but the tidy little motor is great for parking and ideal if you don’t want to be the guy giving lifts everywhere to team mates. Not to be outdone, Peterborough import Ales Padelek was given a VIP tour of the town’s Audi garage as they sponsor the Phantoms warm up jerseys this year. Will he get an RS 5 Coupe? Stay tuned.

Talking about imports… is there anyone who doesn’t like Nick Poole? The popular Milton Keynes hockey legend now owns Baja Cantina, the coolest Taco truck in the South of England and made MK Thunder players a mouth-watering offer on Tuesday.

Poole promised the Thunder’s game winning goalscorer in the upcoming weekend free tacos, and proved it was no false promise by giving Coach Lewis Clifford a free taco for leading the team to their first league win in Invicta last weekend.

For the record, Baja Cantina is more than welcome to send some free tacos the way of our central London HQ any time, day or night.

When Gillingham Ice Rink announced a week ago that they would be introducing online ticketing, security checks and allocated seating for Invicta Dynamos games it seemed pretty inoffensive and actually rather sensible. However a 57 post thread on The Hockey Forum about tickets is usually a bad sign, as Oxford will remember from the time they added £1 to their regular ticket price for the Play-Offs.

In any case, the Dynamos put out a Press Release during the week to say that the allocated seating arrangement had been scrapped, to much rejoicing in Medway.

Saturday action review

After twelve months of fans, players and unsuspecting dog walkers being snared by fines from the Lee Valley Ice Centre car park, users at least got some bang for their buck as the newly refurbished East London facility opened its doors for the first time.

The pre-game chatter amongst fans watching London Raiders play Streatham in the NIHL Cup was how clean and clear the glass around the rink was. They all got a crystal clear view of Streatham pulling off a 5-3 road win thanks to goals from Ryan Watt, Brendan Baird, Brandon Miles, Michael Farn and Adam Carr.

Raiders’ scorers were Jake Sylvester with a brace plus a lone goal for JJ Pitchley.

Nell and his side find Annetts and the Thunder a touh task (Lucy McGill)

In Swindon, the Wildcats nearly suffered the first upset of the season as MK Thunder took them all the way to overtime and penalty shots at the Link Centre.

The Thunder had the lead on three separate occasions during the game thanks to a brace from Rio Grinell-Parke and a goal from Ross Bowers, however Sam Bullas, Sam Zajac and Aaron Nell replied for Swindon and Chris Jones was the only scorer in the showdown to win it for the Cats.

Cardiff Fire and Invicta Dynamos have had some cracking battles over the years, especially in Wales so when Brad Watchorn and Mason Webster dropped the gloves after only seven minutes it suggested the simmering rivalry still has some legs.

The visiting Mo’s fell behind to a Michael Stratford goal with only 23 seconds on the clock but a four goal salvo from Invicta import Adam Rehak doused the Fire and gave his team a 4-1 win.

The start of Basingstoke Bison’s cup game against Telford Tigers saw balloons released and a minute’s applause for former volunteer and supporter Julie Green who sadly passed away recently.

Once the puck dropped the Bison raced into a two goal lead through Ivan Antonov and Eliiott Dewey, however the short benched Tigers hit back with five unanswered goals from Jason Silverthorn with two and lone efforts from Joe Miller, Jack Watkins and Adam Taylor.

Webster and Watchorn go at it in Cardiff (Tim Bowers)

The main talking point was not the game however, but the presence of THF favourite Chris Wiggins who was stood next to the Bison bench during the match. Will Wiggy and his brand new flashy motorbike be returning to the Bison herd? That remains to be seen but likely.

The final game of the day took place in Slashers kennel as Peterborough Phantoms beat Bracknell Bees 4-2 in a closely fought contest.

Two goals from Darius Pliskauskas put him into contention for a nice motor from Peterborough Audi, and lone goals from Will Weldon and James White sealed the points for the hosts. Bees’ goals came from coach Scott Spearing and the highly rated Josh Tetlow.

Sunday action review

Peterborough Phantoms had the good fortune to be scheduled in a Cup game up in the City of Culture, but it wasn’t all good news as they lost 6-3 to the Hull Pirates.

James Archer came back to haunt his old club (yep we went there) with a hat trick to add to goals from Jason Hewitt, Lee Bonner and Jonathan Kirk. Phantoms scorers were Darius Pliskauskas, James Ferrara and Nathan Salem.

London Raiders bounced back from their loss the previous night to beat Milton Keynes Thunder 7-5 at the Thunderdome.

The Raiders were actually 6-1 up midway through the game but a late Thunder comeback was too little too late. JJ Pitchley scored two for London with Oleg Lascenko, Marek Nahlik, Jake Sylvester and Alan Lack also on target. For the Thunder Rio Grinell-Parke continued his hot streak with two goals, with Jamie Line, Ross Green and Ross Bowers with a goal each.

Bison use all methods to stop Frankie and the Bees (Kev Slyfield)

Basingstoke Bison bounced back from their Cup defeat to Telford with a hard fought 2-1 win at the Hive against Bracknell Bees. The Bison took two Cup points thanks to a goal each from Tomas Karpov and Jaroslav Cesky (against his old club). The Bees goal came from Shaun Thompson. Bees player coach Scott Spearing dropped the gloves with the Bisons Kurt Reynolds to add to the talking points.

In Streatham the resident RedHawks had their best first period in many a year as they put six past a Cardiff Fire side before the first buzzer before going on to win 9-2.

Ryan Watt fired in four goals to add to a brace from Aidan Doughty and goals from Alex Sampford, Ben Paynter and Brandon Miles. Alex Symonds and Sam Smith got the goals for the Fire.

Miles also danced centre ice with Cardiff’s Brad Watchorn in the first period as the gloves came off. There was a sour note to the occasion as Cardiff’s Michael Stratford was taken to hospital after being stretchered off the ice with a leg injury. Best wishes from all the team here at Pro Hockey News.

The 482 Days media team were in South London for the game and offered fans free pin badges which were lapped up by the home support, blissfully unaware that the same pins had been used to destroy a kid’s birthday party balloon display at Streatham Wimpy earlier in the day.

Happy Mo’s fans

The final game of the day took place in Kent where the Invicta Dynamos fans enjoyed a total thriller of a game that had the ice rink rocking.

An overtime win over Swindon Wildcats will go down as one of the clubs best results in recent times and it was new signing Bobby Chamberlain with the winning goal just nine seconds in. The regulation score had been 2-2 with Ondrej Zosiak and Callum Fowler scoring for Invicta and both Sam Bullas and Sam Zajac getting the goals for the Wildcats.

So after a weekend of quite frankly surprising results, perhaps in NIHL 1 at least, while all teams are fresh and injury free it might just be an interesting season ahead.

Results

Saturday 16 September 2017

Basingstoke Bison 2 Telford Tigers 5 (Cup)
London Raiders 3 Streatham IHC 5 (Cup)
Peterborough Phantoms 4 Bracknell Bees 2
Cardiff Fire 1 Invicta Dynamos 4
Swindon Wildcats 3 MK Thunder 3 (Wildcats win PS)

Sunday 17 September 2017

Invicta Dynamos 2 Swindon Wildcats 2 (Dynamos win OT)
MK Thunder 5 London Raiders 7
Streatham IHC 9 Cardiff Fire 2
Bracknell Bees 1 Basingstoke Bison 2 (Cup)
Hull Pirates 6 Peterborough Phantoms 3 (Cup)