The ultimate gift, the flying crisp and the prolific Slovak

LONDON, UK – As the crowd shouted ‘change the record’, Chelmsford were in fine form while the rest of the teams in the NIHL followed up good performances with bad or vice versa.

The new Romford rink (John Scott)

Hockey fans in London got the chance to book tours of the new Romford Leisure Centre during the week. The facility will not be open until January 2018 but excitement is already building for the new rink, and of course the homecoming of the Raiders.

To continue the feel-good factor there are also proposals for a twin pad complex at Lee Valley. Will East London become an unlikely hotbed of hockey in the future? That remains to be seen.

Slough’s temporary ice rink announced a delay to hockey being played at the venue, much to the disappointment of everyone who was planning to whack pucks there at the weekend. Images emerged of the new line paintings and Slough can undoubtedly claim to have the reddest centre line of any in the South of England. One thing that won’t be erected in the temporary rink will be the old hanging scoreboard, as it popped up on eBay with a reserve price of £750.

Well my Momma says your meatballs SUCK.. ok you get a point!

A number of rinks would benefit from the scoreboard but equally, anyone with a house big enough could install it as a unique talking point. It could be particularly useful for couples who could tally how often each other washes the dishes, walks the dog or wins an argument. Equally those with kids could give them penalties and install a mock sin bin to punish misbehaviour. If you are interested you can bid on it HERE

Streatham Coach Jeremy Cornish gave an interview to the South London Press in which he challenged his team to catch Invicta Dynamos in second place.

‘The team is getting better every week and we really want to get that second spot in the league’ said the Canadian.

‘Invicta are always a tough match and we did a great job keeping the shots against us down and making sure we got the points.’

‘We also play them in the cup semi-final in a couple of weeks, so psychologically it was important to continue our good run of results against them.’

Solent Devils announced that kids would go free to their game against Chelmsford Chieftains on Sunday, and in the same campaign advised their Essex opponents that ‘Hell would be having an Open Day’ which was almost Galatasary-esque in style.

The Devils also launched a caption competition with a random set of images featuring defenseman Ben Lock and official Blaine Evans biting their fingers and sporting facial expressions that could lead to many thoughts.

It really is hard to pick a favourite from the four images as they all delight in different ways.

The last time your Pro Hockey News correspondent made a public promise he ended up buying a round of drinks for the whole pub in South London but in Belarus, another journalist had a much worse forfeit.

Vyacheslav Fedorenkov, who writes for the major Belarusian sports paper Pressball, had said that Dinamo Minsk wouldn’t make it to the play-offs in the Kontinental Hockey League, and would eat his own paper if they did. During the week he was pictured doing exactly that in a rare hockey related article on the BBC.

Saturday action

Bracknell Hornets stunned London Raiders with a last gasp equaliser from Danny Hughes at the Hive the previous weekend and then did exactly the same to Invicta Dynamos in a 4-4 draw.

The man with the cannon epitomises the Hornets never say die spirit of late and his goal added to efforts from Michal Oravec, Conor Redmond and Ben Ealey-Newman. For Invicta it was Adam Rehak, Elliott Dewey, Tom Ralph and Steven Osman with the goals.

The result was bitter sweet as it ensured the Hornets would finish bottom of the league this year unless Solent fail to get a point from any of their next six fixtures, and at the same time concede a shed load of goals. We are happy to eat a box of Weetabix with no milk here at Pro Hockey news HQ if the Hornets manage to catch the Devils.

Ranson seals the win (Paul Foster)

In Milton Keynes the Thunder hosted a Streatham side who haven’t put in a decent performance at the Thunderdome for a couple of seasons.

In what turned out to be an exciting game, the RedHawks finally got some joy in Bucks with a 5-4 win thanks to a late goal from Jacob Ranson.

Alex Sampford scored two for Streatham with Callum Best and Sean Scarbrough getting one each to finish the scoring. MK scorers were Connor Goode with a brace and a lone goal each for Harrison Goode and Alex Whyte.

These two teams look likely to face each other in the Play-Offs so Streatham will be happy to at least get the MK away monkey off their back, even if it’s likely to be a close match up in future.

London Raiders have been a thorn in the side of their rivals from Chelmsford this season, but the Chieftains thrashed them 11-3 in a game to forget for those of a gold and blue persuasion.

Former Raiders star Juraj Huska blazed in five goals to pretty much cement his position at the top of the league scoring charts for 2016/17. Grant Bartlett grabbed a hat trick, Danny Hammond scored two and Anthony Leone got one to complete the scoring. For the Raiders Tom Davis scored two and Tom Beesley got the other.

A special mention to Chieftains goalie Ben Clements who got an assist. We try to always make sure we mention the pad fanatics when they get a point because at Pro Hockey News we understand how sensitive they get if we miss one.

Sunday action

The beauty of NIHL hockey is that if you screw up badly on a Saturday, you get the chance to redeem yourself the next day.

London Raiders repaid their travelling support with a well-earned 5-3 win in Streatham. The Raiders were 3-1 down at one point but battled back to take the win thanks to a brace each for Alan Lack and the impressive Tom Beesley along with a lone goal for Slavomir Buda.

For Streatham Sean Scarbrough hit a brace and Dan Rose got the other. The night was overshadowed as a Streatham fan threw a tortilla chip (yep you read correctly) at Raiders player JJ Pitchley while he was raging in the penalty box. Pro Hockey News cannot confirm whether Pitchley ate the Nacho or crushed it into dust like Superman did with the lump of coal, but the normally hardy Raiders faithful were certainly outraged.

Given the price of the Nachos at Streatham Arena it is beggars belief anyone would part with one so easily such is the dire portion size.

MK bounce back

If London were showing impressive bounce-back-ability, so were MK Thunder who beat Oxford City Stars 4-1 to put a smile on Coach Nick Chinn’s face.

Hallden Barnes-Garner, Jakub Klima, Ross Bowers and Harrison Goode all scored for MK with Jaroslav Cesky on target for Oxford.

MK have now beaten Oxford four times this season but lost twice which shows once again how unpredictable these fixtures can be.

Solent Devils allegedly set up a display of burning tyres around the Gosport Arena and played the ‘Best of Celine Dion’ over a loudspeaker to give the visiting Chieftains the promised ‘Hell Open Day’.

That was as bad as it got for the Essex side as they skated off from yet another tricky fixture with a 5-2 win.

Jake Sylvester scored two for Chelmsford with Juraj Huska, Lukas Zatopek and Brandon Ayliffe all getting one each. Devils scorers were Aidan Doughty and Matt Lawday.

Next week its cup semi-final week with Invicta taking on Streatham and London facing Chelmsford. Let’s hope for a great weekend of NIHL South hockey.