LONDON, UK – It was the last weekend before Christmas and all through the rinks, hockey fans were stirring, and so were the mice, as the Britton Conference signed off 2019 in style.
Stars shine against Solent (Paul Foster)
Armchair dwellers were given a boost as it was announced the Freesports TV channel would be showing GB under 20 games at the upcoming World Championships in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Martin Grubb’s team will take on hosts Lithuania along with Japan, Romania, Serbia and Spain.
Unfortunately the tournament doesn’t start until January 6th, so it won’t come soon enough to provide an excuse for a living room escape from annual delights of Ian Beale crying in a party hat, Dr Who refusing to die off or endless re-runs of Love Actually.
Preparations for the Kirsty Hopgood All-Star charity game in Oxford on the 29th December continued with both sides boosted by the inclusion of a number of players from the GB Women’s team.
The raffle includes some high quality prizes including tickets to GB v Canada plus a box at a Sheffield Steelers game so check out the details here.
One of the bench coaches in the charity game will be Romford supremo Ben Pitchley who has raised over three grand so far with a charity hair growth.
Grizzly Adams DID have a beard
Pitchley had been scaring small dogs and cats across Essex with his Grizzly Adams style appearance in recent weeks, so to see it all shaved off via a live stream on Twitter this week will be a big relief to everyone.
There’s still time to donate here.
Following the shock departure from Slough Jets of Britton Conference Player of the Month for September Sean Norris, it was revealed that the talented youngster would still be icing for Basingstoke Bison on his existing two way deal.
Will he be icing anywhere else on a two way with the Bison? Who knows?
The PHN media hub received a Google alert during the week for a news story about Russian hockey players stripping off for a Christmas calendar. Anyone expecting to see Ovechkin covering his love gun with a strategically placed Stanley Cup will be disappointed, but not by much.
Russian internationals Ekaterina Lebedeva and Anna Prugova were among numerous women hockey stars involved and you can read all about it – or just look at the pictures as most readers of this column tend to do, by clicking here.
For the record, we have no alerts set up for naked Russian hockey players, so we can only assume it was a Google error.
Saturday review
Oxford City Stars gave their fans the perfect early Christmas present as they beat league leaders Solent in a shootout at Oxpens Road. Stars netminder Ross Miller and his opposite number Chico Cole put on a masterclass between the pipes to keep the two sides level at 1-1 after sixty minutes, with only Jake Williams and Drew Campbell lighting the lamp for Oxford and Solent respectively.
Miller was the hero in the shoot-out saving Richard Facey’s effort, after Mike Whillock and Joe Edwards had converted for the hosts.
The Stars media team posted a video of the dramatic climax, adding the theme tune from movie Titanic, which seems on paper to be an odd choice but works quite well. Watch it here.
Raiders celebrate as Leone asks questions (Nicola Day)
In Romford, the Junior Raiders came from behind to pull off a surprising 5-4 win over the Invicta Dynamos, thanks to a late winner from youngster Tommy Huggett.
A Jan Marcilis brace and lone goals from Matt Brown and Ewan Hill made up the rest of the tally for the hosts, while Tomas Banovsky, Elliot Farrell, Harrison Lillis and Tom Davis notched for the Dynamos.
The win was the fourth in a row for the Raiders who’ve also beaten Oxford and Bracknell in recent weeks and are putting together a fine run of form.
Huggett got his reward with a call up to the National League Raiders for their game against Peterborough the following evening.
A goal scoring return to the Bracknell Hornets line-up for Louis Colvin wasn’t enough to stop the visiting Chelmsford Chieftains taking both points from the Hive with a 4-2 win.
A Matt Turner brace and lone goals from Andrew Munroe and Grant Bartlett sealed the win for the visitors, with Matt Foord scoring a lone goal for the Hornets’ to add to Colvin’s earlier effort.
Harvey Hind-Pitcher was ejected on a high sticking penalty before the final buzzer to add to the woe for Bracknell Coach Mark Saunders.
Elf taunts crisp fans at the Hive
Quavers supporters were left seething at the game after rink staff decided to troll one of the UK’s most passionate crisp fanbases, by replacing the delicious yellow bagged snacks in the rink vending machine with a seasonal ‘Elf on a shelf’.
Reports that a man with a yellow and green scarf was seen shaking the machine during the period break in a bid to get the elf out and “teach the little b*stard a lesson”, are as yet unconfirmed.
Sunday review
Invicta Dynamos held their annual teddy bear toss during their game against Streatham at the Gillingham Ice Bowl. Former star blueliner Ondrej Zosiak was in attendance to watch a game that his old team mates could’ve done with him suiting up in.
Streatham were 3-0 up after the first and never looked back, eventually winning 5-0 through goals from Ben Paynter, Adam Wood, Ryan Watt, Scott Bailey and Brandon Miles.
Damien King earned a shutout against his old club to round off the good news for the visitors, who all left Kent happy with the exception of Sports Therapist Tanya Romans. The normally upbeat Streatham medic took to Twitter post game to fire off a stinging tweet to the Gillingham branch of KFC for awful chips and something about their gravy. Let’s hope Tanya’s Christmas dinner goes more smoothly.
The Mo’s were missing Player Coach Anthony Leone, import Juraj Huska, Brandon Webster and Mark Williams as a result of injuries and suspensions and will be hoping that 2020 brings a clean bill of health for the roster to help them bounce back to form.
Grizzly Clemma
Chelmsford continued their good form with a convincing 7-0 win over Oxford City Stars .
Cameron Bartlett, Matt Turner and Liam Chong all bagged two goals each for the hosts with Julian Smith also on target.
Goalie Ben Clements registered the shut out for his side.
The results mean that Solent Devils end 2019 top of the Britton Conference ahead of Streatham and Chelmsford, while MK Thunder sit rock bottom hoping that 2020 proves to be more enjoyable.
We’ll end by wishing all our readers are merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for your support as usual.
Saturday 21 December
Raiders Jnr 5-4 Invicta Dynamos
Oxford City Stars 1-1 Solent Devils (Stars win on penalty shots)
Bracknell Hornets 2-4 Chelmsford Chieftains
Sunday 22 December
Invicta Dynamos 0-5 Streatham IHC
Chelmsford Chieftains 7-0 Oxford City Stars
Contact the author: davidcarr_2@hotmail.com
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