LONDON, UK – Have the trumpets already sounded on the league title race, and is the only way Essex?
Superior to Burger King ? (Photo by Claire Stanton Photography)
Wightlink Raiders have seen a big improvement in their play as the season has progressed, however they hit a brick wall last weekend and Coach Jeremy Cornish was in no doubt what the wall was made of.
“This year’s Invicta team is the exact same as the teams from the past, but the only difference is Mark Lee in goal” said Cornish in his Coaches Corner column.
“I’ve known Mark since he was 16 and a back-up with us while I played at Newcastle and he was a very good goalie back then”
“Mark gives the Dynamos an opportunity to play their offensive game and not have to worry about the shots they give up because he is there the close the door. That’s exactly what he did against us. We had a number of very good chances to score, but he was always there to make the save”
Chelmsford Chieftains prepared for their big clash at home to Invicta Dynamos at the weekend with a novel way of boosting the game day atmosphere.
Streatham fans use incessant drumming, London fans squawk like Danny Dyer or Kat Moon depending on their gender and Invicta fans belt out the national anthem like an early contestant on the X Factor, so what about Chelmsford?
If Carlsberg made goalies.. or even Budweiser
Well if your plexi-glass and low level seating makes it difficult to transmit noise to the ice, what better way to cause a din than to hand out 100 free ‘trumpets’ to the first 100 kids through the door.
The fact the Chieftains website had to put quotation marks around the word, suggested that any local brass bands thinking of snapping up a bona-fide bugle for free were left in no doubt that the trumpets were more than likely to be similar to the plastic vuvuzela’s that infested the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Streatham boosted their squad in the week as former Telford defenseman Stuart Bates arrived in the capital.
Bates trained with the team for the first time on the Thursday ahead of his debut in the game against London Raiders on Saturday.
“I first worked with Stuart in the England U16 programme and he played really well for me then so I’m delighted he’s re-located to London” said Streatham Head Coach Warren Rost upon the signing of the 5’ 10” player.
“He hasn’t played for a while so he’s a little rusty but we have plenty of time to get back to his best before the play-offs”
Bates arrives in SW16
“It’s also important that he is living relatively local now because it’s not just about this season but the seasons to come and I’m sure he’s going to prove himself a valuable asset to the club in the years to come”
One person who has had to prove their loyalty to the cause more than most this season, is Oxford City Stars mascot ‘Comet’.
Pro Hockey News exclusively unmasked the furry white bear moonlighting for the Milton Keynes Lightning earlier in the season, and since then he has been the new ‘Gordie Go-Hard’ of the mascot world, even outdoing Chelmsford’s busy Frizzy Bear in public appearances.
This week Comet was at an event with London Welsh mascot Dewi at the grand opening of Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre on the outskirts of the city.
This led to the pair having a game of table tennis in front of the cameras and enthralling the crowd in a part of Oxford rarely visited by tourists.
China worried about new table tennis threat
London Raiders Coach Alan Blyth has steadied the ship recently defying his critics by building a solid roster down at Lee Valley Ice Centre.
Recent arrivals of Liam Chong, Alan Lack, Grant Taylor and Jakub Kostelansky have given the team energy and quality that they have missed since the early season departures of Danny Marshall, AJ Smith, Jakub Klima and Perry Richardson.
“We go into both games full of confidence. We have had a good run lately and are dangerous on the attack” said Blyth in an interview with the Romford Recorder.
“Our first line can match any line in the league and will be a real handful for all the teams we face in the run-in”
“We will go to Oxford a completely different proposition to last time. They take penalties as they are a physical team and we have the powerplay unit to punish them”
The Raiders team will certainly be a threat to anyone in the latter half of the season with those sides playing them earlier in the campaign probably feeling rather fortunate.
Invicta Dynamos seemingly unstoppable form has hit a few bumps recently with defeats to Bracknell and Solent, but they got a solid 5-1 win over Wightlink to finish their weekend.
“We had a long chat before the Wightlink game and everyone was focused in the room” said Coach Kev Parrish in the interview HERE
“The night before in Solent, the effort was there and it is a horrible rink to play in”
Cookes bruise in a paint factory
“We outshot them and had chances and more chances and they broke away and scored which was a bit demoralising”
“We killed a lot of penalties against Wightlink early on but the boys worked hard and deserved their reward”
It is rare in Pro Hockey News that we deviate from the hard hitting, serious news stories of the week but when we notice a picture of an NIHL hockey player sat in a pink ‘Hello Kitty” car, we do feel duty bound to publish it.
Likewise the bruise of the week remains a popular segment of this column, so well done to Wightlink’s Chris Cooke who took a clapper to the leg from Invicta’s Juraj Huska.
Faced with a choice of a flying puck from the stick of Huska, Dom Hopkins, Danny Hughes, Adam Mahoney or Billy Phillips, which would you choose? We can’t separate them.
In addition to bruise of the week, another ailment of sorts was brought to our attention in the form of a strange case of sunburn for Chelmsford’s Danny Hammond. Sadly aside from his red face, no doubt picked up from the same tanning salon that gave Invicta’s Michal Oravec his ridiculously bronzed bonce last summer , this picture proves two things:
Chiseller Hammond
1) That Hammond will boost our readership of lust crazy hockey fans with his chiselled torso.
2)That the Chieftains have undoubtedly got the biggest budget thus proven by their ‘team towels’. It’s enough to make any third tier British hockey club green with envy.
Last but not least is a plug for a hockey related tune, namely Hockey Monkey by The Zambonis, which features a video of the lead singer dicking around on a frozen lake with a face mask only Dominic Hasek or the Chingford Charger Michael Ranby could make look cool.
Check it out HERE and join the campaign by a group of UK hockey fans to try and get it to the Top 40. All you need to do is download it on Monday for 79p.
Saturday
London Raiders revival continued as they beat the visiting Streatham Redskins 5-3 in front of another decent crowd at Lee Valley Ice Centre.
Dropped a league but never forgotten – Perry Richardson
These two team’s faced each other for the third consecutive game and London sealed the points thanks to a brace from Jakub Kostelansky and lone efforts from Tom Davis, Alan Lack and Liam Chong.
Streatham scorers were Steven Fisher, Louis Lockwood and Adam Wood.
Invicta Dynamos eased away from a dogged Oxford City Stars with a 9-5 win at Silverblades.
This game only had a goal in it with eight minutes to go before the Mo’s netted four late goals to seal the two points.
Frankie Harvey was the main man for Invicta with a hat trick, matched of course by goal machine Andy Smith, Michal Oravec scored two and Callum Fowler got the other.
Oxford’s American star Evan Mackintosh scored two for the visitors, with Adam Harris, Nick Oliver and Joe Edwards also on target.
Veteran Mo’s player and all round good guy Grant Baxter stepped back on the blue to help out his team and put in such an assured performance that Coach Parrish compared him to Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard in his post-match interview.
Invicta’s night was marred by the ejection of Billy Phillips on a misconduct call that meant he would miss the next three games for the team, most importantly the crunch game with Chelmsford the following night.
Larter and Watkins desperate to get bruise of the week (Kev Slyfield)
The Chieftains snuck past the Milton Keynes Thunder in Buckinghamshire with a 2-1 win.
The most popular King will always be Burger King, but hot on his heels are the King brothers Damien and Euan who stole the show facing each other between the pipes for both teams.
Damien ended the game with a 94% save average and older brother Euan notched an equally impressive 96%.
Darren Brown scored a brace for Chelmsford with Martyn Snape on target for Milton Keynes.
Wightlink Raiders came back from 2-1 down to overcome a determined Cardiff side 5-2 on the island.
Tamas Elias and Zak Shanahan had given the home fans reason for doubt with early goals for the visitors, but a brace from Richard Facey and lone goals for Stevie Balmer, Jaroslav Cesky and Alex Barker did the business for the Raiders.
Wightlink’s Craig Tribe was sent for an early shower after being ejected on a high sticking call.
Sunday
Rumours that the local kids greeted the Invicta team bus to a rendition of match of the day on their free trumpets were false, however there was no denying the billing of the occasion.
Invicta Coach Kev Parrish had conceded pre-game that a win for Chelmsford would likely hand them the league title and his side went down early on, losing the opening period 3-0.
It didn’t improve much for the visitors as Dwayne Newman and his team celebrated a 6-1 victory that puts them two points ahead of the Dynamos with three games in hand.
Holt tweets to the masses
James Ayling and Matt Turner scored a brace each for the Chieftains with the red raw Danny Hammond and Martin Piecha also on target.
Charlie Phillips was handed an early shower following a trip on Ryan Giles after already sitting a couple of minors and a 2+10. His departure off the ice was followed by reports of disturbances in the crowd which will no doubt be debated in the coming hours and days.
The good news for Parrish is that Chelmsford have a very tough fixture list on the horizon so the league title chase may not be as done and dusted as he has mooted. Dwayne Newman’s side have to play Streatham three times, and Bracknell, Wightlink and Invicta away in their upcoming games which are all toughies.
Oxford v London without the riot (Paul Foster)
Oxford City Stars hosted London Raiders with none other than Daily Mirror Chief Sports Writer Ollie Holt in attendance. The well-known journalist tweeted a pic from his seat to his three hundred thousand Twitter followers and was treated to a hard fought 2-2 tie.
Stars had been leading 2-1 after the game exploded into life with three goals in the opening four minutes.
Alan Green and Evan Mackintosh scored for the Stars whilst Tom Davis and Jacob Ranson secured a three point weekend for the Londoners.
Green was ejected on a high sticks call early in the game after accidentally drawing blood from Kostelansky’s face.
Everyone knows that Oxford sports fans dislike Swindon, so Comet once again attempted to brown nose his way to their hearts by moonlighting again for Milton Keynes Lightning in their game against the Swindon Wildcats.
Bracknell Hornets and Wightlink Raiders also tied in a game that ended 3-3 at the Hive.
The bruised Chris Cooke scored for Wightlink as did Craig Tribe and Ben Paynter. For Bracknell it was JJ Pitchley, Danny Hughes and Danny Rose on target.
If its against Swindon its ok right ?
The final game of the evening took place on the South Coast where Solent Devils and Streatham Redskins continued the theme of the evening with a 3-3 tie.
Streatham scorers were Steven Fisher, Adam Wood and the returning Joe Allen. Devils goals came from Andrew Magee, Ralfs Circenis and Jamie Fitzpatrick.
Last but not least is a message to Mr Holt. If you are reading this and enjoy the relaxed style of reporting, numerous grammatical mistakes and random pictures, please email directly to the address below with a job offer at your newspaper.
We are comfortable reporting on winter sports, travel to distant countries and north east football.
Saturday 24th January 2015
London Raiders 5-3 Streatham Redskins
Invicta Dynamos 9-5 Oxford City Stars
Milton Keynes Thunder 1-2 Chelmsford Chieftains
Wightlink Raiders 5-2 Cardiff Devils NL
Sunday 25th January 2015
Solent Devils 3-3 Streatham Redskins
Oxford City Stars 2-2 London Raiders
Chelmsford Chieftains 6-1 Invicta Dynamos
Bracknell Hornets 3-3 Wightlink Raiders
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com
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