New Season
The hockey season is back, and you can follow it all with us right here on BIH.
Stats Centre
We are working on an archive of matches, stats and players from BIH in the past few years.
Is the Panthers focus right?
Another weekend in Belfast, another defeat. It was bitterly disappointing if not slightly expected that we managed to throw away a hard fought lead in the final period on Sunday. Having now seen Belfast twice I’m yet to buy into their pre-season billing as nailed on champions. For my money they looked just as disjointed as Panthers throughout Sunday’s encounter which, although an enjoyable game, was not one filled with the sort of quality hockey you’d expect from these two sides.
Panthers have just looked a little short of something these past two games. I thought we missed Jay Henderson even before the Braehead defeat started to set a few alarm bells ringing. The loss of Zion after not much more than twenty minutes on Sunday and the ongoing absence of Marc Levers just compound the issue and we look very lightweight at the minute. These are key players, Levers is an unsung hero and we really miss his presence on the penalty kill and Zion has been the stand out player for me so far, we weathered the storm without him for twenty minutes but eventually caved in by the time the third period came round.
Hopefully Zion’s injury is not too bad and Levers will return to the ice, as expected, in the next 7 days or so. In my opinion that still leaves us light and although I had hoped for more from him it is clear Robert Liscak was not the right plug to the gap left by Henderson.
Welcome, then, to Rob Bellamy who was announced as replacing Liscak by Panthers late on Tuesday evening. Bellamy iced 62 times in the AHL last term for the Adirondack Phantoms, the farm team of the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers. Described as a “senior forward who plays with discipline” Bellamy is reputedly “very good at doing all the little things such as winning one-on-one battles in the corner and blocking shots”. Just what the doctor ordered then.
There’s some debate doing the rounds at the moment as to the priorities within the Panthers organisation and the inference of many is one I can very much identify with. For me I do quite often feel that, bar a hashed together website overview of our road games, the whole Panthers set up is focused on what happens in Nottingham. That’s fine from a marketing perspective; you advertise to your fanbase and focus your efforts on profit making activity.
It does at times, however, feel like a road loss to what many would hope would be our ‘title rivals’ is not really that important because, after all, we’ll sell out against Sheffield the next Saturday. It’s not difficult to see why some seasoned fans get a little perturbed after expending much time and money following their team up and down the UK. The signing of Bellamy may go some way to quelling the feeling that we’re an organisation that does ‘just enough to tick over’ however for many the argument is one that is steeped in complexity, taking in considerations about the players we sign, the style we play and the hygiene factors surrounding the clubs media output and organisational set up.
So to the game ahead, our only clash of the weekend, against a Sheffield side who have exploded out of the blocks recording several shut outs and scored goals for fun in the process. If they can stay in business long enough Sheffield are without a doubt title contenders and Saturday will be a massive test for Panthers, especially taking into account our current injury woes. It is unlikely Bellamy will be in the UK in time to ice for Panthers on Saturday which leaves us missing three key players.
I have to be honest and say my gut feeling is that we’ll come up short on Saturday but I hope beyond hope that I’m wrong. I will be relying on updates from afar on as I’ll be over in Berlin for the traditional pre-wedding ritual of a stag weekend. I certainly don’t want to be drowning my sorrows for the second weekend in a row and with a bit of luck the old adage of ‘form goes out the window when the big rivals clash’ will be true to it’s word by 10pm Saturday night.
Slightly different blog next week, with a review of “gamenight in Berlin”, where close to 14,000 fans will roar on the Berlin Eisbaeren against the Hamburg Freezers. I’m a fan of DEL hockey, from the presentation through to the hockey itself; and Berlin are an example of an NHL setup in a European league so I’m very much looking forward to taking in a game. I’ll hopefully get some views from some locals as well as a review of the night itself (well as much of it as I can remember anyway!)
Keep the faith fellow Panthers, there is a long long way to go yet.
blog comments powered by Disqus0-3 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-3 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-5 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-4 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-4 |
||
| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
||
| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
5-8 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
- Adam Walker
- Alex Birch
- Andy Pierce
- Chris Gent
- Christopher Beal
- Craig Simpson
- Dave Simms
- Elliott Stanley
- Gareth Chalmers
- James Broughton
- James Gordon
- Katy Madgwick
- Luke Catterson
- Mark Briggs
- Mark Duell
- Mat Young
- Patrick Smyth
- Promotion
- Russ Morrell
- Seanna Murdock
- Stephen Dowson
- Stewart Roberts
- Tom Forster
- Vicki Smart
- William Lyon
