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.
Now the busy period is over
I didn’t have an opportunity to write a blog last week as I had all the mayhem of the transfer deadline to deal with. It’s a busy period for agents throughout the world as teams look to make last minute changes whether that’s to help with their playoff push or they’re getting ready for a relegation battle. It was quite a frantic period this year with a number of teams making changes.
Edinburgh brought in netminder Jens Van Poucke from Belgium outfit the White Caps Turnout in addition to Jan Safar from HYS Den Haag and Blake Royle from Deuil Garges in France. The Belfast Giants brought in highly experienced Latvian defenceman Kaspars Astasenko who looks like he could be a good addition for Doug Christiansen, while the Nottingham Panthers made a deadline day move for Jeremy Van Hoof from the Guildford Flames.
Talking about Nottingham, the Vipers again defied the odds last night and came away with another win against the Panthers. Having been beaten 15-0 at the National Ice Centre last weekend, I don’t think there was many expecting anything from the game and rightly so. Running a business as we all know can be very difficult, especially a sports entertainment business. You constantly have to keep your paying customer entertained and that exactly what Nottingham had done the week before – no issues on that front from myself. However there were certain examples during the night that probably crossed ‘the line’. I am sure this would have been in the back of the players minds going into last night’s game, they were hungry and they wanted to make Nottingham pay. As I’ve said before, credit to Danny and the players who have all been first class since the club hit it’s issues back in late November.
After the game I spoke to Rob Wilson in Italy as he still likes to hear how the Vipers are doing. Rob took his first coaching job outside of the UK last May and has done very well with Neumarkt Egna in Serie A2. The Wild Goose as they’re known to the locals have exceeded expectations this season having finished bottom of the league last season. Rob went to Italy knowing it would be a very difficult job and having competed with teams with budgets three times his, Neumarkt have upset the odds by finishing second behind Gardena and in front of Vipiteno who they beat 7-5 last night. Rob and Neumarkt are now heading into the playoffs and I hoping he can finish the season off in style with a championship. Rob is someone who I have a lot of respect for after what he achieved on the ice and what he tried to achieve off the ice in Newcastle.
Congratulations to former Hull Stingrays and Guildford Flames netminder Miroslav Bielik who won the Belgium Cup with the White Caps Turnout on Saturday. Miro is currently in his second season in Belgium which has seen Turnout and HYC Herentals join six Dutch clubs in the North Sea Cup. The Dutch league is quite a step up from the Royal Belgium Championship, so the two Belgium teams have found it difficult but have started to find their feet recently. So Saturday’s cup final was an opportunity for both team’s to show what they’re made of so I was delighted to see Miro get something out of a difficult season. I do think Turnout and Herentals will come away with some valuable experience from the North Sea Cup, especially the young Belgium players. Here are some photos from the final from the fantastic Fintan Planting.
A great result for Tommie Watkins and the Tigers against Slough last night. They’ve been through a tough couple of weeks, so to win on home ice against a team stacked with talent like Adam Calder and Jan Krajicek came as a major boost to the whole organisation. Slough have a very good coach in Peter Russell, someone who is one of my clients and I believe has a big future in the game given the chances.
Has everyone had their annual fix of the Ice Hockey Annual yet? If not get one today, well worth a read. Available here priced at £9.45 which is the cheapest price you’ll find anywhere on the internet.
Follow Gareth on Twitter at www.twitter.com/garethchalmers.
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-3 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-5 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-4 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
5-8 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
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| 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
