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Bah! humbug!
by James Broughton
Where was the Nottingham Panthers Christmas spirit this festive period? They rocked up to Sheffield on Boxing Day and took all the points out of the Christmas stocking. Then they took us back to their place and made us look quite foolish. To be honest it all started off well enough. On Boxing Day we went one up through Mike Ramsey and up to that point had probably had the best of the play. The lead however only lasted a couple of minutes as Brock Wilson squared things up. Frankly we were never in the game from that point onwards. A 2-0 middle session put the Panthers well in command and young gun Rob Lachowicz made 4-1 early in the third period. Steelers rallied a little as a Jason Hewitt double pulled them back in striking distance but with the goalie pulled in the final minute Jeff Heerema ended it as a contest making it a 5-3 final.
The day after down in Nottingham was a bad day for all Steelers. We started off great pressing Nottingham back and putting pressure on Kowalski who during the course of the game made one of the saves of the season on a one time shot. Then things went south around the 10 minute mark. Colt king was ejected with a 5 min plus game penalty for boarding against Jordan Fox. The Steelers fans were incensed as was King but here is the rub. Anytime you push someone in the back of the head/neck area and they go face first into the boards you are asking for trouble. I was about five yards from it and I can't see why we have any complaints. I would have called it boarding everyday of the week and twice on a Sunday. Now Ryan Finnerty said afterwards that in Cardiff on the 23rd the similar incidents were handed two minute penalties. While I can sympathize it has no bearing on the king incident. The Steelers fans were on Fox's back all night long. Now Fox knew the hit from King was coming and he could have tried to dodge it but he didn't. He took the hit and got a five minute powerplay for his team. If you ask me that's a smart play sacrificing yourself for your team. For my money fox is a nasty gritty player who has a full bag of skill to boot. He is the kind of player opposing teams hate and they hate him because he is good. He reminds me a bit of Rick Brebant when he was in his prime.
The Steelers killed off nine minutes of penalties in the first but Kings absence up front would see the Steelers lacking physically throughout the game. Early in the second the Panthers went in front. Matt Myers planted himself in front of Decaro and deflected a shot down between the goalies legs. Mike Ramsey levelled on a 2 on 1 breakaway but that was as good as it got for the away team. Matt Francis and D A Beauregard made it 3-1 after 2 periods and then Myers and Francis in the 3rd scored to give Nottingham a 5-1 win.
Facebook was funny that evening lots of banter thrown back and forth. Some fans devastated by the Steelers loss. Others telling us not to panic and slating fans that were complaining about the team. The way I see it is this. The fans don't mind losing to Nottingham. They don't like it but they can take it. What we can't stand is getting out classed by them and over the course of the two games we were. John Decaro looked quite average over the two games while Kowalski did just enough in the first game and in the second game he gave the Panthers a great platform to win. Nottingham's defence did a good job in both games of denying the Steelers many good scoring opportunities while the Steelers smaller D core struggled often getting out muscled. They also tended to run around a lot rather than maintaining position. In the first game I would say about a third of the passes Steelers attempted where either intercepted or behind the intended target. In the second game if it wasn't coming from Legue and Ramsey we didn't look like scoring. Nottingham however can mix up their offense and did score different types of goals among their 10 over the two nights.
It is such a tough loss for the Steelers fans because Cup finals aside the games between these 2 teams are the biggest in British hockey and the Sheffield Steelers have built their reputation on winning the big games, on stepping up to the plate when it matters most. This Christmas we failed to win the big one despite the fact we had 2 chances to do so.
The big picture is that we can still win the title but we have to win all our games in hand to get in front and there is no margin for error against our title rivals. We have Belfast four times and Nottingham two more times. For me if we are to win the league we need to win five of those games if not all of them. The reason i say that is we have won twice against Belfast but in both games they have picked up a point. With the potential of that happening again we need maximum points.
Just my opinions thanks for reading.
Image copyright of Unique Images: www.uniqueimages.co.uk.
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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
