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.
Next is the big one for Panthers
Well ladies and gentlemen our domestic Elite League season is over with just the internationals to come. What did we learn from the Playoff weekend?
Well Nottingham are the playoff champions and after winning two trophies have capped off their most successful season in the twenty years I have watched ice hockey. They rode their luck all weekend and may not have out performed their two opponents but they did what it took to win. That is what history will remember so congratulations to them for that. I would also like to say it’s about time because nobody can doubt that the Nottingham Panthers have underachieved more than anyone over the last ten years. They are as big as any club in the land. They have spent as much money as any team and when you look at some of the players who have worn the black and gold you can't come to any other conclusion. Now the Panthers can have one goal and one goal alone. To win that elusive league championship. A championship that they need to challenge for season in and season out. If Corey Neilson can't deliver that then he has no long term future in the lace city.
What about the other teams this weekend? Well for my beloved Steelers it was a disappointing end to a largely great year. Frankly it feels we lost that semi final more than Nottingham won it. We had more than enough chances and just didn't get the job done. Not enough of our best players turned up on the day. For the Belfast Giants well they may as well have spent the weekend on the golf course. They were pretty they were fancy and they never looked like beating Cardiff and having missed out on the league as well does this seasons failure put Doug Christiansen's position in doubt? Personally I think his job is safe but stranger things have happened and its a big drop from their double winning year last season. Finally for Cardiff again another club who will be gutted after their 3rd playoff final defeat in five years. Gerad Adams is another coach who's position could be under threat. How many times can you go to the well and come away empty? 1 Challenge cup in five years is not enough for team of the Devils stature. Again I don't think Adams will go after all the devils came closer this season to a league title than they have for years but it has taken Adams four years to get them there. One thing is for sure if Adams continues in Cardiff it has to be as coach only because he can't cut it as a player anymore.
The biggest let down of this years playoff finals is without doubt was the abysmal officiating. Michael Hicks was bad in the first semi final as were his linesmen. If the officials who did the final are the best we have then my god we are in trouble. Hanson and co collectively gave the worst performance I have seen in a final. They repeatedly got in the way of play. The linesmen got only about half their calls right and Hanson failed miserably in his calls. I know full well that he would have had a clear message to let the game flow because we were on live TV but you still have to do your job. Matt Myers on 3 occasions held Devil players sticks and if he didn't then the other player was guilty of hooking. He called Brad Voth for interference on a hit behind the net. A call I have never seen made in that situation and when the same thing happened later on twice he didn't call it. If anything the call on Voth should have been charging. Then having kept his whistle in his pocket for most of the last ten minutes he called a penalty on Cardiff with 2:12 left all but killing the game. I have probably missed something out but you get my point. Frankly its about time the ref's were held accountable for poor officiating. It's one of the biggest problems in our game.
Anyway rant over. Some of the rumours were interesting this year. We all know Steve Munn played his last game as a Steeler but it appears Derek Campbell may retire as well. Also it seems Jerramie Domish could be set to join up with Rob Wilson next season in Italy. Colin Shields could be off to France to earn some Euros too. Fife could come into the Elite league but for me that's a bad move. It should be an interesting summer full of shocks and signings.
I would like to close by making one point. I took some stick on face book last week for saying Nottingham could do better than Craig Kowalski for next season. After this weekend I feel what I said still stands. He didn't win them the playoffs he just made a few key saves. He gave up lots of rebounds and let a couple of soft ones in. In fairness he probably played as well as any other goalie but he will not win Nottingham the league unless he plays much much better next season. The team that wins the league often has the best goalie in the league and that he is not.
Photograph of Nottingham Panthers captain David Clarke with the Elite League playoff trophy from yesterday copyright of Unique Images: www.uniqueimages.co.uk.
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
