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The lower half fights back?
Hello all, well it was a strange weekend. The lower half of the league fought back and put up some good results against the top teams. We saw the first fully fledged bench clearance in a few years and for anyone who didn't hear the Sheffield Squeelers beat the Nottingham Phantoms 11-3 with yours truly netting twice.
Naturally the big talking point was the bench clearance in Coventry on Saturday night. I have seen the video on the internet and what can i say its interesting viewing. It has even had its own short segment on Sky Sports News. Now this has caused quite a stir with several people offering different opinions. People within the sport are naturally using this as a plus. As a sport we clutch to any extra media exposure as a means of promoting the game. Other people however claim that this kind of behaviour is what holds the sport back and is why TV bosses don't take us seriously. There is perhaps elements of truth in both sides of the argument but here is what i think.
To understand our sport you need to take a look at Don Cherry. He does the coaches corner segment on Hockey night in Canada on ESPN America. He is a former coach who never hides his thoughts and says it how it is. Last week he was talking about the dropping attendance figures in the southern markets of the USA. He was saying how the leagues approach to cutting out certain elements of the physical side of the game is what is killing in places like Dallas, Florida and Nashville. Now here is the thing, in many ways you can't compare our league with the NHL but we can compare it when it comes to attracting new fans. When you take a friend or a colleague to a hockey game for the first time or when you tell someone you like hockey what is the first thing they ask you? They ask you about the fighting and the physical side of the game. Its what gets people talking about hockey. The speed and skill is a secondary subject when you talk with people who know little about the game. Anyone who thinks that you can or should scale down the physical side of our game is either very stupid or very naive as it is what sets our sport aside from some others. The sad truth of it is that TV and media bosses majorly focus on football as it is the established national sport.
The fall out of the actual bench clearance incident in my opinion should be a lengthy ban for Brad Cruickshank. What he did was simply wrong. By all accounts the Panthers targeted Blaze goalie Brett Jaeger all night but why wait until you are thrown out before you do something about it. Not the actions of a proper tough guy. Lepine may well get a ban as i have heard he was first off the bench as should Alex Penner as he left the penalty box. Now i remember many years ago Scott Allison doing the same thing and missing around a month of action in suspension. The other thing i didn't like was the incident where Danny Meyers ran through goalie Jaeger. Now what i hate about that is that nobody stood up for the goalie. Why was Danny Meyers not pasted for what he did. It summed up the problem with the Blaze this year. We had a similar problem last year in Sheffield and its that the team lack backbone. Just my opinion but i saw it at times last year where players didn't stand up for each other and i see it this year its just moved south to Coventry.
The other thing that was highlighted is the lack of ability in our Officials. It has been said that Tom Darnell offered no protection to the battered Blaze goalie before all this happened. Now could he have avoided this incident who knows but he certainly didn't help things as he calls or lack of them only antagonised the teams. This is a common theme throughout the league. Often when you talk with players one of the few knocks they have on this league is the standard of officiating. Will it change? Probably not but we have suffered bad officials for years its nothing new. As for the bench clearance its not a bad thing. It gets us talking, it clears the bad blood and builds up rivalries.
0-3 |
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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
