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.
A two tier league?
One of the most talked about topics in the Elite League, well certainly from where I am sat, is the status of the League in general. For the life of me, I didn’t enjoy watching the highlights of Cardiff’s recent drubbing of Hull on Sky. I missed it first time of action when it was screened live, mainly because I was at work for the majority for it, but it was just painful viewing and for those Hull fans that made the journey to the Big Blue Tent in South Wales – you have my deepest sympathies. You got short changed by your side that night…big time!
As far as I can see, there is as clear as daylight split in the Elite. There’s the usual suspects up top, being us; Nottingham, Belfast, Coventry and Cardiff. Guaranteed that the winner of this season’s title is going to come from one of those. Then there’s the wannabees, a kind of like Aston Villa or much as it would I’d like to see – Sunderland – breaking into the top four. Hockey’s version of it being Braehead. Then you have the four are struggling for any sort of consistency, that being Edinburgh, Newcastle, Dundee and Hull. It doesn’t sound good and to be honest; it doesn’t look good either.
What I want to see is a league where something of the ordinary happens, a lesser known light leading the way. Such if it is at the expense of one of the “big five” then it’s all good for me as it would make people sit up and take notice but is it going to happen? I very much doubt it. And that’s why we end up with lop-sided scorelines like we had in Cardiff last Friday. Sylvain Cloutier said their loss 7-0 at Ice Sheffield was “unacceptable” recently, but I am not surprised in the least when he said after the Cardiff debacle: “It was totally embarrassing.”
Yet bar Drew Bannister, this was a side that had beaten Coventry a week or so earlier and beat Belfast in overtime too. As Cloutier also rightly pointed out: “I just don’t know which team is going to show up…” Hull have the potential to hit the heights, but they’re too just far too inconsistent for their own good. The same can be applied to Edinburgh, Newcastle and Dundee. It must be a rollercoaster of emotions being a fan of one of these teams, and I salute you all with a tip of my hat for being so loyal. However, there must be a time when you must think “Why am I doing this?” but do it you do, and that’s why we are hockey fans as one big family regardless of team supported.
The season is now nearing the halfway point of the season, and still I am keeping my cards close to my 42 inch chest as reagrds making a prediction who will be the 2011 Elite League Champions. As I said, either of the top five can do it but natutrally some will fall at the final hurdle as the weeks and months pass on. Naturally I want my beloved Steelers to be still in the running, and a win last weekend in the Odyssey was a terrfiifc performance. Just hope that Legue’s broken finger quickly heals and the news that captain Jono is going to be back soon, will kickstart us on a run that brings silverware.
Back soon with more musings, and another Eastside update included next time I promise.
Yours as usual in hockey,
Mark
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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
