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From despair to elation in three easy steps
This latest edition is brought to you on pure adrenaline and fuelled by some remarkable memories.
At this time last week, Friday night, I was sat in Rockies Sports Bar in Belfast, Northern Ireland with my mate Pete the Giants fan. Beers on the table and sitting down ready to watch the live screening of Cardiff and Coventry from the SkyDome. United we were in a sense that both wanted a home win for Thommo and the Blaze, if only to ruin the Devils championship dreams. So when Luke Fulghum scored on the powerplay, we both agreed that lady luck must be shining at last on the Coventry faithful. Alas as you all know it got turned on its head and the small band of hardy souls from South Wales went home smiling away thanks to a 5-1 road win. We did both concur though that Alex Symonds must have pre-booked his trip there as he spent more time in the box than he did actually defend - either that or he sponsors the visiting penalty box. Only jesting Alex before you get all serious….
Come the day of the crunch game at the Odyssey, Pete and I took the brave step of watching some Northern Irish football to kill some time pre-game. When he said it was like watching Conference standard football back in England, well it was a fairly accurate assessment. Only thing was that both sides would probably be too good for most of the teams there. We were entertained by the Coleraine (away) support singing songs about Myra Hindley; well that’s what it sounded like from I could understand anyways. They probably weren’t though…
Football over and back to Rockies and the “O” for another drink before the match. Truth be told, I don’t know how much I put behind the bar over the two nights but it was a pretty penny yet I don’t begrudge myself from doing so. Fellow BIH columnist Seanna, Pete’s missus, didn’t join us sadly which kind of disappointed me as I was looking forward to saying hello again to her before we headed into the rink with 40 minutes or so to go before face-off. Since I had never been in the “O” before, I was completely blown away when I finally witnessed this barn. It’s a proper hockey rink, and fully deserves having an Elite League side there. If you haven’t been there, just go…it’ll blow you away too!
As for the game, well Belfast got the jump and we were simply left wanting completely. The fact it took us until nearly seven minutes through the second period to break Murphy’s shutout hopes tells its own story. After that we showed some proper bottle and at times looked a better side but came up well short in the final analysis. Don’t know, and still don’t, two things - how did we allow a stay at home defenceman in Jeff Mason to score twice and what was going through Dowdy’s mind when he had a set to with the man mountain that is Kaspars Astašenko. Any answers on the back of a postage stamp please…
Post-game and more beers in Rockies and some great craic with Todd Kelman and having me photo taken with Doug Christiansen. When you know he’s 6’5 and you stand only 5’7 in your stocking feet, safe to say it looked like a case of Little and Large. No wonder my neck was craning when I talked hockey with him. Great bloke mind. Good nights sleep later and the following day and home, and an hour’s delay at the airport for the flight back and any slim chance I was going to be in Nottingham well and truly ruined. Not that we fared any better so I won’t dwell on that for obvious reasons.
Yet Wednesday was redemption day, and we got ourselves another cracking hockey game between the two best sides in the country. The noise levels had been cranked up and Ice Sheffield was rocking as if it was game seven in a Stanley Cup Final. We jumped into an early lead, but as we ran into penalty trouble the Giants capitalised and led 3-2 at 44’17. However, the tremendous home support acted like an unofficial seventh man on the ice and we lifted our game again to level through Joey before Hewey almost blew the roof off with that all important fourth Steelers goal. Backed by our noise, the lads held firm and the three match losing streak was snapped. Advantage us again in a sense. All we need is to win every game from now on and the title is S9 bound. At this rate though, I won’t have any fingernails left but it really is compelling viewing from a complete hockey perspective.
Well that’s all for now. So remember to please follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/hockeybhoy but yours as always in hockey on here.
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
