Welcome all to the festive edition of my column here on FSB. With less than 7 sleeps to the big fellow comes a visiting folks worldwide, TDR has decided to play Santa to the hockey world and issued some presents of its own to certain figures in the hockey universe. Please do not take them seriously however, it's all a bit of fun and shoukl be viewed as such. Chuck in a quick look ahead to this weekend's games, here we go:
Now for the present list:
Frank Doyle and Tyler Mosienko - new contracts that will keep them at the Steelers until the day they have to retire from professional hockey. They are my favourite players I'm not ashamed to admit.
Mark Thomas - a goal this season. This has to happen this season Thommo as it's your testimonial year and you can't go through the season without lighting the lamp at least once.
David Simms - his own personal franchise of Kentucky Fried Chicken since he enjoys the food they serve.
Corey Neilson (Panthers HC) - a new dummy as the last one was lost after he'd completed the set of defeats inflicted by Gardiner Conference teams.
Jamie and Freddie Black (Neil's sons) - a man sized box of tissues. You'll need these lads to wipe the tears from your eyes when things don't go to plan for either Clan or Panthers.
Chuck Weber (Blaze HC) - a brand new Blaze team that actually competes for 60 minutes every night.
Gerad Adams - more silverware to put in Uncle Tony's trophy cabinet.
Russ Cowley and Ashley Tait - their shirts to be retired by the Blaze after countless seasons of good service, modern day Coventry legends.
Mike Hicks - the SlimFast diet, I remain convinced he is still carrying a few extra pounds.
Dean Smith - a grow bag. Might help you to be taller Deano, you're shorter than me and that's saying something.
Tom Darnell - either his own personal branch of Starbucks or a call to referee an NHL game because you're the best stripey this country currently has. You pick Tom....
Rab Cowan - a copy of the IIHF rule book, as you are probably the most belittled stripey in the country: everyone seems to think you're THAT bad!
Edinburgh Captials - a team drug test, gone from being rubbish to the team that everyone fears playing now.
Matt Nickerson (Number 1 Bawbag) - a flight home as you don't bring many positives to the Flyers team.
Cardiff Devils (and their fans) - news that their new rink is ready and they can start playing there immediately.
Belfast Giants - a fully fit Stephen Murphy. Chewbacca (Chubak) isn't bad but not a patch on SM.
Andrè Payette - a philosophy that physical play isn't the be all and end all of winning hockey games.
Callum Pattison - the part of playing Doug Glatt in a possible sequel to Goon since you love to enjoy a scrap or two.
Braehead Clan - a trophy (either CC or PO) to show your terrific fan base. League belongs to us sadly....
Jeff Hutchins - the realisation that the alleged bottle isn't your friend, and to hang his skates up.
Rock the Block 218 - to keep up their fantastic work so far.
Well that's my Santa list, now to briefly look ahead to this week ahead and thoughts on last. Talking about the latter first of all then. To be honest I was expecting a harder game last Friday that it actually was. Devils certainly did miss Marsh on their blue line as I said last week, it was a really comfortable 4-1 win to be said. For a team in form, Cardiff were insipid and Trevor Hendrix (who was chief agitator last time) was so anonymous you hardly noticed him. Phil Hill was very good against his home town team and deserved his goal and Man of the Match award. Bit lacklustre with the "Eddy" though Phil, but I guess you were knackered after putting such a hard working performance.
Onto Sunday, and a shot count of 20 to 6 shows how much we wanted to avenge the 6-2 loss a few weeks ago and ruin the welcoming of Mr Weber. The biggest shock was that we only scored the once. The doubts I think started to rear their ugly when Blaze scored twice in the second period and went ahead. But the lads regrouped and took the game away from Coventry with three unanswered replies. In addition, Mr Cescon can't have many complaints about his 2+10 checking to the head penalty at 35:59 on Dowdy. It was the right call. Then despite increased Blaze pressure in the third; we held firm for a second successive four point weekend. And that sounds good as much as it is typing it out.
So onto this weekend, and home and home series against those Hull Stingrays: Saturday in Sheffield and Sunday in "The Most Versatile Arena". We won both Challenge Cup games against them but this means nothing when Elite League points are at stake. Hull are in 7th spot in the league standings (at the time of writing) and will come at us hard for sure. If we aren't ready for this, home or on the road, we could come unstuck. Win both games and with results going our way elsewhere (Clan's loss at home to the resurgent Caps really helped) then we could have a decent advantage in our favour come late Sunday evening. Keep doing the good things and the wins will keep coming. It's that simple.
Therefore all that remains is to wish you all the compliments of the season and I'll be back either before the Boxing Day games or in the New Year. Have a good one, and don't eat too many mince pies: save some for me ha ha!
Mark
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