Hockey Soapbox - Edition 5

Here’s our fifth week’s Frozen Steel blog fan view on four or five hot topic items. It’s time to get on your soapboxes people!

Contributors this week are: Mark Duell, Robert Newbolt, Alan Claringbold, and Bethan.

An easy one to start with – what was this week's main talking point in the EIHL?

Robert - Have Edinburgh finally run out of steam? After losing by a large margin to Braehead (and getting Bawbag of the week for it) leading scorer Ryan Hayes has been caught at the top of the stats charts, and after a three game losing streak I wonder if the wheels have come off the wagon.

Mark - Question 2 answers this one for me. So if I had to pick an alternative main talking point: How about the Panthers only picking up 2 points out of 6 over the weekend when they should have accrued at least 4. They were damn lucky to get something out of Braehead.

Bethan - Gotta be Coventry's new signing, (Editor : Hello to James Isaacs!) - from what I've seen the locals aren't very happy and were expecting a forward to be signed. Looking at their past 5 games they haven't scored more than 1 per game, so I can see why some fans are annoyed. There’s a little less faith in Chuck Weber around nowadays.

Alan – For me it is the DOPS/Marsh fiasco.

Always lots to talk about, and seeing as it’s already been raised, what were you thoughts on the Marsh appeal?

Mark - Disgusting this, should never have gone to an appeal at all. This should have stood at it was, five games was an accurate punishment. Marsh and Cardiff have gotten away with murder and this sets a terrible precedent for similar offences.

Robert - Haven’t studied the hit but certain knowledgeable hockey people thought it was bad enough to warrant a five game ban. The subsequent review, a surprise from someone like Todd Kelman, only served to undermine this completely by reducing, nay slashing, the ban to just two games. If the original people saw this I would forgive them for thinking ‘why do I bother?’. It was a blatant disregard for safety and just gives future players license to almost do as they wish. Thought the idea of DOPS was to educate players into playing not roughing.

Bethan - I don't think it's fair that it's been reduced, to me it seems a clear, intentional hit to the head. But the people behind DOPS know their rules better than me!

Alan - Farcical. Makes a mockery of DOPS and just totally showed up the league as a whole. The tweet former Blaze player Dustin Cameron made summed up the situation perfectly for me. (Editor : Leave us hanging why don’t you Alan! I’m off for a sneaky google then.)

Lots of passion there, and without seeing any evidence to the contrary, we can only go on what we’ve seen on the game tapes already published, but I bet the Devils fans might disagree!
Back to a Steelers topic, what has happened to our powerplay recently?

Mark – It's actually getting better and better. Well done all. It does help when you have a player of Fretter's ability controlling it.

Robert - It has recovered it seems. As (Editor : Name Drop alert!) Paul Thompson said to me the other day it doesn’t take much to alter the stats. From being below 10% Steelers climbed to a respectable 14% in just two games, courtesy of three or four powerplay goals.

Bethan - to be fair it's getting better recently, I think the problem for a while was definitely confidence - neither the players nor the fans expected us to score. The focus shifted to trying not to concede rather than focussing on taking advantage of the extra man and getting a goal ourselves. Now we're riding on a couple of wins I think the perceptions are shifting, so hopefully we can keep that going!

Alan - It's starting to come good and look more threatening in recent weeks - like I said it would. Injuries to key players derailed it. We have a deep roster in terms of numbers and PK units, but lacked the depth in terms of the PP units. Now we are mostly injury free, we are seeing the stronger PP units start to find their form again.

This won’t make a jot of difference to Dave Simms, and whilst I wave my hands in the air like I just don’t care : Sweet Caroline – Love it or Loathe it?

Robert - The majority seem to tolerate it. I think most just tune it out but being where I am at the arena you can see the intensity it brings about to a certain section of the crowd. They begin cheering, this is infectious and other people cheer also, not particularly at the song but at the rest of the game. So if the arena feels flat at the time ‘Sweet Caroline’ tends to lift the mood. Plus the song is OK not particularly irritating like some we could mention.

Mark - Loathe the song, absolutely despise it. What relevance does it have with hockey? None! Whoever added it to the match night music selection needs to give their head a shake.

Bethan - Loathe, heard it way too much, same as most of the music I guess! When it gets to the point that during the warm up I can tell you what song's coming up next every time, it's time for a change!

Alan – Does my head in. No point when Caroline isn't even there anymore. Leave it with the Boston Red Sox for goodness sake.

A special mention to Phil Beddoe at this point who recommends Tragedy’s version of “Sweet Caroline” which is a weird Neil / King Diamond inspired version – get on YouTube and see if you think it might do the trick at our next Halloween game

“Touching you, touching me…” anyway back to the blog. After picking our favourite Steeler a few weeks ago, what about the worst player we’ve seen?

Robert -. Mike Sgroi, that stand in defenceman for the 2009/10 season is one, but I am also reminded of Rob Wilson. Although he was a grand slam winning captain when he took over from Ron Shudra, in his final year, he disrespected the fans by intimating they knew nothing. It’s my overriding memory of him, that and he always had his stick aloft at point shouting “to me, to me”. Having said all this there were some dire defencemen in the nineties!

Mark - Worst one I've seen is Dion Del Monte, absolutely terrible. Mind you Vezio Sacratini's mate Agostino Casale was just as bad. Two terrible imports whose names whom I have unfortunately seen play for us, I shudder every time someone mentions either name.

Bethan - Corey Pecker, he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the team never mind play any hockey! Just embarrassing to play professional hockey and turn up to a new club in such a state.

Alan – Mike Sgroi. Skated like a constipated llama and tried fighting on ice like he was in an MMA ring. I'll never forget his debut game winner, but other than that, I thought he was dire throughout his (thankfully) short tenure.

That’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed reading our thoughts, and we’d love you to get involved too. Help set the agenda for next week with your questions, or even better get involved and give your views as one of the panel. We would love different views and different participants each week. Please contact Mark @frozensteelblog or Tony @Disgu15ed, or find us at the game.

Brief Bios of those panellists you’ve just been listening to in the series so far :

• Alan is @frozensteelmnl for match night updates and @AwkwardGinge for everything else. Has been watching Hockey for many years, and given half a chance will regale you with tales of the London Knights. Catch him on the Breaking the Ice podcast too.
• Mark is one of the main men behind the Frozen Steel blog, being the Editor and Podcast pundit, and has watched the club since its inception. Find him at @hockeybhoy
• Robert is chief architect of steelers-stats.co.uk, the go-to guy for Steelers history from days gone by, and the man behind one of the big White House spotlights! Robert is @steelersstats.
• Eric is a season ticket holder and can be found shouting encouragement to our players and scorn at the zebras alongside three generations of his family in block 115. Views can be found @greenbunch257
• Richard is the big man with the big drum who until recently was to be found leading both the Rock the Block choir and his family in 218. Now looking for a new block to call home, his views, and invites to come join you, can be directed to @CaVaLiEr666
• Tony has been watching the Steelers on and off since Tony Hand arrived, and has been a regular for the last eight years or so. Enjoys contributing to the blog with his weekly five things and can be found @Disgu15ed
• Bethan represents the younger end of the fan base, after being dragged along to her first Steelers game in 2007 and has loved the team ever since. Follow her on Twitter at @bethan_4

Thanks for reading everybody. Do you want to be a part of this? If so, get in touch with us on either of the following Twitter addresses or leave a message on our Facebook page. Don't forget to like us on there and leave us your comments:
@FrozenSteelBlog

@FrozenSteelMNL

@hockeybhoy
@Disgu15ed

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