After over a month of warming up we finally took our first steps to becoming back-to-back-to-back EIHL league champions with what we hope is the first of many home wins. Then we went to Manchester for a sit in the penalty box, and a hockey game erupted. Nine goals for, Seven goals against and four points in two breathless games. Here’s the top five things I learnt:
1 – GAA reduction – It wasn’t a tricky target to better our current 4 GAA, so even conceding 7 in two games improved it. Bizarrely Moose’s GAA was a very decent 92.3% v Braehead (although it felt worse), and 88.5% v Manchester, so he’s more like Mr 88% now – still approximately bottom of the league, and worst ever Steeler N/M in that statistic. We’re still feeing nervous every time we’re defending, but there were some signs from Moose, and getting Franzon back will help again, but is it good enough Thommo? Something needs to change in our players or tactics if we're going to win things this year - we can't rely on scoring five every game!
2 – Finnerty Ranting – I guess we’ll never know what was said to get two Clan players tossed from the game on Saturday, but surely Finnerty can’t complain about getting a penalty for his team holding and then face-washing Jono from the bench? Once that happened he lost all reasoning and wasted the rest of the game gesturing to the stripes and was lucky not to get tossed by Tom Pering too. Great to see some passion, but his team needed some cool heads if they were to get back into the game, not ill-discipline and pantomime.
3 – Amateur Referees – 31 offenses and 100 PIMs against the Storm according to Jan Schmejkal – now that’s ridiculous, and it left both sets of fans frustrated. How can any game flow if it gets an average of about two minutes between each call. The Storm fans think we paid him off, and we think they paid him off! Maybe Finner had a point on Saturday after all.
4 – Copycat Dows – I had hoped that with Simmsey away the Dows might be left to play something other than Sweet Caroline - but my hopes were short-lived. I do see that people will wave to the tune, and that when the odd rock track was played the fans didn’t know what to do, but surely we need to evolve and not get stuck repeating the same tracks multiple times a game?
5 – Capitals Love – Everyone's favourite second team scored a blinder on Sunday when Fife forgot there were three periods in hockey - Caps got 5 unanswered goals to reverse a 4:1 deficit after 40 minutes is the kind of comeback their fans will talk about for ages. Hilarious for the neutral, and a reminder that we should stop complaining about our four point week-end, and thank the lord we're not Fife fans (again). Well done Caps - challenge cup knock-out qualification for the first time in my memory. Bravo.
I didn’t even get to talk about how we switch off in games, being out-sung by a dozen Clan fans, Lawry netting four times in one game, Ben’s blue-line bombs, or Davey Philips becoming Mark Thomas V2.0 – but that’s all ammunition for another week.
My final thought to leave you with is in the theme of #hockeyfamilystickstogether and to promote two recent causes that deserve our support. Firstly @TheMatchka, raising funds through Hockey to help the Matzka family as Scott battles ALS – you may remember Scott playing for the Devils when we piped them to the title in 10-11. The second is #Support25 @Support25Calder a fund created to support Adam Calder, who needs no introduction to anyone watching the EIHL from 2004-2010 in his fight against cancer. Watch out for his benefit game at the Skydome against the Steelers on 25th October.
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