Festive Downs n Ups n Inbetweens - Five things I learnt this last week

Happy New Year to everyone, especially anyone reading this blog, and let’s hope we have many more things to celebrate and help us learn as we progress through the hockey season. Anyway straight down to business with another five things I learnt over the last week (and a bit):

1. We lost twice against the Panthers – against the expectations of their own fans they took two very close games in front of 9,368 and 7,028 fans – leaving the fickle feline fans feeling fabulous and hailing their new king. However Tony Smith will be frustrated again as his team failed to deliver on the big occasion in front of a mass of potential repeat customers.
2. We won twice against the Storm – although the first one was close, the second one wasn’t and Manchester paid dearly for their lack of discipline. Despite video evidence, stitches for Yared, and the views of their own coach, surprisingly the Storm fans still played the hard-done-to-underdog card. Repeatedly. Bless. 
3. We played twice in Belfast – leaving the first game with a fortunate point, and a moan about a very marginal missed call on the game winner, and then our first convincing win against one of the top teams for a month or so - bravo in bringing back three points from four, and let's hope the return of Valdix, and a shuffle through the centres brings us back into contention.
4. Wrong type of crowd – all around the league the GM’s are reporting increased crowds and hailing the success of the Elite league in bringing in the new fans. However it also feels like the hockey-family mentality is falling by the way-side as we witnessed ejections from the stands, and fighting between opposition fans. Let’s hope these remain isolated incidents, and in the rush to get new bums on seats, let’s make sure the bums they’re attracting don’t force the established fans to leave.
5. More PR failures from the Steelers – with stories of webcasts being dropped based on a couple of miscreants, and away travel being dropped for no reason at all, I wonder again about our ability to turn a non-event into a faux pas. Just treat us like adults and tell us your reasoning, even if it’s banal and boring, and then we don’t have to let the speculators speculate and the haters hate.

One last thought to leave you with is that since late November we’ve played the top-three teams ten times in total, losing seven times by one goal, and our only successes being the two early December wins against a struggling Panthers, and the win tonight. Good enough to be competitive, and shows how tight the teams are at the top at the minute, but we need that to be our 'dip' if we want the big prize.

All the best, and congrats to the Greenbunch on their 50:50 win! 

Tony.