Will we race to 75? - A couple more than the normal five things I learnt this week.

(Might be more than five this week!!)

After unexpectedly having a hockey-free weekend I've been digging around in the league tables to bring you some statistical things this week. Here's where we are as at mid-day on Sunday 26th February, with teams variously having between 8 and 12 games left:

League table, showing total points, then in-conference, then outside-conference performance - notice the difference?

1. EIHL Title heading to down to Wales? – Common sense suggests Cardiff will hold most of their current six-point gap, and win the league with a couple of weeks spare. I’d go so far to say that they will even extend the gap beyond six-points as they’ve got more games remaining against teams from the easier conference. My model predicts them adding another 13 points from the remaining 16 available, and ending on 82 points, and Sheffield finishing second on 74. (Well up on the 72 that won the league last year and 74 that won it the year before)
2. What could stop them? – The focus must be on the two games Cardiff play in Sheffield, and the two final games in IAW against Belfast. If by some miracle they lose all four of those in regulation, and then we see one shock result from one of the four games against Manchester, Fife, Edinburgh or Dundee, they still close on 75 points. (Just 6 points from the 16 they have remaining – whereas they’re running at closer to 12 in the season-to-date)
3. Can Sheffield exceed 75 points? – To reach 76 points, we need 13 points from the remaining 16. That means winning twice in regulation against Cardiff, then probably needing to beat Fife, Coventry (twice), Braehead and then getting three points from away games in Nottingham and Belfast. Possible, but not probable, and as soon at 75 points becomes unreachable we’re sunk.
4. Can Belfast get to 76 points? – Not likely, as they’d need 14 points out of the remaining 16, most of which are in-conference games. That would require a double, in regulation, on the last weekend in IAW, beating Sheffield at home, dropping a maximum of two points in their three remaining games against Nottingham, and having to beat Coventry and Manchester too. They’re running at 64% in-conference so far in the league, so a target of 86% (12 from 14) would be huge.  
5. Easier conference 'up north' – Statistically proven beyond doubt again I’m afraid. Every Erdhart team has a better record cross-conference, than they do in-conference, and every Gardiner team (with the exception of Fife) wins more in-conference than they do cross-conference. Everyone except Fife finds it easier beating Gardiner teams than Erhardt teams!
6. Value of the conference bias – At least we don't need our * asterisks this year, but if we removed the imbalance between conference games, Braehead would lose about 10 points (because they are so poor cross-conference) and they would tumble from their current 4th place to 6th-7th below Fife by season-end! Another pointless banner in their rafters.
7. What about the play-off run-in too? – That’s a tastier battle entirely. My model has the ‘top six’ and ‘bottom one’ finishing roughly ‘as is’. Then Dundee gaining 7 points from 8 games to finish on 43, and Coventry gaining only 5 points from 6 games to finish in ninth place on 42. Coventry are terrible in-conference this year, so they need to shock someone and get more than one point from Belfast or Sheffield (twice) to save their season. Dundee’s six remaining in-conference games (and two cross-conference) gives them enough chance to just pip them.
8. Final word for Edinburgh – Let’s add a quick mention for Edinburgh, who are currently on 31 points, and maybe on-track for 38 this year. Compare that to 25 last year and you can see the bounce. It's still tenth, but it's respectable.

So if Cardiff flunk they will finish on 75 points, and if Sheffield or Belfast have run almost perfect, including winning their games against Cardiff in regulation, then they might just reach 76. So it’s still game-on, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Cardiff will win their first ever EIHL title, and their first league title for 20 years! At the bottom Coventry might drop one place from last year, and thus fail to make the play-off quarter finals for their first time. Looks like we will have another record-breaking season one-way or another!

Enjoy your hockey. Tony.

Is the Sky really falling in? - Five things I learnt this week.

After losing to the Panthers on Saturday, and being embarrassed in at least one of the games against Belfast recently, it’s tough to see many positives from our current league position, but is it really as bad as some of the Steelmoaners are making out? Let’s look at five facts I’ve just been reminding myself during pre-game at Murrayfield (so they exclude anything that happens against Edinburgh):

1. Last Year League comparison: This time last year we had played 40 games and had 53 points – this year we have played 39 and have 53 points. So we’re up on last year, and last year’s League campaign was pretty good wasn’t it.
2. Last Year CHL comparison: This year we beat Salzburg, scored 11 and conceded 20. Last year we lost all four games, scored 4 and conceded 20. So we’re up on last year here too.
3. Last Year cup comparison: Right now we’re in the semi-final of the pointless cup – with a first leg lead against the Panthers, whereas last year we were eight goals behind going into the second leg. We’re not certain to progress any further, but I like our chances a lot more than I did last year.
4. Goals Scored – According to the Elite league website we’re top of the league in goals scored with 150 – that’s 4 more than Cardiff, and 9 more than Belfast despite playing one less game. So we’re seeing goals this year, and we’re good going forward and that’s got to be a good thing hasn’t it.
5. Goals conceded – We’ve conceded 102 goals, which in 39 games is 2.6 per game. So is that the problem? No, because Belfast and Cardiff have conceded exactly the same. Moose’s save percentage is identical to Bowns and Murphy/Whistle too. So it’s not goals against that are burning us.

From the five facts above it’s hard to believe why the Steelers fans are depressed and up-in-arms against the club’s ownership and management isn’t it? Well no, I think it’s down to who we lose to, and how and where we win. Steelers are miles behind in the Erdhart conference table, almost level 4th with the Panthers, which means we’ve lost more often to the teams we most want to beat. They are painful, and the urge to moan is the greatest. Flip side is that we’re the best around at cross-conference games, only dropping one game in Dundee, and that OT loss to the Clan in IS – we’re great at that, but Steelers fans expect us to win those, so we don’t get the ‘high’ that beating our nearest and dearest brings us. 

So the trick for Tom and Jerry to master is developing the tactics and bottle to win in-conference – but as that’s eluded us in every previous season I’m not about to hold my breath for the remainder of this year. It's not our best season, but suck it up everyone, the sky is far from falling in!

Four points for everyone - Five things I learnt this weekend.

It seems poor form for the blog not to celebrate a four-point weekend, so although Belfast and Cardiff's grabbed four too meaning we’ve not gained back any of the lost ground; let’s look at the positives as at least we haven’t given up anything, and here are five reasons to be cheerful:

• Fretter is on fire – that four goal blast against the Blaze takes Colton to twenty-one goals and to third highest goal scorer in the league, level with Mathieu, with just Beca and Pitt ahead of him. Not bad for someone who started the year on the third line, and is now playing with someone who originally centred the fourth line!

• Historic Pantstrick – yes it’s officially called a pantstrick when you get four goals, and it’s only the fifth time that’s happened in Steelers history according to my buddy @steelersstats – Globke, Clark, Meyer and Forney. Chapeau (+1!).
• Dowd and Nelson back with Valdix – Looks like these three amigos are also warming up again, with a brace from Levi and three for Robert over the weekend. Now Andreas is back it looks like we’re not going to be short of goals.
• Adding to the ranks – Our new sniper Geoff Walker also looks like a tasty prospect, with 52 points from 32 games, leading the whole Alpine league whilst playing for a team who finished 14th out of 16. Described by some as a poor-man’s Jason Williams, I hope our new 29 year-old gives their 36 year-old a run in the scoring race in the next 16 games - and he’s such a hit that he comes back again, rather than retiring! Welcome to Sheffield Geoff.
• Yet more goal fests – Tony keeps telling us that he wants exciting hockey, and the way to bring in the crowds is to get goals. Well we’ve got the goals, and so have the opposition, with the Steelers fans only seeing one shut-out at either end all year (Dundee’s 4:0 win against us). Let's find out how to shut the back door guys, especially at home as unfortunately for Tony it seems we’re road warriors this year (another four on the bounce and counting), rather than homers!

Anyway, when all’s said and done we’re still eight points behind Cardiff, so remain third favourites for the title, but after four point week-end’s and we reinforcements coming in soon, we have reasons to be cheerful, and maybe Thommo might cheer up for a bit?!  Game still on in Sheffield.

Get back to me if you agree / disagree, or think I've done a Simmsey with my proof reading.
Cheers Tony.

Gigantic failures - Five things I learnt this weekend.

Well that wasn’t the weekend we had hoped for, nor the weekend we expected following good wins in Cardiff and Nottingham, but it was the weekend we got, and we can take learnings from it. Here’s five things I took away from the weekend.

1. No show on Saturday – I’m not talking about my decision to watch the Rival Sons at the Leadmill instead of going to the game, but reflecting on the opinions of the fans when I talked to them the following night. What happened to the team? There were visible frustrations on the ice, and lots of frustration in the fans - frustration with Thommo tinkering with the lines, and then sticking with it despite everyone else thinking it wasn’t working. I’m glad to have missed it but many seem to think that was the worst performance they’ve seen in a long time. Going behind heavily in the first period is never great watching, but we never responded and should have all just gone home after Riley grabbed their fifth, but as Tony and Simmsey keep telling us – we’re just fans who know nothing.
2. Better on Sunday – We were playing like demons at the start of Sunday, back to the forward lines that everyone recognised, and getting early pressure on their net - the crowd was as noisy as anything when Luke scored the first, and then confidence increased further after our second. If we could have reached the first interval before Levi’s hot-headed penalty, and if not for the lucky rebound for the Giants PP goal then we might have gone on to better things. Their first goal seemed to knock whatever confidence our players had, re-energised their supporters, and handed over the momentum. We grabbed it back briefly at 3.3 but killed ourselves off again with another individual mistake shortly afterwards. Not the worst game I’ve seen, and a point might have been a fair result, but after the frustrations of Saturday I think we will all reflect on it harshly.
3. Need for change – Performances like that breed discontent and calls for changes in the management and playing staff, but let’s take a breather and reflect on where we are in the league, what great hockey we’ve seen so far, and give them the benefit of the doubt. The team has been grabbing results with quite a few misfiring forwards, some leaky defence, and no options for resting players or Moose – we’ve been keeping ourselves in the hunt without playing at our best. We’ve no god given right to win the league, I just want to be competitive, and if Thommo could just bring in that spare soon that would be great.
4. Title favourites – For argument let’s say it’s just a two-horse race now – Cardiff have both a game in hand, and are a point ahead, but as there are still four head-to-head games between the Devils and Giants, then it’s clear that anything is still possible. Cardiff have been looking over their shoulder for months now, whilst Belfast have been on a great run of form, so on balance I’d probably favour Belfast. However, there’s plenty of time yet for another twist, or another horse to rejoin the race, and it’s worth noting that our friends at @AVFTB were writing themselves out of the running too back in November.
5. What do we need to do to win it? – We have 17 games left, almost one-third of the season still to go. One-third! OK, we have an eight point gap to Cardiff, and only one game in hand, but add that game-in-hand to also having three more Gardiner conference games than they do, then that could recover about half of that gap right there. We then have two games against Cardiff and one against Belfast, and if we win two of those we’re back in it. I think we have the easier run-in, and if those two start worrying about each other and sharing their head-to-heads we’re still going to have a big say in where the title goes. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but it’s still game on in Sheffield.

One final thing to leave you with is to ask if you saw Mike Smith’s antics at the NHL all-star weekend four line challenge? He’s the n/m for the Coyotes and maybe not the biggest household name, but he grabbed some headlines as he floated a puck from the far goalline into net target at the other end of the rink that wasn’t much wider than the puck itself! Now that’s great puck handling with a goalie paddle right there, but let’s hope the Steelers weren’t watching as otherwise our shoot-for-a-car will move back from the blue-line to at least the centre-line, and involve a goalie stick just to make sure there’s no winner.

Bolts n Flames n Conferences - Five things I learnt this week.

I’m typing this before we take on the Devils, partly to defray my nerves, and partly to keep my mind on UK hockey matters rather than drifting into memories of watching the Blackhawks in Miami this time last year :sighs:! There have been plenty more than five things to fill the blog this week, so this one is all about the new boys.

• Flames and Lightning – with Guildford announced as recent applicants to join the EIHL, and thus likely to join Milton Keynes as new entrants next year we could be left with a 12 team league. Great news as it looks like we must be doing something right, and also gives the fans some new teams to see and the potential for a southern double-header weekend road-trip (providing we can all fit in!). As per the Ice Hockey Annual they have average home crowds of 1,756 and 1,500 - which is already more than the Strom, Stars and Capitals, so they look like awesome additions and the cream of the EPL crop.
• Restructuring the league – We currently play 52 league games (8 in-conference and 4 outside each) and 10 cup group games = 62 games each before the play-offs excluding any games doubling up. So how might that have to change? Reading Simmsey’s and Tony’s programme notes it seems they’re considering either a twelve team straightforward league, or two conferences of six each, and each has their plus/minus.

• Simple twelve team league - The single league probably won’t happen due to travel costs and simple maths – to get 6 games against everyone else is 66 games – so unless we ditch the cup group stages (please) we can’t have that many league games, and also Tony and Gary lose out on upto four Panthers v Steelers pay-days.  Possible, but a radical cup review would be required. Five games against each is better maths, but leaves us with an in-balance of home and away games against each rival.
• Two conferences of six – The maths helps here, as you can have six games against each conference rival, and four against each opposite conference team, in a total of 54 league games. The Scots can keep their local travel, but it only works if you can balance the teams. The obvious geographical one is to move Belfast into the northern conference, and bring in Guildford and MK into the Erdhart – but that gives Belfast a much easier route to the league title, and all the accusations that will bring, and it makes for nightmare group-of-death opposition for the new boys (Cardiff, Nottingham, Sheffield and Coventry).
• The third way – How about adding a third conference? Geographically you would leave the Scots to fight amongst themselves, cluster MK, Guildford, Coventry and Cardiff in the south, leaving Belfast, Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham in the middle. Makes it easier for Cardiff and Braehead to win their conferences maybe, but as they would only play six games in-conference, and four games outside conference against each team then the whole conference bias is much smaller, we still total 50 games, and Guildford and MK avoid Sheffield and Nottingham a couple of times.

So that leaves us with plenty of options, and plenty of opportunity for the league committee to balls it all up – and as both MK and Guildford can seat about 2,200 (roughly the same as Dundee and Manchester) also some road-trip opportunities as they're both closer than Scotland and the beers not too bad!

Let me know you're thoughts too.

Cheers

Tony. 

Lights Out but Goal Lamps on - Five things I learnt this week

I thought I’d power through this week’s five things before outside influences knock out the lights on me – there’s never a dull week in UK hockey is there!

1. POFW ticket pricing – The EIHL have just confirmed £89 for the week-end (plus booking fees and administration costs no doubt), which is about £30 a ticket for the three worthwhile games. It’s a cash-cow for the league, but another fleecing for the fans. Compare and Contrast: How about supporting TeamGB and seeing 3 games a day for 5 days at the IIHF Div 1B championships in Belfast in April  - the whole 15 games for £60; or four games of NCAA NHL future stars going full pelt for £40 at the Belpot tournament next November? POFW Pfft.
2. Barn-burner or bungle-fest – Cracking going forward, as six goals in a game can’t be sniffed at, but letting in five is so out of character for our team that you wonder what went wrong. Coventry have been racking up some impressive wins against Cardiff and Belfast recently, so maybe they were due to breakout with five, but I imagine Thommo will make the players play tighter at the back tonight and make the Defence play Defence.
3. Outside Influences - £Kerching for the Elite League as surely they get to fine Danny Stewart after his interview for bringing the game into disrepute. I love the brass of the man as he claims the Blaze were told the warm-up would start at 8pm, whilst in reality he was stood near to Simmsey as the Arena announcement was made to the crowd stating that face-off would be at eight after 5 minutes of warm-up. Too many knocks to the head impacting his hearing maybe? Also a little ironic that one of the first calls of the night was against Ash Tait for a delay of game!
4. Nelson v Almedia versus Fournier v Foster – After seeing the Levi hit right in front of our block, I’m cool with the 5 + Match call – I understand it could have been more lenient but an injury did seem to have been caused, so fair enough as it was a poor play from our man. However at almost the same time Fournier was steamrollering Foster down in Cardiff, and skated away without a penalty being called. If DOPs really is for player safety then both need to be looked at, and equality restored, but as the Fournier hit won’t be automatically reviewed will Belfast pay for the appeal and potentially weaken the Devils just as the Steelers roll into the bay? That’s a decision that should be made by the chairman and league rather than teams involved imo!
5. Phoenix back in the ashes again – One final (?) classy move from Neil Morris as he releases a press statement whilst his team were playing saying he can’t keep funding them. I wonder if things could have been different had he not jumped in bed with Scholes and had his hissy fit at the 2015 playoffs. It’s probably been coming for a while now, and hopefully the EPL can find a more stable solution to keep the Phoenix together, but with the Bees lack of funding, and the Lightning moving on, there’s lots to worry about in that league right now. 

On final thing to leave you with is the return of the SSSC away busses! After a bizarre change of mind, we’re left as we were, leaving only another embarrassing PR mess behind – typical Steelers!

Cheers,

Tony.

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.

Gimme a B-R-I-A-N - Five things I learnt this week

Tis the last week before Christmas, but after another successful back-to-back series against the Coventry Blaze, we got to learn plenty more about the team, and our opposition. Here’s another five things I learnt this festive week:

1. Searching for a shutout : Another two games played with one goal conceded in each – and I really thought that Moose was going to go the distance in Coventry, until yet another last minute shutout denier. It has to be said that the whole team have stepped up in defence in recent months, and Moose’s now sitting pretty at 0.921 which is good for a tie of first place with Shane Owen in the EIHL – quite a change from how we started the season.
2. Scoring all the time : The good news is that we’re not letting others shut us out either. In the 39 games we’ve played this season we’ve only seen one shut-out, and that was the unlikely event of a 4:0 burst from Dundee during our Scottish double header about a month ago. We’re second top of the scoring charts to Cardiff, and with our games in hand we will probably take top spot in those stats too. Top stats!
3. B-r-i-a-n : I’m so glad that away fans can’t easily d-r-o-n-e out Ervīns Muštukovs, as even if Brian seems to have learnt how to block us out (congratulations on having no dummy spitting tantrums so far this year by the way) it must really irritate their fans, and if we impact just one of their players for one shift then it makes all the fun and games and sore throats worthwhile. Thanks to my block buddies Kev, Fergus, Eric and all for helping lead that banter!
4. Semi’s : It’s the normal suspects in the Cup semi-finals, as the ‘so called’ stronger conference have provided the top four again, and if you’re reading Jono Bullard and Clantastic, I prefer the terms ‘demonstrably’ or ‘statistically proven’ when using your air quotes.
5. Another few interesting conference facts for you : Every Erdhart team has a better record in cross-conference games than it does in their own conference. Each Erdhart team is running at 50% or more cross-conference, whereas only Fife (!) can boast similar for the Gardiners. Finally the Clan have taken only 2 points from a possible 20 in cross-conference games this year – shambolic – and that’s why they’re not registering as a league threat so far this year.

One final thought is to wish everyone peace, love, and joy this Holiday Season and a happy and prosperous New Year – with plenty of silverware to celebrate!

Time to pray to the hockey gods - Five things I learnt w/e 18 December

It’s time to start praying to the hockey gods Steelers fans, as otherwise we might have to do a Nottingham and make do with a Cup or Play-off win this year. Despite playing some of the best hockey we’ve seen in recent years we’ve now followed up a one-point weekend, with a nil-point weekend. Although it’s only mid-December, it’s now crunch-time as we’ve lost our league series against the Devils already, and to claw some lost ground we now need to beat the red-hot Blaze in mid-week.

Fearing a £100 fine from the EIHL, or abuse from Cardiff fans, if I moan about the referees missing penalties on them (interference on Roy / Armstrong before their second goal anyone) or being overly harsh against us (insert your own Levi losing teeth / Lord getting pushed over comparison here) here’s a more stats based five things to give us some historical perspective:

• Two years ago – We led the league with 35 points, six ahead of the Devils on the same games played. Those six points had evaporated by early March.
• One year ago – Cardiff led the league with 35 points, four ahead of us although we had a game in hand. Those four points had evaporated by March.
• This year – Cardiff lead the league with 39 points, twelve points ahead, with us having four games in hand. IF we win those four games, we end up four points behind – and we’ve seen league leads of that many points evaporate in each of the last two years.
• So it’s not all over then – Maybe not, but the big concern for me is that Cardiff are much stronger this year, and hoovering up the points, whilst we are only slightly better. Cardiff are running at over three points per week-end (it’s actually 3.25 - a 0.813 points won percentage), which is well up on last year (0.700) and the previous year (0.630) – so we need them to start losing form quickly to grab back that run-rate. We’re running at 0.675 by the way – 6.75 points from every ten games, about 1.5 short of the Devils every four weeks – and with about twelve weeks to go we need an exact reversal of those stats to catch them.
• Little things with big consequences – When the coach see’s something he hasn’t seen in 25 years of coaching you know something really odd has happened – and that own-goal from Ben and Davey was certainly very odd. You can google and see lots of delayed penalty own-goals, but none where the n/m was still in position. I guess that’s why the n/m must be alert at all times – unfortunate, and maybe another sign that the hockey gods are against us this year.

As a final thought, welcome back Jace! One highlight from the last week was to see Jace back straight into the swing of things with two goals in two games. He will seemingly be another threat going forward again this year. However his line-matching is vital, and pairing him with Bjӧrklund highlighted the old historic defensive worries, especially during the lead up to the Devil’s third goal. Like the rest of the D he’s got lots of creativity, but he’s occasionally careless and was easily found out-of-position.

Cheers,

Tony.

Redhawks away days - Five things I learnt w/e 11 December

Thanks to being left alone with the internet and credit cards a few weeks ago the five things I learnt this week have a distinct Swedish flavour as I tripped across to Malmö to see the RedHawks play Skellefteå. 

1> The Arena - Malmö play in a multi purpose barn built in 2008 which is the largest arena in SHL. It holds 13,000, but as there was little away support (Skellefteå are based at the very north of Sweden), I guess it was less than 50% full so I'm not sure I got the full-fan frenzy SHL experience. Especially as the home team were shutout 3:0.

2> The Noise - We stood in a banked standing area built where the stage would be. The Fanvourites produced constant noise, with self orchestrated chanting, drumming and clapping all game - and the obligatory flag waving at every break in play. 

3> The Game - The SHL is everything you've been told. It's the same game as we play in the EIHL but faster pace, with no time to think on the puck as oppo is straight on you, and they're stronger on the puck too. Also, the Skellefteå Nettie is lights-out awesome - even Braehead would win something if they had him. 

4> The Incidentals - I enjoyed the shoot-for-loot where a punter shot from blue line versus an ex-pro and fan favourite who shot from the red line. Also, the Inflatable went up quick and didn't get dragged off by its arse. 

5> The hockey culture - Our hotel lobby featured a TV showing hockey highlights and had themed artwork on the restaurant. Inter-sport sold SHL merchandise. The venue had integrated club shops, and banners all featuring hockey cult heroes - and this is a shared venue just like Sheffield's remember. Swedes get hockey. 

One final thought to leave you with is that I leave you lot in charge for one weekend and you lose both games - I suppose if you need a job doing...

Getting it off my chest - Five things I learnt w/e 4 December

I need to get this off my chest, so that I can go to the game later with a clear head and try to enjoy the hockey unwound. So here's an earlier than normal five things.

Well that was another controversial week in the EIHL wasn’t it! On-the-ice we’ve finally taken back one of our games-in-hand over the Devils, played “our biggest rivals” twice, grabbed a nice haul of points, but still the item that ground everyone’s gears again was the refereeing and the Elite league’s response. So it’s an angry and frustrated five things this week:

1. To Tony the GM – We thank you for bringing stability to our club, and attracting probably the deepest pool of player talent that’s ever graced our club. The hockey is exciting, the league is growing, we’re in with a shout of adding more silverware, and the building is filling up nicely. Cheers.
2. To Tony the League Chairman – Literally what the arse, ass, bum, butt, cock, crapola, dickweed… were you thinking when you launched that steaming turd of a statement about cracking down on dissent?  The recent (im-) proper comments regarding referees, linesmen and the Department of Player Safety should be a call to arms rather than prompting a dumb threat. In the modern world we’ve all seen the incident on social media, and heard multiple views from those in attendance about what’s happening, so the truth is already out there - and it’s a bit late to buy people’s silence with the threat of fines. Naïve. 
3. What should they have done? - Tell us what you’re going to do about solving the problem, rather than who isn’t toeing the party line. Tell us about referee training, how we help them develop, how we show them their mistakes so they can learn - people will understand if we have to live with the current flaws IF we know that the solution is coming. Treat us like grown-ups and we’ll do the same in exchange.
4. Which came first, the game or the business – When ‘hurting the business model’ is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re hit by a barrage of player safety concerns, it’s time to take a hard look at what you’re trying to achieve. These incidents, our rulings, and that dumb-ass statement will circulate the globe reinforcing existing prejudices that we’ve got no-more than a goon-league – and by doing this in the way you have you’ve taken us backwards and undone so much good work.
5. Public reporting going forward – Now that people are facing fines, will we have more no-show interviews like the Panthers did last night – more emotion free highlighting of rule-book on websites – more corporate focused, sponsor pleasing, boring as hell bland garbage like we get in Premier League and F1? This is a sport fuelled by emotion, and living on the edge of the rules, and we need to hear that emotion to help us feel involved and passionate about our sport. Another step backwards @officialeihl

As a final thought, who will do the auditing of the players, managers, GM’s comments, and who will pay for that work to be done? Wouldn’t that be better invested in goal-line technology, or helping out our referees with(say) a four-man system where we match some up-and-coming stripes with some more experiences ones? I’d rather have three line hockey, and decent referees.

Someone tell me I'm wrong, and we aren't at a watershed moment for the sport we love.

We've got a Cup Semi but a League Flop - Five things I learnt w/e 27 November

There were three games played since last weekend, but only one mattered, and that one ended up with more referee controversy and another disappointing result. More down than up in this week's five things:

1. Cardiff champions elect already - It's a bit early to throw in any towels, but if we can't beat them, we can't put too much hope in anyone else doing it for us. Lost two at home and one away in league so far - we've played well, we haven't had the puck bounce, but it's points and not performances that win prizes. With their new rink, and increased player budgets, they were always going to be a tough opponent - and it seems Lord has got a great spirit in that group, and keeping himself on the ice and Bordy off it is reaping rewards. 
2. Schmejkal - With the Hagos incident last weekend, and the cloud of controversy in Cardiff this week, I think we can conclude that Jan's match craft isn't where we need it to be. If the players had any respect for him, I think that has dissipated, and I fear they will increasingly take it into their own hands in his next game. The lad needs help not hanging out to dry - get in quick before he's destroyed Mr Kirkham - and thank god he's not on Twitter. 
3. Valdix and Hagos out - After only having about five minutes with the team being back to full strength, we've lost another two to injury. Both courtesy of Belfast. The obvious solution to losing two forwards is obviously to bring in an attack minded defensemen such as Jace Coyle. Bizarre but true, and I guess we should be glad we've still got three solid enough lines, which should be enough against most teams other than Cardiff. 
4. Liam Kirk - Two goals in his debut season, after less than 20 minutes combined ice time. That must be the best goal:shift ratio in the league! We can look forward to seeing him flourish. 
5. Cup semifinal - in the games we didn't care about we got a draw and an easy win. If the semifinal is on the season ticket I may bother watching it.

One final thought to leave you with is how will we run an eleven team league next year? I half expected the last EIHL board meeting to drop a few hints, but after radio silence we will have to guess. So i'll start - to even out the games, whilst keeping the two conferences my guess is we'll make the cup and league groupings the same and have some doubled up cup/league games in the larger group, and MK and Belfast will join the Erdhart for Cup and League. Any better guesses - maybe MK to Erdhart and Belfast to Gardiner as an alternate?

Thanks for reading everybody. Remember if you want to be a part of Frozen Steel you can get into touch with us on Twitter or find us on our Facebook Page, remembering to like us and leave a comment. We will then get back in touch:

@FrozenSteelBlog

@FrozenSteelMNL

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@DISGU15ED

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Glass half-full - Five things I learnt w/e 20 Nov

Like many others I went into the weekend hoping for four points, but telling myself that two would be fine. Now I’m on this side of the weekend I’m not so sure – and we're left with a bizarre case of winning the one we could have lost, and losing the one we should have won. Anyway,  here’s another five things I took away from those games.

1. Fretter's first Friday goal – Haven’t seen the replays but in my mind Desi turned over the puck in our zone, knocked it past their retreating Defence a couple of times, then lunged for a diving poke pass to a streaking Frets, who buried the biscuit on the break. Bravo - We can continue to re-live that goal until a better one turns up.
2. The second Fretter goal – The puck never left the end of Colton’s stick as he drove past three Devils spectators as from the side-boards to the blue-paint, where he deked past Ben Bowns for that beauty of a second. The best goal at the arena since his last one, sublime, and those two efforts deserved a better reward in terms of points return.
3. Anders & Davey– I wish I had more confidence in these two. I appreciate that it’s a team game, and others needs to help out, but weak play by Anders, and an enormous howler from Davey (instantly winning Hitchy’s ‘Mark Thomas Award’ for his outstanding contribution to the opposition) cost us points again. I can accept that from a British bottom two defenceman, but from an ECHL calibre import – no thanks.
4. Chuck the puck at the net – All four Devils goals were scored from close in - a couple of re-bounds, a dodgy bounce off the back-boards, and the one Davey wants to forget. We need a couple of those bounces at their end, and the less we cycle it around, and the more the puck gets sent to the net, the more chances we have. It worked on Sunday, which makes Friday's shot-shy experience even harder to fathom.
5. The Rutherford incident - Firstly we're glad he's OK, and now our concern can turn to the fate of Yared who suffered a cowardly checking to the head from the aforementioned midget. I hope there's no lasting injury to Hagos, and Desi's penalty is removed from his record. Rutherford however should suffer the full force of the DOPS 'magic eight ball' and keep his fingers crossed for a ban shorter than the number of games Yared misses. Would also be nice if he, and the league-wide Twitter kangeroo court, made some apologies too.

One last thing to leave you with is that Tony Smith has made it clear that he wants more bums-on-seats, and that mean more excitement, and that means more goals. We set our table during recruitment when we seemed to spend big up-front, seek out attack minded D, and compromise at the back. That combined with Moose not being the saviour we hoped for, and increasingly playing feet out of his crease, then I guess that means that no lead is safe, and a break-out, or collapse is equally likely at the end of every game – it’s going to be a roller-coaster of scoring and/or giving up leads because I’m not expecting a policy change anytime soon.

Cheers,

Tony.

Thanks for reading everybody. Remember if you want to be a part of Frozen Steel you can get into touch with us on Twitter or find us on our Facebook Page, remembering to like us and leave a comment. We will then get back in touch:

@FrozenSteelBlog

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Don't forget to listen to our weekly podcast  Breaking The Ice

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More Pandas than Panthers - Five things I learnt w/e 13 Nov

So it’s another four point weekend for the Steelers, and another unbeaten run begins with two very different games and two very different opponents. The first lot were more Pandas than Panthers, whilst the Stars shone on Sunday - but neither were a match for the rampant Steelers. Here’s a couple of learnings I took away from the week-end.

1. It’s only fun beating people when they fight back – So I blame the Panthers for me not enjoying Saturday as much as I should have. It felt like beating the short-benched Capitals teams of years back where you actually start to feel sorry for the opposing fans rather than celebrating your own goals. Looks like there’s quite a gap between the coach and the team there - and also some kind of fire drill siren that can only be heard in blocks 101 and 201.
2. Panthers squad – On the basis of that game I don’t think there’s a single player that I’d like to see in Orange, and that can’t be right for a title rival. I honestly can’t think of a like-for-like swap that I’d be prepared to do, and unless they do things differently down the M1, the blame for the recruitment of the players sits with the Head Coach.
3. Continental Cup – I had hoped that the Panthers might do the EIHL proud against Odense, Angers and HC Donbass this coming week-end, but after only beating the Blaze by one goal at home in the pointless cup, and losing their last six league games, I’m now glad that Premier Sports aren’t showing the games. Saves me wasting any more time on them.
4. Dundee players showed they care – I don’t know how that team are at the foot of the table, as at home and against us they are playing with tons of passion and commitment. They stuck to their game plan, hit us on the break, and kept going all night. Top work Marc, and here’s hoping Corey and his team tuned into their webcast and took some lessons on-board. 
5. Penalty shots – Can we begin to believe in our Penalty Shot chances again? Schultz is two from two, Armstrong will learn not to repeat the Forsberg every time, Valdix poached his, and Moose stopped all four he’s faced in the last two weeks. Dare we believe?

One final thought to leave you with is to wish Alex Dampier all the best with his recent disclosed fight against Leukaemia. He’s a Steelers (and Panthers) legend after helping us in the early years gain promotion, our first championship, and our first grand slam. If there’s a bucket going around to remind him about how much we still care then there’ll be plenty wanting to chuck something in. We’re thinking of you at this time Alex.

Cheers,

Tony.

Don't forget to listen to our weekly podcast  Breaking The Ice

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