The British Hockey Thread 2015-2016

[archibalduk]

They do an early bird offer as well, £4.99 if you order a couple of days in advance. That's what I did with the storm game

Ah nice - thanks. I might do that.

Btw, I was watching the Flames v Pirates highlights and what struck me (other than Hull's shaky defence) is how bad Hull's green jersey is:



The Flames new third jersey is pretty nice, but I really don't like this tendency for the retro style text rather than the logo. It looked nice when a couple of teams did it, but too many are doing it now IMO.

[MWE]

I like the green one

[Calv]

That is a rather interesting shirt design... I like the Flames one, but far too many teams have the old school font as their logo now, definitely getting boring.

[Garethw87]

I read a comment about the Hull jersey and it influenced somebody to buy some Starbursts, was curious why

[archibalduk]

I like the green one

Ha trust you to like it, MWE!

[MWE]

I like the green one

Ha trust you to like it, MWE!

It's nice

[marksbros6]

4-point weekend for the Phoenix, looks like they might surprise a few teams this season. Their imports look good, and they look to be well backed up by Archer. Depth will be a problem later on in the season though. I'll definitely watch them when they play the Flames, and maybe at Milton Keynes too.

I can't imagine Manchester's run will last. They'll get an injury at some point between now and Christmas and then their performance will dip.

I really like the look of MK. I have always thought they've had a good core of players just like Basingstoke - but they've always had a small squad (especially last season). This season they seem to have much more depth, so perhaps they can challenge for a top three place.

Bloody Phoenix... Lol

As an MK fan I like the look of our team, it has a nice balance and lots of depth, we've iced a full 4-lines so far in the games that I've seen and I'm made up that we've landed Dean Skinns in net, always thought he was a top goalie in this league.

Was going to ask you Arch what you thought of Stevie Wall now Guildford have got him, always thought he was amazing on his day, but not consistant enough last season. I see from above that you've moved to some god-less, hockey-less island though!

I've got some thoughts on our team from last season that I've been meaning to e-mail to you for the database, and I'll try to give you a flavour of some of our new signings (some of which arent in the database from what I can see). And I will do my best to do this TONIGHT!

Off to MK v Telford next week anyway, that will be a big test for our new squad.

As an aside I'm liking the new jerseys for MK and the arrangement of Dark jerseys for home games at the mo.

[archibalduk]

As an MK fan I like the look of our team, it has a nice balance and lots of depth, we've iced a full 4-lines so far in the games that I've seen and I'm made up that we've landed Dean Skinns in net, always thought he was a top goalie in this league.

Four lines is a hell of an improvement over last year. I remember they'd have about two and a half lines on some occasions at Guildford last season.

Was going to ask you Arch what you thought of Stevie Wall now Guildford have got him, always thought he was amazing on his day, but not consistant enough last season. I see from above that you've moved to some god-less, hockey-less island though!

Ha! Yeah, it's the one thing I miss from the UK. I still have my season ticket however and I hope to make the Saturday games (there's 12 of them IIRC). However, I think it's going to get a bit expensive because it involves flights, a hotel (there's no late night flight so I have to get one on Sunday morning) and a train ride to/from Gatwick. I'm all booked for this Saturday's game (Peterborough) as well as the two next month (Telford and Manchester) - but I'm not sure how many more I'll go to. It's costing me £200 per game which is a hell of a lot of money for a single game... So I suspect I won't renew my season ticket next season.

As for Stevie Wall - I think he's definitely an upgrade over Hadfield so I'm pleased about that. Hadfield was great two seasons ago, but last season he was really unreliable and has a tendency to give away a lot of rebounds. Wall is better, but I have always found him to be very streaky. Rockman has proven to be very reliable and so I hope he'll be the starting goalie, but I suspect Digger is going to want to rotate them. In fairness, Wall would have had a shut-out last weekend had it not been for a long range shot where he was completely screened.

[Calv]

ELITE LEAGUE STATEMENT
September 18, 2015

The Challenge Cup match between Belfast Giants and Edinburgh Capitals on Friday 18th September 2015 was incorrectly called as a 3-3 final score at the end of regulation time.

Belfast and Edinburgh meet again tonight (Saturday) in an Elite League game at the SSE Arena.

The Challenge Cup overtime period - and penalty shots if needed - will be played before the start of the league game.

The Elite League would like to apologise for an on-ice error and for any inconvenience caused to supporters.

[A9L3E]

So the officials are not familiar with the competition rules?

[MWE]

The ref in question is one of the worst tbh

[MWE]

Steelers won 5-0 last night not a bad start to the season

[Calv]

So the officials are not familiar with the competition rules?

Apparently not, they changed the rules a few seasons ago to include OT & SO in group games so that the rules would be consistent across the league and cup competitions

[Calv]

Steelers won 5-0 last night not a bad start to the season

You certainly seem to have Blaze's number so far this season

[archibalduk]

The Guildford v Peterborough game was good last night. Two quick goals from Kristoffersson put us two up within the first five minutes and then Craig Scott pulled it back to 2-1. We then made it 3-1 with Piatak and then towards the end of the game Craig Scott scored his second (he's looking like a good signing - not flashy, but works hard and generates a lot of the Phantoms' offence). Auzins and Rockman both pulled off some cracking saves.

I was really pleased to get a result against the Phantoms given how strong they seem to be and given how we struggled against Basingstoke over the previous three games. Both Guildford and Peterborough look like they're still warming up from the off-season, but I really like how the Guildford team is shaping up. Kristoffersson had some lengthy quiet periods last night, but there were also moments of real skill (including this nice little skate-stick-skate move similar to one of the dekes from the EA NHL series of games). Piatak looks good too. I like the look of a our forward lines now and I think our defence will be good once we have Quiney back. I'm really not a fan of Godfrey; he has made numerous mistakes so far this season (as he did a lot of last season, particularly the latter part of last season). And we're no longer playing the meaningless behind the net plays time and again.

There were some pretty big scores last night; Telford thrashed Hull 7-2, Swindon beat Bracknell 8-4 (even though it looked for a while that Bracknell would win) and Basingstoke beat Manchester 6-2. We're at Manchester tonight and so hopefully we can get a good result.

[Calv]

Manchester were without Gron (their top import) and their Deeside two-way players so I think they had 12 skaters last night. You'll have a good chance as I imagine they'll be tired after last nights game.

It's funny that you say 'we're at Manchester tonight' and you picture is a Phoenix logo

[archibalduk]

Haha good point! I really need to get a new avatar.

Sounds like Gron may have had a falling out with team and has now left them.

[archibalduk]

Ouch, Storm threw away yet another game today; this time the Devils. They were two goals ahead on three occasions and still ended up losing 6-8. They really can't manage to play the full three periods right now.

[archibalduk]

Two rather heroic saves from Brandon Stones (shame Billingham scored on the third attempt...): https://twitter.com/katepearson_9/statu ... 3426007040

[archibalduk]

Wow, the Bees hammered the Pirates 10-3! Really not looking good for Hull...

The Flames were defeated 1-3 by Phoenix.

[Garethw87]

Ouch, Storm threw away yet another game today; this time the Devils. They were two goals ahead on three occasions and still ended up losing 6-8. They really can't manage to play the full three periods right now.

We've built a small, quick team of fancy forwards - nothing wrong with that - but there are no real D men. The best D man seems to be Phillips, the British one, that is a problem with no disrespect meant! Kalemba, while I'm not his biggest fan from what I've seen so far, has no support.

[Calv]

Difficult weekend for the Storm. On a positive note, its good to see them score 6 goals against Erhardt opposition. Disappointing to score 6 and get 0 points though. Improvements definitely needed in defence. Next game is at home to Blaze, could do with a win to steady the ship a bit. Away at Sheffield will be tough.

Good win for the Phoenix at home though

[archibalduk]

Yeah really impressive given how weak Phoenix looked on paper. The Archer and Kovar goals were extremely good. The third one was an apparently freak bounce off the boards, Wall thought it went the other way, leaving an open net for O'Flaherty.

On another note, it looks like Hull took a thrashing due to Baston getting injured and having to replace him with a youth team goalie.

[Calv]

Free stream of Phantoms-Bees tonight at 7: http://ibcltd.co/Phantoms/

[Calv]

I watched the Phantoms - Bees game last night, not bad quality although the commentary was quite poor I though. Phantoms looked pretty poor and Bees looked even worse, don't think they had any good opportunities to score. Phantoms won 3-0.