And so it begins.....

Indeed. Sunday saw the mighty Phoenix take to the ice at the Ice Dome (well, they wouldn't take to the pitch would they?) and face the Sheffield Steelpups, sorry Steeldogs in the 2nd leg of the annual War of the Roses trophy series.

And guess what? The Pups only went and bloody won the thing! Well, they won on aggregate as the fairly sizeable crowd on hand saw a true rarity: Both netminders gained shut outs leading to a 0-0 draw. Which isn't to say the game was boring.

Far from it, in fact.

As per usual, Coach Payettes Pups took a few 'liberties' during the game. And, also as per usual, the officials were simply shite. There. I said it. Even with 4 of them on the fucking ice, they still missed some of the most blatant cheating seen in the borough of Trafford since the last time Christiano Ronaldo took to the pitch at Old Trafford! Seriously, there was a distinct lack of any attempts to apply any degree of control to the play. If this is what we can expect this season, then there will be a lot of pisse doff players and fans in the Dome over the coming months.

 New import Pozivil took a bit of a battering from ex-Phoenix player Derek Campbell during the 1st period. Campbells reaction was way out of proportion, and I highly doubt he would have tried the same shit with, oh say Schnabel unless he wanted to be eating his post match meal through a straw. Speaking of Big Rob, Payette seemed to be trying to draw a scrap out of him all game, continually having cheeky digs.... before speeding towards the bench as fast as his shall we say 'increased' frame would allow. Big Rob was wise to this, however and treated Payettes dihgs with the lack of response they deserved.

And Poor old Tom Duggan. The lad almost had his head ripped off by one of the Pups, who reached over his helmet and appeared to pull it backwards over himself. Which unsurprisingly neither of the Refs saw. Not only was this blatant cheating, it was also fucking dangerous. Idiots.

Beyond that, the Phoenix looked exactly like you would expect from a team who had only had a couple of training sessions and 1 game before hand. I personally am not worried about the season base don this showing. Once the rink rust is properly blown off, this bunch of players are going to rack up the points for fun. All 4 imports showed signs that they will be weel worth the wages, and the Brit lads, new and old, looked as smooth as we have come to expect. And for tjhose who were not there, this is a seriously fucking huge squad of players. For once, Ben Wood does not look like he has strayed in from a episode of Land of The Giants. Schnabel in particular is HUGE.

And the highlight of the night was watching the Pups players celebrate. Seriously, you would have thought they had won the fucking playoffs, such was the jubilation on display. Calm down, dears. Its only the War of the Roses Cup (which we own. We have the receipt and everything!).

See y'all on Sunday!