Now that pissed me off no end....

First up, yes, we lost, and yes, we deserved to lose. No arguements there from me. The Bison played a solid road game, and were far more clinical in front of the goal. Our D was opened up far too easily, far too often. As such a Bison win was a fair result.

What wasn't fair, however, was what happened in the 57th minute of play...... From my vantage point, Stevie Lyle made the cynical decision to purposefully knock the goal off of its moorings to deny the Phoenix a goal. I saw it. Pretty much everyone around me saw it.....

 Then all hell broke loose in the stands.

 Chants of 'Cheat, Cheat, Cheat' began to ring out, a chorus of boos began the likes of which I have never heard at a hockey game. Quite literally hundreds of people were incensed by his action. On the ice, the Phoenix players looked positively apoplectic when they realised that 1: the goal had been washed out, and 2: Lyle was going to escape unpunished. The game restarted, but the players hearts had clearly been ripped out, and the previous few minutes of ferocious play evaporated.

Come the end of the game, we then all witnessed something pretty much unprecedented. Lyle was booed again, during the Bisons lap of honour. He very quickly realised he was the target and made a quick turn and headed for the exit after a very short lap. Sadly for the other Bison players, this meant that they bore the brunt of the booing. I was part of this chorus, whilst I also clapped the Bison players very slowly and without my usual vigour.

Post game, Twitter and Facebook were alive with recriminations. I tweeted that Lyle was a #dirtycheatingcunt. Was this an over-reaction? For sure it was. My adrenaline was pumping, and my passion for my club was afire. Do I regret it? Not for a minute. People react to a situation, and these things cannot be undone, and as such we all must stand by our actions, whether they be right or wrong.

I also admonished the officials for allowing such a blatant act of foul play to go unpunished. Which brought me a tweeted admonishment from one of the officials in the form of Kris Wells. He also drew the ire of a few other Phoenix tweeters for daring to stick his head above the parapet. Then the fall out began. Over on the official forum, some posters registered their disgust at how the bulk of the fans reacted. Phrases such as 'darkest hour' and 'let down' have been bandied about. I shall repeat below what I posted on the forum myself:

So, in summary: it was our 'darkest hour' and we 'let ourselves down' by being passionate enough about our club to want to boo and chant 'cheat' at a player who just to all appearances cheated the club out of a potential point in a game which may have significant bearing on the eventual home of the league title? Please. The simple fact that this 1 action riled our normally placid fans shows just how deep that passion runs for many. People pay their money, then once inside the rink, they can react in whatever manner they so choose, as long as no rules are being broken. Last time I looked, there was no rule about booing anyone. If others don't like that, then fine, but please, enough with the melodramatic 'darkest hour' nonsense. Personally, I always hated the 'We don't boo the opposition, we just cheer our team louder' stuff. Booing the opposition is something which has been part of sporting culture for decades. Go to any football or rugby ground and you will hear it. It even happens at cricket. And I'm sure the Bison players who didn't know why there was booing have gotten over it. Lyle knew. See how short his 'lap of honour' was? He couldn't wait to leave the ice. Maybe he should have explained to his team mates why. And so we are clear, I booed. I have no remorse about this, as I felt it was the best way to show my displeasure

And that sums it up for me.

 See you all on Sunday.

Deep breath.....

EDIT: I stand corrected one one point from below. It was just a 10+Game. This error was caused by myself (and others) misreading the gamesheet. The sentiment remains however. Pering had a shit-fit and over-reacted.


Ok, lets get the good stuff out of the way first:

We won. And there was some damn fine attacking hockey going on from our forward lines, sans Coach Hand. The Brits like McKinney, McKenzie, Duggan, etc are producing some of the finest quality hockey I've seen in a long time, and long  may it continue. I can't criticise the performance last night at all. That was a team who know they are good, and want to play as well as they possibly can.

And it was nice to see a decent sized crowd in there last night, especially for a Saturday night game. The ST voucher books appear to be working too, based on the people passing by Mags at the door.

Now the negative stuff.

Pering. What the fuck was he thinking? First up, the call on Ciaran for clipping. Not in a million years. Someone needs to sit down with Pering and show him the difference between a hip-check (which is what it was) and clipping. Pering muffed the call up badly simply by making the call in the first place. Which would have been enough to piss me off royally as it was.

Then his follow up.... Oh dear. Mr Pering must be a sensitive little soul. Big Robb Schnabel has a word (rather angrily I concede) and is assessed a 10+ Game AND a match penalty for Abuse of an Official. What the fuck? Whilst I have no issues with a 10 min misconduct being assessed (as is often the norm), giving a Game and a Match as well is a total over-reaction of the highest magnitude. It was a stupid fucking call in the first place on Long, which clearly incensed Schnabel, and rather than deal with his continued anger after the Phantoms scored as a result of the PP, Pering had a shit-fit and turfed him. To say I uttered a few choice words to myself is an understatement.

It really fucks me off when refs seem to want to be seen as 'tough' on things like misconducts as it often means they over-react to things which a simple 10 minute trip to the box will nip in the bud. Especially given the tone of the game to that point (the only other call was an obvious too many men call against the Phoenix bench), it wasn't as if he had been dealing with narky, pissed off players all evening.

I never though a ref would annoy me more than Suchz did at the play offs in April but I have been proven wrong already. Pering may show promise (which is why he has been brought up from reffing ENIHL games), but is out of his depth currently, making basic errors, and if he is indeed to continue as a ref at our barn (which according to Tambo he is), then he needs to be paired with a more experienced official who came assist him.

And I'm going to stop now before this just becomes a 4 letter word rant. Fuck, Fuckity Fuck, Fuck!

7 reasons to be happy.

Well, that was a wee bit better wasn't it?

For the first time this season we had a comfortable home victory, crushing the visiting Bracknell Bees 7-1. About fucking time too! The forward lines finally started to look like they knew what they were capable of, and Foney was massive at the back. I for one was more than happy with how the team as a whole performed. The 2nd and 3rd lines especially are looking formidable. Yes, I said 3rd line. Nice to ram the whole 'Tony Hand only plays 2 line hocky' bollocks back down the throat of some folks isn't it? We have 3 lines of qualituy up front, and a 'don't fuck with us' attitude now.

And Richie Bentham got himself a 'Gordie Howe' hat-trick (that is a goal, an assist, and a fight). We don't see them very often, so it was a rare treat to be sure.

Indeed, the whole weekend was a treat, as the team scored 14 goals over the course of the 2 games played, adding another 4 points to the tally, and cementing our place at the top of the table. Losing to the Phantoms mid-week was a bit of a shitter, but I certainly don't expect to win every game from now until April, and Peterborough isn't the nicest place to drag the team to mid week.

Another major plus at the moment is the situation that the Steeldogs find themselves in. After last seasons undoubted high for them, this season ahs seen 'normal' service resumed, with the Dogs languishing in 9th place in the league, and reduced to trying to goon it up to win games. I guess Payettes 'magic touch' when it comes to coaching has deserted him. Mind you, losing probably the best netminder and forward in the league hasn't helped, and it couldn't happen to a nicer team. Their visit on Sunday should be an absolute fucking cracker. I'm guessing we will see the usual cheap-shot bullshit from Payettes thugs, however, I am more than confident in the abilities of our boys to take it to them and give as good as they get. And having seen the videos from last weekends Dogs/MKL game, it looks like that is exactly what we will get. Certainly not a game for 'purists', but a bit of 'old time hockey' instead.

Bring it on!