A Tale of Two Hockey Matches - Part 1

Right then. Do I have your full and undivided attention, readers? We’ve a lot to get through, so make yourselves comfortable and I’ll begin. Sad to say there’s no Jackanory happy ending in sight here, so I’ll extinguish that hopeful dream before we get started. I’ve retreated to my happy place (this blog) and I urge you all to join me, in the hope it will ease the pain, at least for a few minutes.

This weekend was the Drive for Five promotion – two home games in one weekend, and a massive effort from all involved with the club to get as many fans through the door over both days as possible. Let’s take it one day at a time, and in true Shakespearian fashion (for some inexplicable reason my inner English student just won't let this theme drop), here beginneth...

Act One – Saturday 20th November v Hull Stingrays

We join our protagonist on a wet and chilly evening, at a dark and dingy ice rink in a north-east coastal town. Her face, like so many others around her, full of hope and expectancy. Enter stage right numerous men on skates, heavily padded and carrying sticks. The scene unfolds…

Warning: I may start to become coherent. I located myself with a group of most welcoming hardcore Vipers faithful for this match which was a good move, I quickly realised. I think I might actually understand the offside rule now! And you know what? It’s almost exactly the same as it is in football. Who’d have thunk it.

This was widely recognised as the more winnable of the weekend’s two matches, and to bolster the line-up new Canadian forward Mike Prpich (somebody lend the guy a vowel!) was finally available, having arrived mid-week, along with defencemen John Schwarz, returning after injury. Although we had lost Kyle Sibley through injury, so our defence were pretty much ‘as you were’.

My initial impressions of Prpich: fairly hard-hitting; awesome, awesome facial hair. He wasn’t massively influential but the guy only got here Thursday so let’s cut him some slack.

Mike Prpich, above.

No Mike, it is WE who must kneel before YOU. After all, one cannot argue with that beard. That’s a woodcutter’s beard if ever I’ve seen one. There are goats in the alps that are weeping into their milkmaids’ skirts over that beard.

What can I say about the game itself. It all started so well. We were a goal up within two minutes and then two up, er, a bit after that. To coin a popular footballing cliché, albeit in a slightly warped fashion, it was a game of three thirds. The final one being, well, shocking. In the first two we were totally dominant. Hull didn’t turn up, we skated all over them, and any shots they did have were confidently caught or parried by a seemingly revitalised Charlie Effinger. No worries. All this, on top of last week’s win, made me a bit giddy. I started to feel almost complacent. We had this in the bag.

And then they came out for the third period. And it was as though something had gone missing. Quite what it was, I couldn’t put my finger on. Although honestly, if you’d told me it was about three players, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The spark was just... not there any more. Hull exposed our flaws, and capitalised. They carved us open, and we stood back and let them. We served it to them on a silver platter, garnished with a giant helping of ‘terribly sorry for inconveniencing you with those two goals we scored earlier on chaps, please do have the points, we wouldn’t wish to burden you with our tiresome presence any longer. And how about a cherry to go on top of that for you, sirs?’

So I’ve experienced it all now. The game we deserved to win, and just about managed to hang on to. The game we maybe didn’t deserve to win, but scraped through to take the points anyway. The game we never had any hope of winning, but battled through and went down fighting. And the game where we were solidly trounced from start to finish. And to add to this motley collection, I now have the lowest of all rungs on the ladder of possible game stories – the game we were totally capable of winning, but threw away. The comedy of errors. An expert demonstration in how to turn a perfectly comfortable two-goal lead into what, on paper, looks like a convincing win for the opposition. It was desperately disappointing, especially with a game on the horizon against one of the hardest teams in the league. On which note, I’ll move swiftly on, as I have a feeling that despite this, I will have much more jolly things to impart to you tomorrow.

A dark mood prevails over the auditorium as the lights fade to black and the curtain is drawn on the first half of the action. Where will the Vipers go from here? Can they claw back their shattered confidence and start over in Act Two? Will our protagonist succeed in her quest to shout something constructive at a team member, at ANY point? All will be revealed...

Interval

Some time passed, between one hockey game and the next. Some DIY went on in my house. Some bacon sandwiches were consumed. Some beer also. A bit of sleeping went on. Some football was watched in a vague attempt to remember what watching other sports used to be like. Apparently, Chelsea have started losing. To Birmingham City. All is seemingly not right with the world.

*Alarm Bells* Please take your seats and switch off all mobile phones. The next Act will begin in 5 minutes (please note, when I say five minutes, I mean, maybe, several hours. I do have a day job, y'know! I'm speeding through the next match report as we speak. See you there!).