Blaze of Glory

Today’s mission – to be brief. As we have another match tomorrow against Dundee, and this match deserves its own post. Being brief, hmm. I’ve heard tell of such a fable in passing but like the holy grail, I don’t think I’ve ever believed it to be attainable. Will it be? Who can say. Probably not considering I have spent the last 3 lines musing over the meaning of being brief. Anyway… Apologies for the rather cheesy title, I realise it’s probably been used by Coventry’s media team a thousand times but hey, what the hell, I’ve cheekily decided to borrow it. For anyone who’s been trapped in a hockey-less bubble and doesn’t want to know the result of last night’s game, well, I would say look away now but I think it’s too late for that, I might have given the game away. Oops!

If there were a Vipers advent calendar, we would barely have enough skaters to fill half the boxes. But what joy would be found behind door number 5. Only 12 players and two goalkeepers were available for tonight’s match, following various departures and injuries, and only three of them were defencemen by trade. Perilous times, or so you would think. Following Saturday’s heart-break in Dundee (a phrase which I have never used before in any context, let alone a sporting one, and hope never to have to use again!) in which we lost in a shoot-out following a 4-4 tied score with the Stars, hopes were high for a reprieve on home soil. Er, ice.

I can’t fail to mention that whilst we were being unlucky in Dundee, all manner of exciting things were going on at the SkyDome Arena in Coventry, as the season’s first bench clearance occurred. Now, contrary to what you might believe if you, like myself, are new to the sport of ice hockey, this didn’t mean a sale at the local DIY emporium. It is in fact an astonishingly mild term for a mass brawl. It was all very exciting, and ended with a topless Alex Penner doing a powerslide across the ice on one knee after being de-robed by a Blaze player. Ex-weapon or no, I’m starting to warm to the guy. I think I'll file him in the box marked love/hate. It also meant that Blaze’s Brad Cruikshank was suspended for the match against us, and although their bench still looked a lot busier than our depleted one, we’ll take what we can get!

Last time we played Coventry, it was only the second game of my fledgling ice hockey career. I was young and inexperienced, wide-eyed and green, Blair Stayzer still played for us and well, we got soundly thrashed. Now a seasoned pro (er, excuse me, stop laughing please), I was hoping we could turn the tables on our opponents, and that this time I would know what was going on. The game started out quietly; last night’s violent exertions must have taken their toll on Coventry, and our boys looked fatigued from their return journey to the wilds of eastern Scotland. The first period lacked something in the way of, well, anything really, and there was not a great deal to excite the hardcore faithful, also depleted in numbers due to the adverse weather conditions.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT NEWSFLASH! I was quite distressed to learn that in addition to a couple of players leaving, and a couple more suffering injuries, the team had experienced a loss of a much more disturbing nature. Mike Prpich’s beard appeared to have gone missing since it was last spotted during the Drive for Five weekend. Quite where it has gone remains a mystery, but luckily it doesn’t seem to have contained his mojo, as he apparently kicked some butt in Dundee, and he scored the second of our two second period goals against Blaze, the first being claimed in style by coach Danny Stewart, on the powerplay. (Is that how you say it. I’m SO almost there with this terminology fandango but I still need reassurance! I’m not like, a proper writer, you know! As long as I don’t say anything completely idiotic like ‘fancy a puck’ or something. Oh wait…). But anyway - if anyone sees Mike Prpich's beard, please could they return it to him immediately? Or bring it to me and I'll look after it for him, and feed it and things. Thanks. On with the match report...

Bosh. Boss man Stewey shows them how it's done in the Toon.

In contrast to the fight-fest in Coventry, tonight’s game was almost incident-free, with only 2 penalty minutes picked up by each side. There was a bit of feisty-ness from time to time, and John Schwarz got hit in the chest with a puck which looked extremely painful but he bounced straight back from it, because he’s brick ‘ard, innit. This wasn’t to say the atmosphere wasn’t intense; the tension wound up as we moved into the third period (cue scary movie music) and Vipers fans feared the usual collapse. With just a few minutes remaining on the clock, Blaze finally struck it lucky and managed to squeeze one by Charlie, and the knuckle-chewing commenced. Blaze pulled their keeper but we stayed strong and scored a third into the empty net. Cue insane celebration for the entirety of the remaining 40 seconds and beyond. With six minutes to go, I had thought to myself ‘if we don’t win this, I’ll…’ I never did figure out what I would have done, but I don’t think it would have been pretty so I’m pleased I didn’t need to worry about it.

I will continue to heap praise on netminder Charlie Effinger, who played an absolute blinder, and prompted me to revert to my cockney roots and say things like ‘go on my son’ and such-like. He saved everything that Coventry threw at him, and was duly rewarded with the Man of the Match award, an honour which he fully deserved, along with the crowd chanting his name. I am massively chuffed for the lad as he’s had it tougher than most over the last few weeks and honestly, you’ve never seen a happier face. I still want to give him a cuddle although I fear now there may be bit of a queue forming. I asked first!

Happy hockey players! This is what they look like!

So that’s that then. I’m still on a high this morning from what was one of my best ever sporting experiences. And that’s not over-stating it. (I’m simultaneously on a self-induced low from the rather over-indulgent celebrating that took place when I got home!). There’s no denying what a win over the mighty Blaze means to the club and its fans. It’s a massive victory for everyone, and I hope that all the players enjoyed it as much as the 612 fans who made the trip did, lord knows they deserved to! Also, My First Hockey Jersey had its inaugural outing, and is apparently lucky! Which is nice. It was on the large side though. I know the players have to fit themselves plus an amount of padding in there, but 2XL is not a size I have ever been familiar with, I’m happy to say. It’s led me to decide that next time, I’ll have to sponsor one of the smaller guys, if only to get something approaching a suitable fit.

Finished! Was that brief enough for you? No? Tough! I could extol the virtues of last night’s wondrous sporting spectacle ‘til the cows come home to be honest, and pretty much have been, but I’ll just leave you with the news that I brought another newbie along to his first hockey match yesterday and the first words out of his mouth as we left Whitley Bay Ice Rink were ‘that was awesome’. If we can have that effect on every new person that a fan brings through the door then maybe, just maybe, the future might not be so bleak.

Ice Hockey and Me: A Love Story (originally posted 1st November)

So after a couple of weeks of pesky prior arrangements it was finally time for another hockey Saturday. About time too. The Vipers took on the top side in the league, Belfast Giants, in the much promoted Halloween Havoc clash at Whitley Bay Ice Rink. The impressive number of travelling fans, complete with rather large drum, were so noisy we moved from our regular spot near the back of the bleachers to one row from the front, which turned out to be an excellent decision. It felt completely different. Despite certain areas of the ice being somewhat obstructed in terms of the view, being right next to the action was quite something. It made it all a lot easier to follow. It was also a fly by the seat of your pants-type experience in that every so often, players came crashing into the sidings literally three feet in front of my nose. I can’t say that a pair of hockey players swiftly applied to the face would be a wholly unpleasant experience, but it might be a bit unexpected and possibly a tad sore in the morning. So I’m quite glad the plastic shields held up their end of the bargain and contained both teams nice and safely, with my face unharmed on the other side.

Pic half-inched from Newcastle Vipers website, by Paul Lynch photography. Does it look to anyone else as though two Vipers players are brutally murdering a Giants player? No? Just me?!

I am also proud to say that after three matches, I am finally starting to recognise individual players, not just by their physical appearances but by their skating styles and even their movements on the puck. Some players are more how shall I say, functional in their skating; it's all about getting somewhere, quickly. Which is fine, and necessary. But others actually have real flair, and probably wouldn't look out of place if asked to perform a triple salko in a figure-skating contest. Okay, you might ask, what have you done with the girl who was getting a bit excitable over large brutish neanderthal types beating the crap out of each other. I don't know where she's gone; perhaps my penchant for aesthetics has overtaken my primitive desire for some good old-fashioned violence. Whatever the case, the light-footed and speedy Vipers won me over in last night's match.

I know for example, that my favourite player, Dale Mahovsky, skates sort of face-first (possibly why he lost a few teeth in last week's match), but with the effortless style of someone who has been on skates for at least as long as he has had legs. Possibly longer. Mahovsky's impressive skating, dogged determination and good clean game all cemented him firmly in my heart as my number 1 Viper. He was vying for the position before defenceman Blair Stayzer left the club this week to return to his native Canada, but even without Stayzer's untimely abdication, Mahovsky still would have taken the throne with his performance this week. Toothless though he may be, he is valiant in his endeavours at all times, and actually helped get a Belfast goal written off due to some excellent work reasoning with the referee. Or so it seemed. A bit of a fan you say? Yes I do believe I am. I even wandered across to the shirt auction in the hope of inheriting his glorious Canadian sweat-laced special-edition jersey but alas, I was too late. Next time Dale, your shirt will be mine.

For fear of sounding a bit stalky, I'm going to move on.

Dale Mahovsky, prior to the dental incident. Photo again by Paul Lynch

At this point can I just say, I love ice hockey. I love it, I love it, I love it. I could just roll around and bathe in it. I am so invested in my team already it actually hurts me when they lose. Which is nearly always. And yet, we don't seem to deserve to. We played great on Saturday, despite having next to no defensive players available, and being up against the strongest team in the league. We were really good. Hard-working, some great skills, one of the most incredible saves I've ever seen in any sport by Charlie Effinger (who I'm also becoming quite fond of), a brilliant short-handed goal from Toms Hartmanis, a very jolly atmosphere and overall, a fully uplifting experience. I absolutely can't get enough. And I have a feeling that it’s just a matter of time before the results improve. Hopefully, a very short amount of it.

It’s cold, it’s hard and it’s right outside my house: a novice’s review of an ice hockey match (originally posted 8th October)

Yes, it’s another post about sport. Really, I can’t help it. It’s not just any sport though. It’s that most whimsical and enigmatic sport generally embraced by those with colder climes than ourselves, ice hockey. I’ve never really thought about ice hockey before, other than a novelty visit to a match during my time in the states, 10 years ago (and that was in Arkansas so it really can’t have counted). So when my other half brought home free tickets to last Sunday’s Newcastle Vipers match I was mildly intrigued but thought no more of it until the time came for us to head to Whitley Bay ice rink.

Newcastle Vipers are an elite league ice hockey team who had suffered of late from a win-less run of matches in what was obviously a frustrating opening to their season. Or at least, that’s probably what someone who knew about British ice hockey would say at the beginning of a match report. However, I was blissfully oblivious to any of the back-story at the time, but on reflection, the reactions that night of a clearly dedicated fan-base spoke of a team in desperate need of some success. I have been that fan on many an occasion in my long and devoted yet tumultuous relationship with Watford FC, so I should have recognised it. And now I have, I’m right on board.

Okay I’ve bleated nonsensically for a bit but I can’t ignore the elephant in the room any longer. Being a total ice hockey noob, one of the few things I really knew about the sport was that they seem to have a lot of fights. I had wondered in passing whether being a bit cold perhaps makes one slightly irritable, or maybe it’s the jock-itch beneath all that padding that puts a player in an argumentative frame of mind. Either way, anyone with even a vague knowledge of the sport knows that it goes on and is an accepted part of the game of ice hockey. Yet I have to say, I was still surprised to see it happening right in front of me. And I couldn’t actually tell at the time whether or not the fights were for real, or staged, something like wrestling. I was hedging towards the latter and wondering if it was all bit camp and unnecessary but after further discussion and research it appears that this isn’t the case at all. It probably only looks a bit camp because it’s hard to have a fight when both antagonists are on skates.

Apparently, fighting, or ‘roughing’ as it’s known in the sport, is tactically important as the players defend their most valuable team-mates and disrupt their opponents’ play, and although it isn’t officially allowed within the rules of game, it’s not severely punished either, and officials are content to stand back and let it run its course in most cases. It’s actually condoned as part of the game in the US. Is it wrong that I find it mildly arousing? Probably. But I know for a fact I am not the only one. And most of the others are men.

Anyway, besides the fighting, what else can I tell you about ice hockey, from my completely novice point of view. It’s a very American sport. And by that I mean, there are a LOT of stoppages in play. During which, a multitude of well-chosen popular music clips are played over the tannoy and/or the match announcer explains what’s just happened in language that only those who already know what’s just happened can understand. Altogether, this made the bits where they WEREN’T playing a lot more over-whelming and confusing than the bits when they were. Even though the game-play itself is carried out at approximately the speed of sound and appears to have about as much form and style as a hyperactive fly at an all night rave. It’s a game for those with the attention span of a goldfish. A goldfish with Alzheimers, at that. It was in no way unpleasant though. In terms of levels of understanding versus levels of enjoyment, I suppose I felt something akin to a toddler watching a group of drunken adults play Twister at Christmas. Wide-eyed, happy and confused, but slightly concerned for the welfare of all involved, including myself.

And also, I found myself in the novel and unnerving situation of not knowing what the offside rule was. It’s not just because I’m a woman, OKAY?! Don’t worry, it was the first thing I learnt during my subsequent ice hockey rules study session.

Yet there was something undeniably thrilling about the whole experience. Maybe it was just the knowledge that top level sport was being played right on my doorstep, and the excitement of expanding my mind around completely new game, hungry as I currently appear to be for a football substitute (and all this despite Watford’s current impressive run of form). Maybe it was the exotic sounding names on the team sheet, giving me leave to support a team with ‘Newcastle’ in its name despite my slightly more Mackem loyalties (sorry!), after all, Blair Stayzer and Patrik Forsbacka can’t be Geordies, can they?! Or maybe it was just the chill in the air, the buzz of the crowd and the tension of the final few minutes that reminded me just how much fun it is to kick back and take in a live sporting event. There’s nothing quite like it. So I’m going back for more this Saturday.

As we later concluded, this is physically the closest top level sport to our home that currently exists (unless there’s a pro tiddly-winks league situated in the Billy Mill area of North Shields that I’m not aware of), and not only is that quite an exciting prospect, it also gives me no excuse not to get involved. Go Vipers!