A Tale of Two Hockey Matches - Part 3

Drive for 5 Special: as a final homage to our promotional weekend, here is my bunch of fives.

5 star players (in no particular order).

1. Toms Hartmanis – Saturday’s man of the match. Scored a great goal and always pleasure to watch.

2. Scott Langdon – Sunday’s man of the match. Put himself about and took matters into his own hands on several occasions, taking a few very respectable shots on goal and bossing the defence.

3. Dale Mahovksy – always a strong, quick presence for the team. Scored a goal and got a bit aggro against Hull which was quite fun. Managed not to rip my sponsored jersey which was much appreciated (it’s an investment! I considered having ‘My First Hockey Jersey’ printed on the back but thought it might be a bit embarrassing for the poor boy, who already had to deal with having the words ‘Hockey Novice’ emblazoned across his bottom. Sorry about that, Dale).

4. Danny Stewart – a strong leader’s performance from the coach, capped by a superb goal against Nottingham. Anti-Penner Face of Steel™

5. Charlie Effinger – I’ve always had a soft spot for goalies. They’re a bit mental, see. Hockey goalies, more so than most. In the blame culture of modern sport they all too often seem to take the fall for a poor team performance. Even if they do have an off-day, I don’t like seeing one player being blamed for collective team failings. Especially when they appear to be thoroughly pleasant chaps. All that to say, I just want to give Charlie a cuddle. He had two really solid periods on Saturday, pulled some cracking saves out of the bag, and wasn’t at fault for us losing either game.

5 noob moments. After all, that’s why you’re really reading this, isn’t it!

1. Screaming at the ref until I realised I didn’t actually know what to say. I was shouting ‘penalty’, football-style, before I realised it wasn’t really relevant. I just wanted to be a part of it all!

2. Thinking ‘ah, bless’ on two separate occasions when the two guys behind me were wondering what was going on. Until I realised I didn’t either.

3. Nodding pensively whilst being schooled in the theory of the offside rule, but not actually getting it until the following morning, whilst in the shower. The penny did drop. Just very, very slowly. And from a great height.

4. The ‘dog with tennis ball’ effect that still happens to me all the time. You know, when you throw a ball for a dog. But you totally fake him out, and you’re still holding the ball, but he’s racing down the field already? That. Except with my eyes, and the puck. You know what I’m talking about, veteran hockey fans. Don’t pretend it doesn’t still happen to you, on occasion!

5. Once again, clapping when I had no idea what was going on. I must try to stop that. In fairness, it’s usually because of an obscured line of sight and just wanting to get behind the team! That’s forgiveable, right?

5 things that hurt.

1. Danny Stewart’s face (after being poked in it, by Penner’s stick)
2. Jamie Carroll’s face (after being punched in it, by Penner)
3. The Panthers player who was hit by Mike Prpich (after all, a man with that beard has to hit twice as hard as a normal human being, right? Just look at Chuck Norris)
4. Sammy Zajac’s knee (I think – he limped off on Sunday after being caught with a puck)
5. Er, my brain. Trying to come up with more things to write lists of 5 about.

Number of times I knew what was going on – 5. Nah, only kidding. It was 4.

5 highlights.

1. Danny Stewart’s short-handed goal v Nottingham
2. Mike Prpich throwing down the gloves against a mean Panthers side
3. Dirty Alex Penner getting his marching orders
4. The first period on Saturday (let’s pretend the rest of that match didn’t occur)
5. Cheering the players off on Sunday despite losing.

5 things that were funny.

1. A Hull player slipped past our defence and was one-on-one with Charlie – cue collective dramatic gasp – he levelled up, took a shot and… his stick broke, the head flying off behind the goal and the puck bimbling aimlessly out of danger. Brilliant.

2. Hull’s number 26, not blessed with height, who had his shirt tucked into his shorts and his shorts actually pulled up to his nipples. Trend-setting? I don’t think so.

3. One of the match officials actually escorting a Hull player from the ice by his ear. Well, it looked like it. ‘Sit down for two minutes and think about what you’ve done young man!’

4. The swagger on display from the midget gem teams that did their stuff in the breaks between periods on Saturday. So very cute.

5. Er, the Hull game stopped being funny after a while. And the Nottingham game was too dramatic to be funny!

5 things of wonder.

1. Mike Prpich’s beard. Really, just, wow.
2. Mike Prpich’s sideburns. You need sideburns like that to maintain the structural integrity of such a beard.
3. Um. What else? I don’t think anything can compare, to be honest.

5 things that were cold.

1. FIVE things?! Well, let’s start with the fingers on my right hand. And move on from there...

Top 5 skaters (in a purely aesthetic, Strictly Come Dancing on Ice kind of way).

1. Toms Hartmanis – so pretty
2. Dan Speer – super speedy. I feel with the news of his departure I need to add RIP or something, but he's not actually dead thankfully, so I'll just say goodbye and good luck. Shame.
3. Dale Mahovsky – pretty and speedy

4. Jaro Rzeszutko – ditto
5. Kyle Sibley – he didn’t even play. But he’s awesome at skating so I felt bad excluding him from my list.

The weekend, in 5 pictures.

Danny Stewart on Saturday night: Cheer up Coach, there’s always tomorrow

Prpich’s beard – compare with the picture from the Hull game, and tell me it did not grow overnight

Curling vigorously – tell me that’s not what it looks like

That’s my shirt that is

Chippy – apparently that means lots of grown men prodding, slamming and punching each other repeatedly. Yup.