TCW Live Panthers v Blaze 28th Jan

I have to admit I’m in the former camp and I’d like to explain why. I’m not saying I want to see people deliberately going out to injure Finnerty, he’s done a fair few things that might warrant a well-timed slap (the slash on Kowalski’s hand in the last minute of last season’s play-off springs to mind) but that’s his game and it doesn’t deserve that sort of attention. His injury, and the result it has on his game should, though, feature in a coach’s game plan for taking on the Steelers. A decent coach will have assessed the opposition’s players and should be aware of a player’s weaknesses and should be using them to his team’s advantage. Is a defenceman slow? Then tell your fast skating forward to take him on. Is a goalie weak moving across his goal? Then try and get him to do just that. I know those examples are simplistic but finding the chinks in your opponent’s armour is one of the things that can help you win games.

That isn’t the real reason that I think that his injury should be ignored by his opponents. The biggest single reason is that because I believe he wouldn’t want it to be. Do you honestly think Finnerty wants teams to pander to his injury? Does he expect them to let him skate down the boards because they’re scared to touch him in case it makes his injury worse? Of course not. He’ll want people to play in the same way that they’ve always played him, he might have to make changes to his own game but show me a player that hasn’t had to do that at some point in their career.

If you don’t agree with me let me give you another, more obvious example. David-Alexandre Beauregard’s loss of his sight in one eye is probably the biggest example of this that you’ll find in the EIHL at the moment. Everyone knows about it, there’s no secret to it, there can’t be but does he make an issue of it? No, he goes about playing his game the same as any other player. He asks, and gets no quarter from anyone for his situation. He’s altered his game to accommodate the problem and has got on with it continuing a career doing what he loves. To be honest there’s been far more outcry from fans when he has been blind-sided (for want of a better word). Colt King did it earlier in the year and there were calls for misconducts bans or whatever simply because he did it to DAB. That can’t be right, and I’m sure DAB wouldn’t want it to be. He’s out there playing, in the same way as Finnerty is, he knows the risks, he accepts them and he gets on with it. I think they should be applauded for it (I’m not sure I’d continue in either situation) but neither should they be singled out for special attention from the referees.
It also appears that Ryan Finnerty is actually a really nice bloke but you’ll, hopefully, find out about that soon. Just remember, even if he is nice, he’s still an opponent so don’t go easy on him when he’s on the ice, he wouldn’t want it any other way.

You’ve got to be a little bit odd to be an ice hockey netminder. Just ask yourself who in their right mind would want a job where lumps of hardened rubber are fired at you at high speed and it’s your job to make sure it hits you whilst people are trying to stop you, not to mention the fact that people are going to cheer when you fail. With all that in mind I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I saw Garrett Zemlak doing on Sunday (and I don’t mean playing for Fife). I don’t suppose I was all that surprised I’ve just never seen anyone do it on an ice rink before. He looked as though he was visualizing a series of saves and his body was moving to make those saves, his glove hand twitching up and down catching imaginary pucks, legs moving to keep more pucks away. I’ve seen F1 drivers walkng about holding imaginary steering wheels as they mentally drive round a track but it just seemed odd seeing an ice hockey goalie doing it. Thinking about it though, given what I said at the start of this paragraph he’s probably a bit odd anyway but you wouldn’t say it was doing him any harm.

It’s nearly 76 years since Great Britain’s ice hockey team won the Olympic gold medal in 1936, but arguably there is no British Olympic triumph to match it. Author Rob Javonovic tells the story of one of Great Britain’s greatest Olympic triumphs in Pride & Glory, a book that took over five years to write.

The book tells the tale of how the GB team became not only the first team to beat mighty Canada in Olympic competition, but also how the cobbled together team of rank outsiders became the Olympic, World & European champions.

Rob has spent five years tracing the families of the GB team and constructing the players’ stories. His travels have taken him from southern England to 19th-Century Glasgow, across the Atlantic to Canada and back to Germany of the 1930′s, before an unlikely ending in Nottingham. He has dedicated much time and air miles in order to tell the players stories!

The book has been beautifully put together. Not only does it contain the stories of the men involved in that amazing triumph but it also contains rare photographs of the team, players and rinks of the time. There’s an especially great photo of one of the first Nottingham Panthers teams in the book.

Priced at £14.99 the book is well worth every penny and is available from Nottingham branches of Waterstones, Nottingham & Hull WH Smith, Crazy Kennys, Elite League clubs and also the NIC shop. Orders online can be made via Pineapple Books

Alex Penner Interview

TCW Live Panthers v Flyers 22nd January

Coverage will start at 7pm on the link below

TCW Live Giants v Panthers 21st Jan

I want to start by apologising. It’s got to be about a month since my last article and I have to blame that on two (not entirely unpleasant) things – Christmas and the 4on 4 Road Trip. I don’t do ice hockey at Christmas, never have really. I’m always busy on Boxing Day with a tradition that stretches back way before my time watching Panthers (which is as long as Panthers have been playing at Christmas in the modern era) so I don’t go to those games and I quite like staying cheerful after Christmas so games after Boxing Day are out as well. Now, I’m sure you’re all saying that the joke is on me this year (last year?) and you’d be right and I was more than pleased about the results but it won’t change what I do. Perhaps Panthers should sponsor me to stay away?

As for the 4on4 Road Trip, well the closer it gets to March the 15th the busier we seem to get. The Evening with Danny and Dave sold out even quicker than Simmsey claimed it would and with that, sponsorship deals and various other things I’ve not had much chance to do anything else.

With all that in mind I’d better get on with things whilst I’ve got time and get on with the moaning. Our lack of a real, credible 11th import really troubles me. When I read that Sean McAlsan was coming back I was, for a while quite happy but also unsurprised. Sean’s signing seems to be little more than another attempt at a crowd pleasing prodigal son return by the Panthers’ management. Sean was popular before so Sean will be popular again. All the people who paid nasally for his shirt will be happy to see him, we’ll trot him out in front of a radio mike (who needs that new fangled TV stuff) and get him to say how happy he is to be back, how he never really wanted to play anywhere else and he’s ready to give is his all in the name of the cause. The thing is it doesn’t have to be Sean that’s doing this (and I want to say here and now that I have no problem with Sean himself, he’s only trying to make a living). We could, and should (more of that later) have brought in a new player who could be dragged in front of the radio mike. He’d say the same things (apart from how great it is to be back). If the player does give his all, plays for his team and puts the effort in week in and week out then the fans are going to love him and one of them might, just might pay through the nose for HIS shirt.

What I think I’m trying to say is that Panthers seem to be showing a distinct lack of ambition this season. I don’t want to compare us to other teams and this is written out of jealousy of what they’re but comparisons are inevitable and you have to look at what Belfast, Sheffield, even Braehead (and I mean that from an ownership point of view) are doing and replacing players when they’re injured or running with additional imports. I personally am questioning the decisions being made by our management this year. Why wasn’t Hereema replaced when he was injured last year? Is Ryhanen of the same calibre as Champagne or the players other teams are bringing in and why is our 11th import a player who has so little match experience of late? I don’t really want to comment on the fact that he’ll be missing this weekend. He may have had a prior commitment or some other reason. The fact that we’re going in to the game with only nine imports is little more than an unfortunate case of timing. One that could have been avoided? Possibly, but even if things had been done differently we could have picked up a couple of injuries last weekend and ended up in the same situation. It’s just bad luck.

It’s not only the Panthers’ management that are guilty of this, a large section of the fans on the Cage Forum are giving them the ammunition to load into their gun. How many threads are there that suggest we should bring player A or player B back? Ironically, there are even queries about Angel Nikolov’s availability in a thread about the lack of a 10th or 11th import this weekend. The problem is that it’s a vicious circle that needs to be broken, the management bring back an old player so the fans get used to old players coming back so they want old players to come back so that’s what the management gives them.

Give the people what they want, or rather what you think they’ll be happy with. I think, increasingly that there is a difference.

Defeat in Braehead on Saturday has probably ended our bid for a league title for yet another season. As usual, The Cage went into a frenzied meltdown. Postings were suggesting sacking the coach, sacking the management, replacing all the Brits, replacing all the imports etc. Also, that the other competitions are worthless. That, for me, shows a massive amount of disrespect for what why have achieved recently. While I’m as disappointed as any other fan that we probably won’t win the league again, we have been the most successful club in the Elite League over the past five seasons with regards trophies won. We have 5, Sheffield & Coventry 4 each and Belfast 2. This has been our most successful trophy winning era since the 1950’s.

Before our play-off triumph in 2007, we had won just 7 trophies in 26 seasons, in fact before that triumph we had won just one trophy in the previous 6 seasons since moving to the NIC. They were barren times and they made me appreciate every trophy we win.

That’s why I get slightly annoyed when recent achievements are dismissed because we have failed to win the league again. I feel we now support a club that now how to win things, five trophies in five seasons prove that. It feel that our achievements are not being given the respect they deserve by some fans because of a failure to lift the title.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love nothing more than to see us win the title, it would be the ultimate and I would love to see it one day, but some really do need to take a deep breath and reflect on what the club has achieved over the past five years, because it really is something to be proud of.

TCW Live Panthers v Clan CC Semi 2nd leg

TCW Live – Clan v Panthers 14th Jan