Hull Stingrays

Christian Ward from the F Block Blog previews the season for the Rays

A year after the most turbulent summer in the club’s history and six months after a recording breaking season, the Hull Stingrays are back with a much changed squad for the 11/12 campaign.

Sylvain Cloutier was this summer been afforded the luxury of six months to prepare for the 11/12 campaign after agreeing to return for his third season as player-coach and Director of Hockey Operations in March. That in stark contrast to the month and a half the Rays boss was given following the club’s surprise return on 17 August and last season’s first fixture against Cardiff.

‘Clouts’ quickly got to work, somehow managing to re-sign record 50 goal scorer – good for second in the EIHL scoring charts last season – Jereme Tendler.

Despite the unexpectedly good start to recruitment, that didn’t prevented the traditional mass exodus from the club with no fewer than 14 players leaving Hull Arena.

While Andrew Coburn, Kurtis Dulle and Drew Bannister – mainstays of last season’s seventh placed squad alongside Tendler – opted not to return having been offered deals, the majority failed to earn new contracts with the club, perhaps surprising to outsiders given the record year.

Within that band of players departing after disappointing season’s is Konstantin Kalmikov. The Ukrainian was the essence of the Stingrays offensive brunt in 08/09 and 09/10 but for whatever reason was not at the races last term hitting 18 goals and 42 points. He is joined on his way out of Hull Arena by, amongst others, Brit Lee Esders – who joins Sheffield – Trevor Read, enforcer Jozef Sladok, Matti Uusivirta and crucially Brits Craig and Lee Mitchell.

The brothers left Hull after a rumoured disagreement between younger brother Craig and a club official over the severity of his injury. Both signed in Dundee – although Craig has since been ruled out for the whole of next season as a result of the injury – while replacing them in Hull in an effective trade-off from Dundee is fringe GB defenceman Sam McCluskey and rangy forward Tristan Cameron-Harper.

Further Brits Andrew Jaszczyk, Ben Lowe and Andy Hirst have also been allowed to leave to further their development in the ENL and EPL respectively, with Cloutier signing new young British talent in their place.

Joining after a season in the EPL with Telford are GB junior internationals Dan Scott, 20, and Jack Watkins, 18. The pair are thought to have bright futures in the game but will need nurturing at the top level, as will 16 year old Bobby Chamberlain – who will join his hometown side for his debut campaign after time spent in the North American junior setup.

Cloutier has infused that young talent with experienced former Adirondack Frostbite team mates Dmitry Rodin, Frantisek Bakrlik and Joshua Mizerek.

Mizerek – who has been named captain – originally joined last summer but quit amid former owners Mike and Sue Pack leaving, opting to return to Holland, while 36 year old Rodin – also known as Dmitri Suur – signs for his 21st professional season as one of Mizerek’s two alternate captain’s.

Power forward Bakrlik joins after a couple of fairly impressive seasons in Poland and will be joined by another power forward in former Steeler, Phoenix, Viper and Blaze Derek Campbell. Campbell is clearly no stranger to the EIHL, loved by some, hated by many, but has a good scoring record, isn’t afraid to protect his team mates and has won the title in both of his last two seasons.

Aside from Cloutier and Tendler just three other players survived the summer cull. Coaches Player of the Year and the second new alternate captain Jason Silverthorn – who averages 20 goals and more than 45 points in the EIHL – returns alongside fan favourite Ryan Lake, who made a successful return to the sport last season after four years away, and solid if unspectacular Canadian netminder Christian Boucher.

Backing up Boucher following Jaszczyk’s departure is a trio of young keepers. Former Chelmsford keeper Andy Brummitt moves north but ENL side Kingston Jets will take priority should they have a fixture, while hot prospect Ben Bowns will likely make his top flight debut in Rays colours in the season ahead having signed a two-way contract from the Sheffield Steeldogs. If neither Bowns nor Brummit are available then Hull based Liam Jackson – who will train with the club – will fill in as Cloutier looks to rotate and develop the netminding situation in the city.

Offensively, Tendler should have help from former ECHL forward Dominic Osman in the coming year. Osman netted a remarkable 14 goals in 15 IHL games in the same Kalamazoo side in which Tendler netted five times in five games during 08/09, so should be good enough to provide some further goalscoring.

The Rays boss completed his roster in August with the addition of Brit Matty Davies and Slovakian Martin Ondrej. Davies returns having signed with Peterborough following a falling out with Cloutier partway through a 10-2 thrashing of Edinburgh last season, while Ondrej joins after initially being targeted last Christmas.

1. Belfast
Once, again the Giants look too good, too talented and too stacked for the rest, but then we all said that last year didn’t we?

2. Sheffield
Don’t look have enough to overthrown Belfast but Finnerty, Ramsey, King, Stephenson and co should have enough to put up a decent challenge.

3. Nottingham
Offence looks top notch, no change there. Is the defence similarly up to scratch to lift the title?

4. Coventry
Other than the addition of Phillips not a lot stands out about the new Blaze roster. Though that could of course be a good thing. Darkhorses.

5. Cardiff
Without Weller and Pelle it seems unlikely the Devils will be at the forefront again. The top five are very close to call though.

6. Braehead
The difficult second season, Bannister has a tough job on his hands to improve on a very good debut showing by the Clan.

7. Dundee
A new netminder, an improved defence and Konkle up front should see Dundee win the battle of the bottom four.

8. Stingrays
It would be great to think the Rays could improve their position, goals scored and points total for the third year in a row. It’s a tough ask though, particularly with questions being asked over the strength of the defence.

9. Fife
Six imports or eight imports, the Flyers will struggle for depth should injuries hit. Siddall and Cohen are outstanding additions for the newbies but they can’t play every minute of every game.

10. Edinburgh
An all too familiar story for the Caps and their fans. Currently a heavily European influenced roster, they may need an infusion of the likes of Hurtubise, Hemingway, Stutzel or Kim for anyone to begin to believe they can finish anywhere other than bottom.