STORM BLITZ ISSUE #15 Friday 17 January 1997 If you have any comments on Storm Blitz, please feel free to e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com any time. In this VERY busy issue : * Storm an embarrasment as Cardiff romp home * Storm go down in Ayr * Steelers see off Panthers * Newcastle beat Basingstoke * David Smith injured * Martin "No Nickname" Smith gets one! * Laxdal banned after drugs test * More on outdoor rink * GB U-16s update * Steelers buy Enfield * New rink for Cardiff * Under The Moon * Results up to date at last * Kit change, enhanced logo, but name change? * Radio 5 on Saturdays * Granada TV and ice hockey * Skate Attack give Ice Breaker with fanzine * Fanzine review coming soon * Latest Superleague table * Forthcoming Storm fixtures * Next on TV & Radio * Storm Blitz * StormWeb, Storm Pics and ThunderFlash relaunch * Inter The Storm news * Bracknell Bees Prediction League on Beewitched * Get back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > STORM AN EMBARRASMENT AS CARDIFF ROMP HOME On Thursday night in the Nynex in front of a low crowd by Storm's high standards of just 5308, Cardiff Devils came to Manchester and completely over-ran the Storm making the defence look like they had never seen each other before. If Cardiff hadn't let up later on in the game, Storm could have encountered their worst ever defeat at the Nynex, after Lulea won 11-0 earlier in the season. The bottom line is that they were garbage. The defence was nowhere, Finnie didn't know what he was doing and the second half replacement, Raymond wasn't much better. Lawless persisted with Chad Penney despite him being extremely out of form and only Hilton Ruggles looked like he could score. Jago hardly ever came forward in a vain attempt to stop Cardiff's attack. Yewchuk opened the scoring at 2-14 and the scene was set. Frank Evans made it 2-0 after 9 minutes before Sacratini got the first of his hat-trick a minute later. Steve Moria made it 4-0 on 15 minutes. Ivan Matulik carried things on in the same fashion six minutes into the second period to make it 6-0 and Storm fans were resigned to defeat. It was 6-0 just after Raymond replaced Finnie from Yewchuk, but Storm at last started to have ago. Hilton Ruggles put Storm on the scoresheet after 37 minutes with a brilliant goal that should have won him Man of the Match as no-one else did anything nearly as good. With just 1.1 seconds left in the second period, Lawless pulled Raymond in a very optomistic effort to score. The end of the period saw the end of Storm's brief efforts. Ken Hodge made it 7-1 3 minutes into the third on the powerplay after Rubachuk had yet again needlessly been dismissed for 2 minutes. Frank Evans continued the pain for Storm with an eighth Cardiff goal two minutes later and Ian Cooper scored the ninth a minute later on 49 minutes. Sacratini scored Cardiff's 10th as Storm's misfits continued to fall apart. The crowd must have thought they were having a nightmare as Sacratini scored again to get his hat-trick and Cardiff's 11th just 2 minutes later. The rarely seen Craig Woodcroft scored a goal on 54 minutes and Brad Zavisha pulled another back with just over a minute remaining as Cardiff stopped bothering to play. Stephen Cooper got the Least Useless Skater of the Match award. This can't go on. Air Canada will be excited at the prospect of increased business in March I should think. > STORM GO DOWN IN AYR On Wednesday night, Storm started a bad week that surely won't improve much as they went down in Ayr 5-2. Hilton Ruggles opened the scoring for Storm in the first period, but Ayr scored three goals in four minutes in the second to lead 3-1. Storm hit back to make it a 3-2 game, but late on in the third period, Boe and Steer sealed a 5-2 win for the Scottish Eagles. > STEELERS SEE OFF PANTHERS In an exciting game with the second and third periods broadcasted live on BBC Radio Sheffield, Steelers were run close, but finally saw off Nottingham Panthers 6-3. Gareth Hampshire and Solihull coach Paul Thompson did the commentary after Steelers had gone in front in the first period with a Tony Hand goal. Ken Priestlay made it 2-0 and Chinn made it three with 8-19 left in the second. Cory Beaulieu failed to clear with 7 minutes remaining and Randall Webber put Panthers back into the game. The third period saw Nottingham score twice more to level the game at 3-3 with goals from Shellman and Paul Adey. Longstaff quickly restored the lead for Steelers and then Kovacs made it 5-3. Trailing by two goals, Nottingham declined the option of pulling their netminder until the last 37 seconds. With 5 seconds remaining, the game was sealed with Man of the Match Tony Hand making it 6-3. While Radio Sheffield were commentating on the game the was clearly another commentary team in the background. I couldn't work out who they were, but they may have been Radio Nottingham or possibly Hallam FM. I couldn't hear properly because of the vacuum cleaner (don't ask!). > NEWCASTLE BEAT BASINGSTOKE Newcastle Cobras just overcame Basingstoke Bison on Wednesday night in the North East. With the score 4-2 to Cobras early in the third period, Bison levelled the scores with two goals in 34 seconds. Cobras scored a fifth the re-take the lead and then with the Bison netminder pulled, the Cobras sixth goals was scored with Kelly Askey scoring four in the 6-4 victory for Newcastle. Basingstoke's goals were scored by Rick Strachan, Blake Knox, Kevin Conway and Chris Maybury. > DAVID SMITH INJURED Joining Bart on the injury list is David Smith, who had x-rays on Friday after getting a suspected broken collarbone in the Cardiff game. > MARTIN "NO NICKNAME" SMITH GETS ONE! Martin Smith, who's nickname was...No Nickname, has finally got a proper nickname as he is now announced as Martin "Psycho" Smith. Hmmm...very original I don't think. > LAXDAL BANNED AFTER DRUGS TEST Nottingham Panthers' Derek Laxdall has been banned for a month after he failed a drugs test. His sample last month was found to contain Pseudoephedrine, a stimulant banned under IOC doping control rules. Laxdal admitted taking the drug but said it was to combat a cough and sore throat. A BIHA spokesman confirmed that his sample was "consistent" with his claim but that the ban would still stand. Laxdall will return to action on 14 February. > MORE ON OUTDOOR RINK Manchester City Councellor Patrick Karney, who is the chairman of the City Centre Commitee, said that the ice rink in Albert Square was part of the Christmas season of attracting people into the city centre. It was never the intention to have a permanent ice rink in the main civic square in the city. The success of the rink took the council by surprise and with over 25,000 people visiting and 30 enquiries from other local councils, that level of popularity has led them to look at the provision of an ice rink on a more permanent basis, but not in Albert Square. > GB U-16S UPDATE The GB U-16 team, who won the Steel City Challenge tournament in Ontario, Canada, did so by beating Sault Thunder 4-1 in the final. Warren Tait of Nottingham and Glasgow's Craig Gallagher were both named on the All-Star team. > STEELERS BUY ENFIELD Sheffield Steelers have bought The Enfield - the pub across the road from the Sheffield Arena and intend to turn it into a sports bar. > NEW RINK FOR CARDIFF Cardiff Devils have announced a £200 million village which will include a new arena for the Devils. The village will be built in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff with the arena seating between 12,500 and 15,000. The village will also include a new stadium for Cardiff City soccer team and will also be used for Rugby Union and possibly Rugby League internationals. There will also be a ten lane Olympic sized swimming pool with diving pool and Waterworld fun pool. > UNDER THE MOON The latest episode of Under The Moon on Channel 4 again included no ice hockey, but the programme has been reduced to 4 hours because schools programmes start at 4.00AM in term time. They had a phone-in discussion until 2.30AM and then the Green Bay Packers American Football game for the rest of the programme. Apart from the Superbowl next week there are no more games, so they may show something different next week. > RESULTS UP TO DATE AT LAST After a small amount of prompting by my faxes to the Storm office, the programme finally has an up to date results/fixtures list. The Telford Tigers home game was missing until Thursday and the Blackburn away challenge match was only updated at the previous game. They have also finally removed the line that said that there were still games to re-arrange despite all the games having been arranged and on the fixture list in November. > KIT CHANGE, ENHANCED LOGO, BUT NAME CHANGE? Next year's Storm home and away kits will undergo a major change. At present they are still planning predominantly white for home and black for away, but want to get rid of all blue on the shirt (possibly thinking the fans will assume an affinity to Manchester City?) and introduce the word Manchester onto the shirt somewhere as well as the emblem (as in a football style shirt where the team emblem is towards the top of the shirt). However, in two wild contradictions, the following issues are being discussed. Ogden's aren't convinced that the name Manchester Storm is attracting fans all throughout the franchise area, which is after all what the team was set up to cover. Exactly what name they were thinking of remains a mystery for now. The name Storm may be used on its own. It has to be said that Stormforce will oppose this move every step of the way, and in reality is likely to not get off the ground. But this begs the question - if the crowds go low, Ogdens will surely read into it that the fanbase isn't big enough not the real reason, which will be the lack of decent players bought by Storm because Ogden's "have a 5 year plan". The final point, if things weren't complicated enough already, was that it's Stormforce's view that Storm need a "proper" local derby (I'm not entirely convinced myself) similar to that with Blackburn Hawks last season and more than Leeds will offer when they come on board. If Ogden's get that idea into their head, we could be seeing a situation similar to that with Sheffield/Leeds - ie. Ogden's selling half the franchise. It seems a bit unlikely at present, but stranger things have happened. > RADIO FIVE ON SATURDAYS After the announcement of possible Superleague commentary on Radio 5 Live on Saturday nights, an updated version of the news has now come to hand. The reports of a forthcoming programme are not strictly true as the budget for next year has not yet been set. Radio 5 Live have wanted to do such a programme from September 1996 following the Rugby League Super League season, but there is currently a news programme in the slot which is considered important. The format for such a programme if it came about would be news and views from a number of sports including ice hockey, basketball, Speedway, Rugby League and would include commentary from a selected game. It would no doubt be Rugby League while their season continues, unless it is a particularly lame game for that night (SKY choose the only Saturday night Rugby League match) and the programme would probably not start until 7.00 as the 6-0-6 phone-in comes first. > GRANADA TV AND ICE HOCKEY The Manchester Evening News reports that the Bass Masters crown green bowling competition screened every year on Granada TV has been scrapped. The station has also dropped the saturday tea-time soccer goals programme "Granada Goals Extra" to be replaced with an extended news programme. The Granada TV line on this is that they are shifting their strategy away from covering regional sport to develop interest in ice hockey! There is no explanation of this strange strategy, or what they intend to do once they have an interest in ice hockey! > SKATE ATTACK GIVE ICE BREAKER WITH FANZINE If I'd have waited an extra week before buying the fanzines from Skate Attack, I'd have saved 1 pound! Skate Attack were giving away Ice Breaker with every copy of Thunder & Lightning at the Storm v Cardiff game! > FANZINE REVIEW COMING SOON I have THE SHOWER CAP, THUNDER & LIGHTNING, and three issues of ICE BREAKER to review and I will be doing that over the next few days, so look out for that here on Storm Blitz. > LATEST SUPERLEAGUE TABLE Pl W D OL NL +/- Points Cardiff Devils 29 21 2 0 6 +50 44 Sheffield Steelers 28 18 3 2 5 +32 41 Newcastle Cobras 28 14 2 5 7 +13 35 Nottingham Panths 29 13 1 2 13 +6 29 Ayr Scottish E 28 11 6 0 11 -9 28 Basingstoke Bison 30 9 2 2 17 -26 22 Manchester Storm 26 8 2 1 15 -38 19 Bracknell Bees 26 8 2 0 16 -28 18 Up to and including games on 16 January > FORTHCOMING STORM FIXTURES TUE 21 JAN - Sheffield Steelers v Manchester Storm, Superleague, 7.30 face off. THU 23 JAN - Manchester Storm v Bracknell Bees, Superleague, 7.30 face off. SAT 25 JAN - Newcastle Cobras v Manchester Storm, Superleague, 6.30 face off. SUN 26 JAN - Manchester Storm v Basingstoke Bison, Superleague, 6.00 face off. WED 29 JAN - Manchester Storm v Newcastle Cobras, Superleague, 7.30 face off. FRI 31 JAN - Sheffield Steelers v Manchester Storm, Superleague, 7.30 face off. > NEXT ON TV & RADIO SAT 18 JAN - BBC RADIO 5 LIVE - Review of the night's games in the sports section of Night Extra - 11.30 - 12.00AM MON 20 JAN - BBC GMR 95.1/104.6FM - Interview feature as part of Drivetime programme at approx 5.45pm TUE 21 JAN - BBC RADIO SHEFFIELD 104.1FM - Sheffield Steelers v Manchester Storm - LIVE - 7.00 - 10.00pm (*TO BE CONFIRMED*) WED 22 JAN - BBC RADIO SHEFFIELD 104.1FM - The Ice Line - Sheffield Steelers phone-in programme includes Steelers players as guests - 7.00 - 8.00pm WED 22 JAN - HTV WALES - Highlights of a recent Cardiff Devils game plus goals from other recent games - 10.40 - 11.40pm THU 23 JAN - BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE 95.5/103.9FM - Grass Roots - Blackburn Hawks feature at approx 7.45pm FRI 24 JAN - BBC GMR 95.1/104.6FM - Manchester Storm features including interviews at approx 8.00pm as part of general sports programme - 7.00 - 10.00pm SAT 25 JAN - BBC RADIO 5 LIVE - Review of the night's games in the sports section of Night Extra - 11.30 - 12.00AM > STORM BLITZ You'll notice that in this issue (if worked AND I remembered to do it) that you can no longer see the list of other names that are subscribed to Storm Blitz. I have mailed it to myself but sending the Storm Blitz list a blind copy of it meaning that you don't have to scroll down almost 80 names to find the news. I'm expecting even more additions to the list now that I have had an "advert" in the match programme for Storm Blitz. > STORMWEB, STORM PICS AND THUNDERFLASH RELAUNCH Three major Storm sites have undergone either a redesign or have added lots more info. StormWeb, the site to find all the Storm player and game stats has had a redesign, now includes a background and is looking very smart indeed. Storm Pics, the site for pictures of the Storm on and off the rink, has a good deal of new pictures including European League action and new photos of the newer players. Meanwhile ThunderFlash, Storm's excellent Internet Fanzine has had a redesign with an all new "easy to read" layout. It also includes a Guestbook so you can leave messages about Storm on there if you get bored of Inter The Storm's Guestbook! > INTER THE STORM NEWS I was hoping to have launched STORM ACTION PHOTOS by now, but due to a small delay, that will be online by Sunday. Coming soon I have Storm Sounds planned - more on that as I get it all together. Inter The Storm, the Guestbook, and most annoyingly the Web Page Stats have all being playing up at varying times throughout this week. All three seem to be back in action now, although I'm not convinced about the stats yet. I had over 150 visitors according to my GeoCities counter over a period of 1.5 days and Web Tracker logged me 2 visits!! I'm also aware that the front page needs to be widened slightly, as I didn't take into account the longer page descriptions on the front page and this has in turn mis-aligned the New and Updated icons. Hopefully this should be fixed by the time you read this. There is now a link to the GeoCities Announcements page that lists reasons for any downtime that occurs. > BRACKNELL BEES PREDICTION LEAGUE ON BEEWITCHED The Bracknell Bees Internet Fanzine, Beewitched, is running a Prediction League that I am currently bottom of (no surprise there I hear you say). The competition is open all season for new people to join and full instructions are given on the Beewitched page at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/9063 All you have to do is predict the results of Bracknell Bees games and who will score for Bracknell. Easy...(errr...) > GET BACK ISSUES OF STORM BLITZ All previous issues of Storm Blitz are still available. If you didn't get them, or want them again, send an e-mail to inter.the.storm@poboxes.com and let me know which you want and I'll forward them on to you. > HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO STORM BLITZ Easy! Send an e-mail to inter.the.storm@poboxes.com telling me that you don't want Storm Blitz any more. Also use this address if you wish to change e-mail addresses or if you have any comments. *** END OF STORM BLITZ ISSUE #15 *** INTER THE STORM can be accessed at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/storm.html ------------------------------ This space could be yours! If you're interested in having your advert here, send an e-mail to simon.sm@zetnet.co.uk ------------------------------