STORM BLITZ ISSUE #18 Tuesday 28 January 1997 Sorry for the delay - there's LOTS to catch up on! 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 : * Steelers victorious against Storm 5-3 * Storm move off bottom in 6-3 win against Bees * Inter The Storm Match Commentary semi-successful * Forthcoming Cobras game "must go ahead on Wednesday" * Latest News From Stormforce * Gary Dickie testimonial * Storm beat Bison in 8-7 thriller * Cardiff beat Sheffield again * Bracknell & Ayr also win * Paisley romp home * Jason Wood signed on loan as Raymond is injured * Storm & Ice Hockey fanzines available * Storm lose out 2-0 at Newcastle * Ayr win at Steelers 5-2 * Bees win at Panthers, Cardiff & Bison draw * Ayr to play Japan * Shawn Byram released after dressing-room bust up * Next season's possible league format * Scottish Cup Final * Official Storm Web Site * Interview with Finnie in Game On * Mike Maurice * Jago finishes 3rd in M.E.N. Sports Awards * New on Inter The Storm * Latest Superleague table * Forthcoming Storm fixtures * Next on TV & Radio * Get back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > STEELERS VICTORIOUS AGAINST STORM 5-3 In a poor game, a lacklustre Sheffield Steelers just about overcame an improved Manchester Storm. Storm took the lead with 1 minute remaining in the first period with a goal from Martin Smith. The lead lasted until just 16 seconds into the second period when Kovacs equalised. Five minutes later, Ken Priestlay put Steelers into the lead. Storm didn't fall over, as some might have expected, but came back to equalise ten minutes later from a Brad Turner shot. Just before the end of the second period, Ron Shudra scored on the powerplay to put Steelers 3-2 up. Nicky Chinn made it 4-2 four minutes into the third, but with 5 minutes remaining Brad Rubachuk set up a dramatic finish with a goal to bring the score to 4-3. Despite Storm's efforts, Ken Priestlay scored an empty net goal with just 15 seconds remaining. > STORM MOVE OFF BOTTOM IN 6-3 WIN AGAINST BEES Storm got off the bottom of the league for a couple of days in this reasonably good performance against Bracknell Bees. Bees opened the scoring after just 1 minute of the game before Dale Jago and Jeff Lindsay shot Storm into the lead by the end of the first period. Storm scored three times in the second with goals from Nick Poole, Mike Morin and Craig Woodcroft. Bees scored their second to make the score at the end of the second period 5-2. Storm got their sixth as Chad Penney scored in the third period before Bracknell finished off the scoring with their third. Man Of The Match for Storm was Mike Morin, while netminder Mark Bernard won it for Bracknell. > INTER THE STORM MATCH COMMENTARY SEMI-SUCCESSFUL The game between Storm and Bracknell Bees on Thursday was the Inter The Storm commentary game! I teamed up with a Bracknell Bees fan and did a recording of our commentary into a tape recorder and the sound clips will go onto the SOUNDS LIKE STORM page on Inter The Storm. The sound quality was poor but then I was only using a dictaphone and a cheap microphone! I got 21 sound clips in all from the first period and the last 10 minutes of the game. I pressed PLAY not record in the second period and in the first half of the third, the microphone had come out of the socket!! > FORTHCOMING COBRAS GAME "MUST GO AHEAD ON WEDNESDAY" The game against Newcastle Cobras on Wednesday evening will go ahead despite Stormforce's request that it be moved to avoid the clash with not just ONE of Manchester's top soccer sides, but BOTH Manchester United and Manchester City are playing at home that night - filling two stadiums less than 3 miles aay with a total of 80,000 people. Ogden's said NO, the game must go ahead on Wednesday - despite being given three weeks to re-arrange it. > LATEST NEWS FROM STORMFORCE The Stormforce AGM will take place on Sunday 13 April with the venue and time yet to be arranged. The Presentation Evening (Player Of The Year Night) will go ahead on Sunday 30 March at the Nynex Arena - the price has yet to be announced. There is currently a discussion going on between Stormforce and Odgens as to whether the catering prices will be subsidised. Stormforce are saying that no-one will turn up if they've got to pay those prices (giving last year's Sheffield Steelers End Of Season Party that was poorly attended) and Odgens disagreed. There will be a buffet (not including drinks I believe - hence the subsidy discussion), a disco, live band, auction and the presentation. The categories are as follows: Kiss 102 Player Of The Year, GMR Talk Best Forward, Piccadilly Key 103 Best Defenceman, Manchester Evening News Most Improved Player and North Manchester/Rochdale Express players' player award. The MC on the night is (of course) Jon Hammond. There will be a Junior Stormforce training session when Junior Stormforce members will be able to watch the team train at the Nynex. After the training session, the Junior Stormforce will present their own Player Of The Year Trophy. Voting slips for this are available on the Stormforce desk. The event will take place between 12.00 and 1.00pm on Monday 10 February and parents are welcome to attend with their children. There is an entry fee of 1.00 to be donated to the Children's Hospital Appeal. Stormforce Committee member Barbara Clifford is now a rep for the Great Britain Supporters Club. She will provide information on joining at the Stormforce desk on match nights. The next Stormforce newsletter is out and the end of February and will include a review of the season by Peter Collins of the North Manchester/Rochdale Express. Stormforce believes that Storm WILL have a totally new kit next season (Stormforce have asked that MANCHESTER be put on the kit). The first game that Granada will be televising for their new show will be Storm v Cardiff on Sunday 2 February. If the programme is a success then it will carry on next season. The Manchester Storm allocation for the British Championships Finals is Blocks 115 - 119. Mick Thompson, Stormforce's press officer is asking Storm fans to write to local radio stations GMR Talk and Piccadilly 1152 asking why should Storm fans have to tune into Radio Sheffield for reports on the Storm game when both local stations had sports shows on the same night but with NO Storm coverage. As GMR Talk claim to be the Official Number 1 station for sport, why not drop Head Of Sport Any Buckley a line at BBC GMR Talk, PO Box 951, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SD. Stormforce have been invited to enter a team in a charity ten pin bowling event at the Mega Bowl, Pilsworth, Bury on Sunday 6 April 4.00 start. The event is being run by the Rochdale Branch of the Manchester City Supporters Association & Rochdale FC Supporters Club and is in aid of Rochdale Hospice. Players from Manchester City, Rochdale and other sports will be there. All are welcome to come and support Stormforce and support a good cause. Stormforce are running a competition for Manchester Storm tickets in the match programme for Rochdale v Barnet on Sat 1 Feb. > GARY DICKIE TESTIMONIAL On Wednesday 22 January, the Gary Dickie testimonial match took place between Swindon Ice Lords and a Gary Dickie AllStars side which included Brad Rubachuk, Daryl Lipsey and Jeff Sebastian. The final score was 11-10 to Gary Dickie AllStars side with Rubachuk scoring the Allstars 9th and 11th goals. > MARTIN "CYCLONE" SMITH It seems that Martin Smith's new nickname is Cyclone not Psycho as I thought it was. Maybe they should all have weather nicknames. Hmmm....Stephen Foggy Cooper...Hilton Rainy Ruggles.... > STORM BEAT BISON IN 8-7 THRILLER In front of almost 9000 fans at the Nynex Arena on Sunday, Storm almost threw the match aay after having a four goal lead. Storm led 3-1 after just twelve minutes of the game and Chad Penney was given a game penalty for being the third man in a fight. Just three minutes later, Basingstoke had scored three more goals to lead 4-3 at the end of the first period. The second period saw Storm soar into an 8-4 lead with five unanswered goals, but the third period was reversed with three unanswered goals from Bison to make the final score 8-7. Storm's goals were scored by Craig Woodcroft (2), Mike Morin (2), Martin Smith, Brad Turner, Dale Jago and Jeff Lindsay. The goals for the Bison were from Scott, Conway, Chard, Priest (2), Black and Brown. > CARDIFF BEAT SHEFFIELD AGAIN On Sunday, Cardiff Devils defeated Sheffield Steelers to keep them on course for the first Superleague title. The first period was goalless and Cardiff opened the scoring in the second before Steelers came back and scored twice to lead 2-1 at the end of the second. The third period was all Cardiff as they came back and scored twice to win 3-2 despite Steelers coming close to equalising in the dying seconds as Greco was pulled. > BRACKNELL & AYR ALSO WIN Also on Sunday, Bracknell Bees defeated Newcastle Cobras 6-3 at the Beehive to move to 6th in the Superleague. In the other game, Ayr Scottish Eagles continued their recent good run with a 5-3 win against Nottingham Panthers. > PAISLEY ROMP HOME In the Northern Premier League recently won by Fife Flyers, Paisley Pirates went to Northern Ireland and completely over-ran Castleraigh Knights 24-4. The Knights have had to release all their mainland-based players to cut costs. > JASON WOOD SIGNED ON LOAN AS ERIC RAYMOND IS INJURED To cover for the injury to Eric Raymond, Storm signed Jason Wood on loan from Cardiff Devils as two netminders must be named for each game - and so Storm had to loan a netminder. Jason was not getting any ice time at Cardiff, and since arriving at Manchester in time for the Sheffield game last week, has not had any ice time here either! > STORM & ICE HOCKEY FANZINES AVAILABLE There are a number of fanzines available from Skate Attack or around the Nynex Arena now on match nights. Three of them are Manchester Storm "humour" fanzines and the fourth is an ice hockey puzzle magazine. THUNDERFLASH This is the most recent addition to the set of fanzines. It is in effect a printed version of the best bits of the Thunderflash Internet pages that you can read at http://members.aol.com/Thunflash. Priced at 1.00 for 24 pages and with a fair amount of reading, it is pretty good value especially if you haven't read the on-line version. It makes a point of pushing Manchester Storm's many Internet pages which is good. It also includes useful information (such as Media News) and not trying to get a joke out of everything possible - and this works well. Favourite bit : Next Season's News MARKS OUT OF 10 Content : 8 Humour : 9 Design : 8 Readability : 8 Value For Money : 9 TOTAL (Out Of 50) : 42 THE SHOWER CAP Described as The Unofficial Manchester Storm Fanzine this is a reasonable fanzine, but doesn't favour too well in comparison to the other available ones. It seems to have a lot of obscure "fillers" rather like the Storm match programme! It seems to have been produced pretty cheaply and is lacking a bit in decent content. It is priced at 1.00 for 24 pages (although unlike Thunderflash does not have anything on the inside covers). The fanzine is produced by Wardell Copy Centre in Bury and some of the photos are not of the highest quality. However, it is a good effort and is worth a read. Favourite bit : Separated At Birth - Chad Penney MARKS OUT OF 10 Content : 4 Humour : 5 Design : 6 Readability : 6 Value For Money : 6 TOTAL (Out Of 50) : 27 THUNDER & LIGHTNING Produced by WayneJayne Promotions, this is a good effort. I'm not sure about the green cover and purple pages though! It describes itself as The Official Unofficial Fanzine and is priced at 1.50. It is written by four girls who call themselves The Thundergirls. There is a great focus on knocking Sheffield Steelers, and is a bit daring at times. A lot of effort seems to have been put into the content and is quite funny as well! The photographs are good and overall is pretty good. Favourite bit : Hockey's Top Ten Tips MARKS OUT OF 10 Content : 9 Humour : 8 Design : 9 Readability : 8 Value For Money : 7 TOTAL (Out Of 50) : 41 ICE BREAKER This is a monthly puzzle magazine sold at nearly all the UK ice hockey clubs. Each magazine contains a lot of puzzles with some puzzles including prizes on offer. It doesn't attempt to knock anyone and is safely everyone's friendly magazine! It is priced at 1.00 and if you like puzzles then surely you'll like Ice Breaker. All the puzzles seem to be ice hockey related making it a good alternative to the Zamboni Line Dancing competition or whatever in between the periods. There are other things hiding away inside - although the jokes pages are VERY safe! Favourite bit : Mindbenders MARKS OUT OF 10 Content : 9 Puzzles : 9 Design : 8 Readability : 8 Value For Money : 9 TOTAL (Out Of 50) : 43 There is now a Fanzine Guide page on Inter The Storm that contains the above reviews and will expand to cover other ice hockey fanzines. > STORM LOSE OUT 2-0 AT NEWCASTLE On Saturday, Storm travelled to Newcastle to play the Cobras in front of the SKY TV cameras once again and nothing's new - they lost on SKY again! Newcastle opened the scoring with a goal from Norton after just 2 minutes of the game. Brebant made it 2-0 in the second period and storm could not come back into it. The third period was goalless and Storm went back to the bottom of the league again - thankfully only until Sunday! > AYR WIN AT STEELERS 5-2 This was the shock result of the night on Saturday as Sheffield Steelers lost out at home to Ayr Scottish Eagles. Ayr actually went 4-0 in the first 12 minutes of the game with goals from Woolf, Steer, Groleau and Lala before Steelers finally got on the scoreboard with a Rob Wilson powerplay goal after 14 minutes to make it 4-1. The second period was goalless and Steelers made it 4-2 with a Lafreniere goal with 5 minutes remaining. Ayr wrapped it all up with a goal from Steer to make the final score 5-2 to Ayr. > BEES WIN AT PANTHERS, CARDIFF & BISON DRAW Bracknell Bees beat Nottingham Panthers 3-0 at Lower Parliament Street on Saturday. Junkin scored the first in the first period. Brant and (Mike) Ellis scored the second and third goals in the second period while the third period was goalless. In Saturday's other game, Cardiff Devils were held to a 4-4 draw at Basingstoke after overtime. Cardiff couldn't get an overtime winner despite pulling their netminder for the last few seconds. > NOTTINGHAM DRAW WITH JAPAN Nottingham Panthers drew 2-2 with Japan on Tuesday 28 January after overtime. Ayr Scottish Eagles will be playing the touring Japan side on Wednesday 29 January in the next game, which will be the second of five for Japan as they prepare for the World Championship games in the summer. They will play Newcastle Cobras on Thursday night. Japan were due to play Great Britain in Blackburn as part of the tour but this has been replaced by a game in Basingstoke against the Bison (plus guests). > SHAWN BYRAM RELEASED AFTER DRESSING ROOM BUST-UP Manchester Storm have released Shawn Byram after a dressing room bust-up with John Lawless. The exact details of the events leading to his departure have not been released by Storm. John Lawless said that he preferred the isue to "stay in the dressing room". The events supposedly took place in between the second and third periods at Sheffield in Storm's game last Tuesday and arose from a clash of personalities between Byram and Lawless. Apparantly Byram spoke his mind and left Lawless no option but to dismiss him. > NEXT SEASON'S POSSIBLE LEAGUE FORMAT The British League could be on its way back - but this won't affect the Superleague. According to the Storm match programme, one idea is that there will be a nationwide British Premier Division and a regionalised Division One. The probable make up of the Premier Division will be : Fife, Guildford, Kingston, Paisley, Slough, Swindon, Telford, Whitley and Solihull (if they don't move to Birmingham - if they do they will join the Superleague). The Northern Division One would then contain : Altrincham, Billingham, Blackburn, Murrayfield, Sunderland, Castlereagh, Dumfries plus possibly Bradford and Sheffield Scimitars. The Southern Division One would then contain : Chelmsford, Haringey, Medway, Oxford, Peterborough, Romford and Stevenage. > SCOTTISH CUP FINAL The Scottish Cup Final will take place at Kirkaldy on 8th February and will take place between Fife Flyers and Paisley Pirates. It will be televised by BBC Scotland. > OFFICIAL STORM WEB SITE It is expected that there will be an "official" Storm Web site released in the next few days. Exactly what will be on it remains a mystery. It is being produced professionally by a Web Design company. More news on this as it is released. > INTERVIEW WITH FINNIE IN GAME ON There is an interview with John Finnie, Storm Number #1 netminder in Sheffield Steeler's online magazine Game On. The pages are linked from the front screen of the Steelers Official Web pages http://www.steelers.co.uk. The Sheffield Steelers Guestbook has re-opened and so if you'd like to leave a comment for any Steelers fans, you can do so from there also. > MIKE MAURICE At the same time as Storm signed netminder Eric Raymond, we also signed Mike Maurice, except that he didn't get as far as actually playing. His name appeared in the programme briefly to he didn't get his work permit and so signed for a team in the Colonial League in the United States. > JAGO FINISHES 3RD IN M.E.N. SPORTS AWARDS Dale Jago has finished third in the Manchester Evening News Sports Personality Of The Year awards voted for by the paper's readers. He finshed behind a Manchester boxer and St Helens rugby league player Bobby Goulding. > NEW ON INTER THE STORM There are a number of new pages on Inter The Storm. The Fanzine Guide reviews current fanzines as described earlier in this Storm Blitz. The Action Photos are now on-line with action from the Storm v Sheffield and Storm v Nottingham games currently on show. There are sound clips available on the Sounds Like Storm page. This will include the commentary clips from the Storm v Bees game in the next few days. There is a page on Canadian Junior Hockey with information provided by one of our sister clubs in Canada, Simcoe Storm. The news, results, reports, previews and league table pages have all been updated. The Stormforce pages have been updated to include all the new information. There are some new Alternative Team Names and a BIG update to the MISCONDUCT! page. There is also another new page - Storm Guide To Forenames. The Guestbook has been playing up, and you cannot currently view it (unless it is fixed by the time you see this). You can still sign the page as the entries are e-mailed to me. I will add the entries to the off-line copy as I get them until the problem is fixed. February's Guestbook will be starting soon, so I will be transfering all of January's to off-line anyway then. The Web Stats are messing me around as well. What started off as a brilliant feature is turning into a pain. But I'll persevere as the information it records is brilliant. I did reset the stats to 0 and this fixed the problem for a bit. If the front page of INTER THE STORM hangs just after the scrolling message, that will be the Web Stats fault, as it links to the site just before the contents list comes up. Just press stop if it does nothing for about 30 seconds. There will be a couple of broken picture links but everything should still work. The Web page themselves are getting less reliable, but GeoCities insist they are fixing the problem. Any downtime is usually only short and I suggest trying again 5 minutes later if you can't get in. > LATEST SUPERLEAGUE TABLE Pl W D OL NL +/- Points Cardiff Devils 33 23 3 0 7 +59 49 Sheffield Steelers 32 20 3 2 7 +31 45 Newcastle Cobras 31 15 2 5 9 +11 37 Ayr Scottish E 32 14 6 0 12 -5 34 Nottingham Panths 33 14 1 2 16 -7 31 Bracknell Bees 30 11 2 0 17 -22 24 Manchester Storm 30 10 2 1 17 -38 23 Basingstoke Bison 33 9 3 2 19 -29 23 Up to and including games on 26 January > FORTHCOMING STORM FIXTURES 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. SUN 02 FEB - Manchester Storm v Cardiff Devils, Superleague, 6.00 face off. WED 05 FEB - Manchester Storm v Newcastle Cobras, Superleague, 7.30 face off. THU 06 FEB - Basingstoke Bison v Manchester Storm, Superleague, 8.00 face off. SUN 09 FEB - Manchester Storm v Nottingham Panthers, Superleague, 6.00 face off. THU 13 FEB - Manchester Storm v Sheffield Steelers, Superleague, 7.30 face off. > NEXT ON TV & RADIO WED 29 JAN - BBC RADIO SHEFFIELD 104.1FM - The Ice Line - Sheffield Steelers phone-on - 7.00-8.00pm THU 30 JAN - BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE 95.5/103.9FM - Grass Roots - Blackburn Hawks feature - 7.45pm FRI 31 JAN - BBC GMR TALK 95.1/104.6FM - Friday Sport - Manchester Storm feature & possibly score updates from game at Steelers along with others sports news - 7.00-10.00pm SAT 01 FEB - SKY SPORTS - Ice Hockey LIVE - Game to be confirmed - 6.30-9.00pm SAT 01 FEB - SKY SPORTS - Ice Hockey - Repeat of the game shown at 6.30 - 11.00pm-1.30 SAT 01 FEB - BBC RADIO 5 LIVE 909/693AM - Night Extra Sport - Round-up of the night's games along with the rest of the sports news - 11.30pm-12.00 MON 03 FEB - BBC GMR TALK 95.1/104.6FM - Drivetime - Interview with John Lawless or other big name - 5.55pm MON 03 FEB - HTV WALES - Ice Hockey Superleague - Extended highlights of Cardiff Devils v Ayr Scottish Eagles and brief highlights of Manchester Storm v Cardiff Devils - 11.35pm-12.35 > 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 #18 *** 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 ------------------------------