STORM BLITZ ISSUE #26 Sunday 2 March 1997 There are currently 139 Storm Blitz subscribers. This issue is sponsored by The Peerless Movie Collection. For more details see foot of message. If you have any comments on Storm Blitz, please feel free to e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com any time. ---- In this issue : * Play-off fixtures * Cardiff and Nottingham stay unbeaten * Cardiff win in Newcastle * Steelers & Panthers win * Latest ISL Play-Offs Group A table * Stormforce newsletter * New Storm Web site available * Bees v Storm * Oxford win Varsity match * Kingston & Telford latest * Swindon champions * Solihull Blaze * Thunder & Lightning 2 review * Inter The Storm stats * Solihull Blaze Guestbook now running * Next on TV & Radio * Get back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > PLAY-OFF FIXTURES The play-off fixtures have been announced as follows: WED 5 MAR - Newcastle Cobras v Manchester Storm (7.30) FRI 7 MAR - Cardiff Devils v Manchester Storm (7.00) SUN 9 MAR - Manchester Storm v Newcastle Cobras (6.00) WED 12 MAR - Ayr Scottish E v Manchester Storm (6.30) THU 13 MAR - Manchester Storm v Cardiff Devils (7.30) SUN 16 MAR - Manchester Storm v Ayr Scottish E (6.00) SAT 22 MAR - both semi-finals (at Manchester) SAT 29 MAR - final, premier/NPL final, U-16 final (at Manchester) Dates and face off times are subject to change. > CARDIFF AND NOTTINGHAM STAY UNBEATEN Cardiff Devils defeated Ayr Scottish Eagles 6-2 in their second play-off Group A match. In the group B match, Nottingham Panthers came from 1-0 down to beat Bracknell Bees 5-3 in Nottingham. Cardiff and Nottingham are both unbeaten after two play-off games. > CARDIFF WIN IN NEWCASTLE In the opening Group A play-off game, Cardiff Devils travelled to Newcastle and comfortably beat the Cobras 5-2. It looks like Cardiff should be certainties to go into the semi-finals on 22 March at the Nynex already. > STEELERS & PANTHERS WIN The play-offs group B began as expected with Sheffield Steelers and Nottingham Panthers both getting their group games off to a winning start. Steelers beat Bracknell Bees 3-2 in Yorkshire and Panthers travelled to Basingstoke and won 5-1. > LATEST ISL PLAY-OFFS GROUP A TABLE Pl W D OL NL +/- Points Cardiff Devils 2 2 0 0 0 +7 4 Manchester Storm 0 0 0 0 0 +0 0 Newcastle Cobras 1 0 0 0 1 -3 0 Ayr Scottish E 1 0 0 0 1 -4 0 Up to and including games on 2 March > STORMFORCE NEWSLETTER The latest Stormforce Newsletter should now be with Stormforce members. It came in an envelope with allsorts of other stuff including a Nynex bookmark (!), a player of the year voting slip to be handed in at the Stormforce desk on matchdays, a flyer/application form for the play-off finals, a play-off information sheet, a flyer for the Altrincham Aces challenge match on 4 March, and a letter about the Annual General Meeting in April. The newsletter itself is a fair effort in mono all the way through. The front cover has two photos from the Junior event to see the players train. Inside is an editorial, a double letters page, a double "travel stories" page, a page about the forthcoming player of the year night, some photos from the Fun Run and the Junior event at Rochdale FC. There is a double page of Press Room views and interviews and a junior stormforce quiz page. There is a page with a letter from a fan of the team and some photos from the Altrincham skate night. Also in there is a long review of the season (so far) and adverts for merchanside and the GB supporters club. Finally on a double page spread near the end is yet more stuff on the "John Lawless editied the programme" issue, which is infact an exact copy of the fans comments page on Inter The Storm, which is fair enough as I was asked if I minded them using it. However, they could have got the URL correct! At least they got most of it right (http;/ ???) but the page that it would link to is the page that they took the info from not the main page. > NEW STORM WEB SITE AVAILABLE There is another new Storm site out there. This one is called The Storm Shelter and is very good. Here's the advert: Visit The Storm Shelter, a new site dedicated to the Manchester Storm. It features View From A Fan - a thought provoking page on issues relating to the Storm, pictures, directions and details of venues, a Guestbook along with results, league tables, statistics, reports and much much more. You can reach The Storm Shelter by going to : http://www.omen1.demon.co.uk/storm/index.html > BEES v STORM I have managed to get some correct info from the game between Bracknell Bees and Storm on 22 Feb. What I wrote originally although well intended didn't have too much truth in it as for some reason I couldn't remember much of it after a mad weekend which included being at the rugby match in London between London Broncos and Bradford Bulls giving me not very long to negotiate the M25 and various other obstacles - and it was my first time down south in a car! Anyway, Craig Woodcroft scored after just 48 seconds. Whistle equalised for Bracknell after 7 minutes and Storm took the lead again with just 15 seconds left of the first period with a goal from Brad Rubachuk. Into the second period and Bracknell took 8 minutes to equalise as Bucsis made it 2-2. Storm made it 3-2 a minute later as Stephen Cooper scored past Mark Bernard. That was Storm's last scoring action just before the half-way point of the game. Mike Ellis equalised for Bracknell and then Romeo returned from a penalty to put Bracknell 4-3 up at the end of the second period. The third period saw Bracknell hold off Storm's not particularly treatening attacks and then with five minutes remaining Stewart scored to make the final score 5-3. > OXFORD WIN VARSITY MATCH On Sunday 2 March, a crowd of 700 at Stevenage saw Oxford University win the Varsity match against Cambridge University 5-2. > KINGSTON & TELFORD LATEST Following their brawl at their Premier League match last week which caused the match to be abandoned after 13 minutes of the first period after the police were called, both the Telford and Kingston teams have had players fined and banned. The new date for the match at Humberside is Wednesday 5 March. Kingston coach Keith Milhench and player Mike Pinnington are appealing against their 10 match bans. > SWINDON CHAMPIONS Although the Premier League is still in progress, the Champions have been decided and Swindon Ice Lords have won it after Solihull Blaze looked to be the strongest team earlier in the season. There are still a number of fixtures remaining mostly involving Peterborough Pirates. > SOLIHULL BLAZE Solihull's impending move to NEC Birmingahm and a name change to Birmingham Blaze looks unlikely to go through in time for next season with the NEC unable to lay an ice pad in time and Solihull having no money to pay their players. A number of players have already left the club making their play-off fixtures doubtful. The town's soccer team Solihull Borough are undergoing a similar situation with the council refusing to fund any ground plans and so the club are set to relocate to the Perry Barr area of Birmingham and change their name to Birmingham Alexander, although nothing has been decided for certain yet. > THUNDER & LIGHTNING 2 REVIEW For a review of other fanzines, see the Fanzine Review page on INTER THE STORM at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/fanzine.html. After a very good first issue, the second issue of Thunder & Lightning has kept its high quality design and content and the humour is just as good - it seems to have abandoned the large number of Steelers digs - the digs now seem to be aimed at Cardiff and Ayr. There's a big feature on the Internet which is intended to plug the fanzine's Web site, except that the site doesn't work - someone made a mess of uploading the pages and still hasn't fixed it. The Web site (for when it works) is http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/9069. The feature mentions Inter The Storm and so that is a good plus! It must be said though that I'm already bored of Norman the Mosquito. The picture quality is pretty good and the colours are bright without being quite as loud as the previous issue. It is still 1.50 which although still expensive, there are now more pages. Favourite bit - Hilton Ruggles interview. MARKS OUT OF 10 : Content : 9 Humour : 8 Design : 9 Readability : 8 Value For Money : 8 TOTAL (Out Of 50) : 42 > INTER THE STORM STATS The Web page stats that I set up for INTER THE STORM now are working properly with the stats accessible from link on the front page of ITS and now that they are 3 weeks old they are producing some useful information. For example, in the last 3 weeks of February, the page recorded over 1500 visitors, which amounts to 86 per day (it has grown from 77 per day two weeks ago). Of these visitors, 30% are first time visitors (first time in the three weeks that is) and 52% have visited 8 or more times!! Of the 1500+ visitors, 83% use Netscape and only 12% Microsoft Internet Explorer as their browser. Windows 95 users make up 57% of the visitors while 30% are Windows 30%. Domain names can be misleading as US domains are used by people all over the world including the UK (Compuserve and AOL for example have many UK users) but 39% of visitors have .uk domains, while 21% have .net and 20% have .com. 5% are recorded as having Canadian domains. The most popular time of the day for page accesses is 11AM US time (approx 4pm UK) and 7% of visitors logged onto Inter The Storm around that time. > SOLIHULL BLAZE GUESTBOOK NOW RUNNING BlazeNet, the official Web site for Solihull Blaze, now has a Guestbook running. It is run by Lpages as is Inter The Storm's and so will be quite reliable. Solihull are the only team (to my knowledge) outside the Superleague to have a Guestbook running and so it will give a good alternative view of ice hockey. BlazeNet can be found at : http://www.solblaze.demon.co.uk > NEXT ON TV & RADIO MON 3 MAR - BBC GMR 95.1/104.6FM - Drivetime - Interview with Storm representative - 5.55pm MON 3 MAR - HTV WALES - Ice Hockey Superleague - Extensive highlights of the conclusion of Cardiff Devils Superleague championship season - 11.35pm-12.35 WED 5 MAR - BBC RADIO SHEFFIELD 104.1FM - The Ice Line - Sheffield Steelers phone-on - 7.00-8.00pm THU 6 MAR - BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE 95.5/103.9FM - Grass Roots - Feature on Blackburn Hawks - approx 7.45pm FRI 7 MAR - BBC GMR 95.1/104.6FM - Friday Sport - Interview/Feature on Manchester Storm along with other sports news - 7.00-10.00pm SAT 8 FEB - Granada TV - Battles On Ice - Hour-long programme featuring highlights of Newcastle Cobras v Storm (5/3) - 2.50-3.50pm (timing to be confirmed) SAT 8 MAR - BBC RADIO 5 LIVE 693/909AM - Night Extra - results and round-up of the night's games along with all the day's other sports results - 11.30pm-12.00 > 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 #26 *** INTER THE STORM can be accessed at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/storm.html ------------------------------ This issue of Storm Blitz is sponsored by: The Peerless Movie Collection For top movie reviews visit: http://www.peerless.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ To sponsor Storm Blitz, e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com