STORM BLITZ ISSUE #36 Thursday 3 April 1997 Storm Blitz is currently sponsorless. To sponsor and help secure the future of this bulletin, e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com If you have any comments on Storm Blitz, please feel free to e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com any time. --------------------------------------------------- In this issue : * Storm Blitz * Nick Poole wins three awards * Steelers win Superleague Final * Swindon shut-out Fife in PLs Final * Sunderland Arrows win Junior Final * Swindon beat Slough to go to Nynex * Superleague teams make loss * GB Pool B fixtures * Latest player rumours * Inter The Storm Relaunch * Bracknell Bees page back online * Next on TV & Radio * Get back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > STORM BLITZ This edition of Storm Blitz was originally supposed to be a Finals preview and then after I missed that, a Finals review but I ended up forgetting to write it because I've been busy writing (and re-writing) brand new pages for Inter The Storm (more of that later). Storm Blitz *WILL* continue regularly throughout the summer break with all the player news and news of the fixtures, B&H Cup draw, European League developments, GB games and anything else important that happens. > NICK POOLE WINS THREE AWARDS The end-of-season party at the Nynex Arena on Sun 30 March included a number of awards presented to the players. The awards went as follows: "KISS 102" PLAYER OF THE YEAR : NICK POOLE "KEY 103" DEFENDER OF THE YEAR : JEFF LINDSAY "GMR TALK" FORWARD OF THE YEAR : NICK POOLE "M.E.NEWS" MOST IMPROVED PLAYER : NICK POOLE "NM/R EXP" PLAYERS PLAYER OF YEAR : CRAIG WOODCROFT "ICE LINE" ON THE ROAD PLAYER : JEFF LINDSAY > STEELERS WIN SUPERLEAGUE FINAL In front of over 14,000 fans at the Nynex Arena, Sheffield Steelers beat Nottingham Panthers 3-1. Nottingham opened the scoring after just 56 seconds from a Derek Laxdal goal but that wasn't going to stop Sheffield as they equalised with 15-57 on the clock - Ron Shudra scoring. The second period started off pretty tight but Frank Kovacs put Steelers into the lead for the first time on 34-19 and then just before the end of the second period Jason Lafrenier deservedly made it 3-1. The third period never really lived up to the rest of the game and remained goalless, but that didn't take anything away from the Steelers performance as the buzzer sounded and the crowd and players alike celebrated the achievement of three play-off final victories in a row ensuring that this season didn't remain trophyless. Nottingham could console themselves that they had already won the B&H Cup earlier in the season and so it was a pretty successful season for both teams. May I also congratulate Jon Hammond on an excellent performance as announcer. > SWINDON SHUT OUT FIFE IN PLs FINAL In the prelude to the Superleague Final, Swindon Ice Lords defeated Northen Premier League champions emphatically 5-0. It looked so different in the first ten minutes as Fife seemed to be easily controlling things and just waiting for the moment to start scoring goals. But the game changed at the midway point in the first period. Robin Davidson opened the scoring for Swindon and then Chris Eimers made it 2-0 on 16 minutes. The second period saw Swindon make it 3-0 with another goal from Chris Eimers on 24 minutes and then Swindon scored twice more in the closing stages of the second period with Barcley Pearce and Lee Braithwaite making the score 5-0. The third period was goalless and like the later Superleague Final, never really lived up to the rest of the game. > SUNDERLAND ARROWS WIN JUNIOR FINAL Opening Finals Day at the Nynex was the Junior Final between Sunderland Arrows and Fife Flames. I arrived one hour into the game not realising that Junior games do not last as long as the senior ones and so only 12 minutes remained when I got there. The score was 3-2 to Sunderland and despite much attacking from both sides in the closing stages the score remained the same and so Sunderland claimed the Junior Final win. > SWINDON BEAT SLOUGH TO GO TO NYNEX After a two-legged Premier League Final, Swindon Ice Lords beat Slough Jets 6-4 on aggregate after trailing 4-3 after the first leg on Wednesday. Thursday's game saw Swindon win 3-1 and so went through to meet Fife Flyers in the Premier Leagues Final. > SUPERLEAGUE TEAMS MAKE LOSS It has been reported that all Superleague teams made a loss throughout the season. This could mean a combination of cost-cutting and self-restricted transfers over the summer break, although surely Storm MUST spend or they'll start losing more if the fans lose patience with the team. > GB POOL B FIXTURES The fixtures for Great Britain's Pool B matches between April 12 and April 21 are as follows: SAT 12 APR GB v Poland SUN 13 APR GB v Kazakstan TUE 15 APR GB v Holland WED 16 APR GB v Denmark FRI 18 APR GB v Austria SUN 20 APR GB v Switzerland MON 21 APR GB v Belarus Storm Blitz will attempt to send out the results throughout Great Britain's Pool B campaign. The Pool A games from 26 April to 14 May will have extensive coverage on Eurosport. Most games are live with lots of highlights also. Maybe GB will be in Pool A soon to enjoy this sort of coverage! > LATEST PLAYER RUMOURS There is still nothing definite but the latest seems to be that Craig Woodcroft and Nick Poole will be staying, Chad Penney, Jeff Sebastian, Hilton Ruggles and even John Lawless could be on their way out - although in Lawless's case it may be more likely that if there is unrest he will be moved to a more "technical" role with another coach brought in. I think Finnie will be staying and despite the claim that Brad Rubachuk was on his way out, it seems that it may have been an exagerated claim and that he may be staying after all. I beleive that David Latta and Brad Turner are on contracts that go beyond the start of the season as is Stephen Cooper, so it is unlikely that they will leave. The only incoming player rumour that I've heard is that Nicky Chinn may be on his way to Manchester. John Lawless has stated that he knows everything in his own mind and that we will find out before the end of April. We'll see! > INTER THE STORM RELAUNCH I've been working on a new set of Web pages to replace Inter The Storm, but despite spending ages and ages on them so far, I haven't that far just yet. The problem seems to be that as I originally decided against using frames in the pages, it may be the only way to get the pages to load quickly enough to be worthwhile. I am currently using a borderless table setup and so will rework them over the next week. For this reason, there will not be any Web page updates or Storm Blitz's for at least a week while I get it all sorted out. If anyone wants a preview of the site, I have got a "beta" version up and running at http://www.zy.u-net.com/storm/index.html and this has the front page, latest news, latest NHL news and Guestbook pages working ONLY so trying to access anything else won't work. They will take ages to load because of the problems I described earlier. Discounting these errors, everything else seems to be working fine - in Netscape 3 and 4! I had a go in Internet Explorer and was dismayed to find that the background colour on the main page was blue for some unknown reason and some of the Java didn't work and the clock seemed a bit faulty. The shortcut menu seems OK (at least I got something right!). Eventually I hope to have some brand new features including hopefully a chat-room forum thing where you can leave your point about Storm and ice hockey and people can reply to individual postings - unlike the Guestbook where you can just post at the top of the pile. I haven't had time to work out 1) whether I'll be able to get LIVE chat as well as simple postings to work and 2) whether it will work at all! Any feedback would be appreciated (simon.sm@zetnet.co.uk). > BRACKNELL BEES PAGE BACK ONLINE The excellent Bracknell Bees page run by Dave Qua has been offline recently after a hacker spoilt the pages. The site, now back online, has now been moved from GeoCities Colosseum/1234 to a new location. The new address for the Bees page is http://village.vossnet.co.uk/d/davequa/ > NEXT ON TV & RADIO SAT 5 APR - GRANADA TV - Battles On Ice - Highlights of the Superleague Final between Sheffield Steelers and Nottingham Panthers - 1.45-2.45pm > DOWNLOAD BACK ISSUES OF STORM BLITZ All previous issues of Storm Blitz are still available. If you didn't get them, or want them again, you can now download them from the Internet in a .zip file. The URL of these will be confirmed soon. If you don't have web access, I can e-mail you the .zip files. > 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 #36 *** INTER THE STORM can be accessed at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/storm.html -------------------------- Storm Blitz is sponsorless currently - but then so is the Superleague! -------------------------- To sponsor Storm Blitz, e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com