STORM BLITZ ISSUE #38 Sunday 20 April 1997 Sponsorship of Storm Blitz will hopefully be confirmed in a couple of weeks. If you have any comments on Storm Blitz, please feel free to e-mail inter.the.storm@poboxes.com any time. --------------------------------------------------- In this issue : * Lawless sacked - Kleinendorst appointed * Latest player rumours * GB draw 2-2 with Austria * GB in great 9-1 win over Denmark * GB win at last 8-2 over Holland * More Pool B results * Forthcoming GB Pool B fixtures * Pre-season games * MISCONDUCT! update * Inter The Storm relaunch news * Write to GMR and Granada TV * Get back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > LAWLESS SACKED - KLEINENDORST APPOINTED In a shock announcement on Tuesday morning, Ogdens announced that John Lawless was sacked as coach of Manchester Storm. John was one of the most successful personalities in the British game and was inducted into the Hall of Fame only a couple of weeks ago. John will be talking with other parties in this country about coaching possibilities but is likely to return to Canada with his family. He was said to be deeply shocked about the decision when told by David Davies, the Arena General Manager. A couple of days after Lawless's sacking, Storm's new coach Kurt Kleinendorst flew into Manchester to settle into his new position. He will be flying out to America with Assistant Daryl Lipsey to begin his recruitment. He says that he wants to get most of his players before the season starts as he doesn't want to make too many changes during the season. Kurt is 36 years old and is a former East Coast Hockey League coach of the year. > LATEST PLAYER RUMOURS These are the staying/going rumours that I have heard and believed! I have given each comment a %age reliability! Since John Lawless has been sacked, it is possible that some of the decisions to stay or go could be overturned when Kurt Kleinendorst settles into the job. This was the situation before Lawless's sacking: STAYING: Nick Poole : 95% Stephen Cooper : 94% John Finnie : 90% Craig Woodcroft : 85% Hilton Ruggles : 85% Mike Morin : 80% Martin Smith : 75% David Smith : 75% David Latta : 65% Brad Rubachuk : 55% GOING: Brad Zavisha : 99% Brad Turner : 95% Dale Jago : 88% Chad Penney : 70% Eric Raymond : 55% CONFLICTING NEWS: Jeff Sebastian Brad Rubachuk Dale Jago I have heard that all three are definitely staying and also that they are definitely going! NO NEWS: Eric Calder Bart Vanstaalduinen There has also been rumours of some incoming players... Scott Campbell (Sheffield Steelers) : 70% Nicky Chinn (Sheffield Steelers) : 65% Mark Morrison (Fife Flyers) : 65% Mike Bodnarchuk (Newcastle Cobras) : 60% Of course if you know any different then please let me know! > GB DRAW 2-2 WITH AUSTRIA On Friday, Great Britain kept their hopes of Pool A alive with a 2-2 draw against Austria. Kevin Conway put GB 1-0 up in the ninth minute and Doug McEwan looked to have put Britain on their way to a great win with the second goal. But Hehenberger pulled one back and then Ulrich scored for Austria in the last period to level it at 2-2. The result means that GB will qualify for the Pool B play-offs if they beat Switzerland on Sunday. > GB IN GREAT 9-1 WIN OVER DENMARK In a good GB performance in Pool B on Wednesday, Denmark were well beat by Great Britain by 9-1. This brings GB's performances to 2-2 in Pool B games so far. > GB WIN AT LAST 8-2 OVER HOLLAND On Tuesday Great Britain finally got a win under their belts with a victory over Holland by 8-2. Patrick Scott opened the scoring on 8 minutes with a goal to put GB into the lead. Michael Bishop, Kevin Conway and Richard Little also scored in the first period to make the score 4-0 at the end of the first twenty minutes. Patrick Scott scored twice more to complete his hat-trick, Richard Little scored his second and David Longstaff also scored to complete an 8-2 win for Great Britain. > MORE POOL B RESULTS Switzerland 6 - 4 Denmark Belarus 6 - 5 Switzerland Austria 3 - 1 Denmark Belarus 4 - 3 Kazakstan Switzerland 0 - 0 Poland Kazakstan 5 - 2 Switzerland > FORTHCOMING GB POOL B FIXTURES SUN 20 APR GB v Switzerland MON 21 APR GB v Belarus The Pool B play-offs will then follow > PRE-SEASON GAMES There is news of a couple of pre-season games. Just before August Bank Holiday there will be a four team International tournament including Storm at the Nynex, and there will also be a game against a team from Russia. > MISCONDUCT! UPDATE Due to no updates to the Web pages until 1st May, the latest view into the minds of the MISCONDUCT! team now follows.... (if you don't understand what is below, you haven't been to the MISCONDUCT! page on Inter The Storm. Go there immediately!).... LATE NEWS SHOCKA! Shawn Byram will return next season........he is the replacement for Colin Downie as Lightnin' Jack! The giveaway will be the number 99 on the back of his cape!...... Thankyou Kindly, a full of bullsh*t MISCONDUCT! SUPERLEAGUE PIN-UPS??? We couldn't help but notice in the programme for the Superleague finals,that there were two whole pages devoted to "Superleague pin-ups". We would like to ask the person who chose those particular players as pin-ups, do you get your eyes tested regularly or have you been skipping appointments? Justin (Wonkygob) Duberman? Frank (Adam Pontapee) Kovacs? Perrrrr lease! Jason Jennings, Merv Priest, Peter Romeo and the mighty Stephen Cooper, we can live with (well, we'd like to!) but, the other two....NO! We would like to take this opportunity to say that Trevor Robbins is THE best stretcher we have ever seen for an opposing team! We noticed this at the finals...Nottingham were busy with a face off in their offensive zone......We were watching the netminder stretch! THE RUDENESS OF SCOTS! We couldn't help but notice at the finals, that the Fife fans very rudely sang about some flour from Scotland during the playing of the National anthem! (plain or self raising we're not quite sure). We have been to Ayr and never have we interrupted their little ballad and we don't see why they should have to ruin our anthem! We could say more but,we won't...We shall refrain from doing so. Thankyou Kindly, an opinionated MISCONDUCT! BATTLES ON ICE One question springs to mind:- WHERE ON EARTH DID THEY FIND BEAR VAN BEERS! And we'll have some of whatever she's on! please! We would also like to ask if anyone else noticed that the commentators seem to have a thing about Goaltenders...It was either:- "GOALTENDER DOWN!" or on one occasion :- "GOALTENDER SCORES!" We also noticed that on the episode when Dale Jago was commentating, Bear kept referring to him as "Dill" instead of "Dale" so, from now on Dale will be known as "Dill the Dog" from "The Herbs" and we will sing this song special at him, thus:- I'm Dill the dog! I'm a dog named Dill! My tail I'll love to catch! Though I haven't caught it yet! Although this programme was well put together and informative, we believe that we could've presented it MUCH! better than Bear but,that's mainly due to the fact that we actually know what we're talking about! Thankyou Kindly an ambitious MISCONDUCT! STORM IN POOR EYESIGHT SHOCKA! We believe that the reason for Storm's poor performance this season is mainly due to the fact that half of them can't even see! The prime culprits are:- Dale (tooms) Jago Chad (hey arnold!) Penney Nick (don't pee in my) Poole MISCONDUCT! can exclusively reveal that not only has John Lawless purchased cripples but, Three blind mice too! So remember, if you ever see these players together, on or off the ice you must sing the nursery rhyme at them! Thankyou Kindly, an over exaggerated MISCONDUCT! THE STORM PLAY OFF BUMFLUFF TOP TEN As we're sure you will have noticed, come the play offs most players seem to become scruffy sods! (i.e. they stop shaving,having haircuts etc) They foolishly (in our case anyway) believe that this will help them win the play offs! So in honour of their efforts, we have compiled the afore mentioned "Top Ten":- 10. STEPHEN (it looked like a dirty smudge) COOPER 9. JOHN (as above) FINNIE 8. NICK (it was a brave attempt) POOLE 7. JEFF (it was short lived) LINDSAY 6. DILL (pointless really) JAGO 5. CRAIG (went for the wicksy look) WOODCROFT 4. CHAD (what were you thinking of) PENNEY 3. MIKE (hmmm) MORIN 2.BRAD (fungus face) RUBACHUK 1.ERIC (the mexican bandit) CALDER So there it is folks..Our compilation of "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly!" Thankyou Kindly, a diligent MISCONDUCT! ** This was written before John Lawless was sacked! > INTER THE STORM RELAUNCH NEWS I've written some new pages in the same style as the first "beta" but using a frames based page rather than table based. This has improved the speed of loading dramatically and it now loads about 6 times faster! I've only completed the front page so far so the pages won't be loaded to be tested online for a few days. The NHL play-offs are under way now and when the pages relaunch on 1st May there will be in-depth match details and other news from the NHL for a few weeks until the season is over. I'm getting a new Guestbook soon to replace Lpages. If all goes according to plan, my Dreambook (naff name but it seems to be very good) will launch on 1st May along with the new Java Chat service from SneakerChat. Thanks to everyone who has mailed me comments about the new pages, they were very much appreciated. I've now fixed the problems with Internet Explorer as the pages were pale blue with white text when viewed with that browser! The fix will be in place by Monday night when the re-done test pages will be ready at http://www.zy.u-net.com/storm/index.html The majority of users are Netscape 3 and 4 users so there should be no problems viewing frames but if you get an error message about frames when viewing the pages, you'll need to get a frames-capable browser. They are free and available for Download from Netscape's home page or Microsoft's home page. > WRITE TO GMR If you want to hear Storm games on BBC GMR 95.1FM next season and for the forseeable future like Sheffield Steelers fans get on Radio Sheffield, then write to them and let them know! If they don't hear anything then they will not bother - say you've got lots of friends who would listen if they did commentaries (especially away games, as most fans would be at the Nynex for home games and any live coverage could affect the crowd in theory) - write to : Head Of Sport - BBC GMR Talk, PO Box 951, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SD. > 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 #38 *** INTER THE STORM can be accessed at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/storm.html INTO THE STORM "BETA" can be accessed at: http://www.zy.u-net.com/storm/index.html ---------------------------- Storm Blitz sponsorship will hopefully be secured over the next couple of weeks ----------------------------