STORM BLITZ ISSUE #47 Monday 7 July 1997 If you have any comments on Storm Blitz, please feel free to e-mail into.the.storm@poboxes.com any time. --------------------------------------------------- In this issue : * Four new players * The squad so far * EHL scoring * Miller wins Number 7 shirt * Solihull and Whitley go ED1 * British League plans finalised * Kingston Seahawks * Into The Storm recent updates * Into The Storm Web stats * Download back issues of Storm Blitz * How to unsubscribe to Storm Blitz --------------------------------------------------- > FOUR NEW PLAYERS Storm have signed four more new players - Jeff Jablonski, Troy Neumaier, Grant Sjerven and Dave Morrison. Jeff Jablonski signed from Roanoke Express of the East Coast Hockey League and has previously played for Raleigh Ice Caps in 1993/94. He is described as a fast skating forward with the knack of scoring goals. He was the top scorer for Roanoke Express last season. Troy Neumaier has signed from Hamilton Bulldogs of the American Hockey League and is a defenceman. Kurt Kleinendorst describes him as a defenceman whose skills will compliment those of the players around him. Grant Sjerven will be starting goalie and was an ex-team mate of Trevor Robins a couple of years ago. Dave Morrison has spent the last five years in the DEL (Germany), and was with Kassel Huskies last season. > THE SQUAD SO FAR The following have signed for Storm next season: NAME PREVIOUS CLUB -------------------------------------------------- Dale Jago Stephen Cooper Brad Turner Craig Woodcroft Mike Morin Hilton Ruggles Brad Rubachuk Grant Sjerven Richmond Renegades (ECHL) Kris Miller Raleigh IceCaps (ECHL) Kevin Hoffman Raleigh IceCaps (ECHL) Troy Neumeier Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL) Jeff Tomlinson (Germany) Dominic Maltais Hampton Roads Admirals (ECHL) Rick Judson Toledo Storm (ECHL) Jeff Jablonski Roanoke Express (ECHL) Stefan Kotela Timmendorf (Germany) Mikael Viklander Timmendorf (Germany) Dave Morrison Kassel Husskies (Germany) You can see the full squad of all the Superleague/Premier League teams at: http://www2.prestel.co.uk/charman/ > EHL SCORING There will be no draws in the EHL this season. There will be 3 points for a win in normal time, 1 each for a draw in normal time with the tie being split by 10 mins overtime and then penalties with the winner getting a bonus point. > MILLER WINS NUMBER 7 SHIRT With #7 Dale Jago returning next season along with newcomer Kris Miller, also the "owner" of a #7, both men wanted to remain number 7 for the coming season. Kris Miller won that battle as he retains his shirt number - Dale Jago's number for next season has yet to be confirmed. Maybe I've over-dramatised this issue but never mind! > SOLIHULL & WHITLEY GO ED1 Solihull and Whitley have pulled out of the new British League in order to play in the lower-standard English League Division One. > BRITISH LEAGUE PLANS FINALISED The BIHA has announced that the British Premier League next season will have 11 member teams. In the south there are Cardiff, Guildford, Peterborough, Slough, Swindon and Telford. The northern section contains Kingston, Fife, Blackburn, Paisley and Murrayfield. Both conferences will see the teams playing twice home and away in their own groups and in a National League, once home and away against the other 10 teams. The end of season play-offs will be based on league positions with the top 6 teams in a championship play-off, with the other 5 teams in a shield competition. A Christmas Cup will be played over the festive period, and the league organisers have added an exciting element to the competition - the top English elite league clubs have been asked to join in the competition with invites having gone out to Chelmsford, Romford, Haringey, Wightlink, Sunderland, Billingham, Altrincham, Solihull, Medway and Whitley. League Secretary, David Pickles, said that he was disappointed that it seemed unlikely that Medway and Solihull would join the British competition. He was shocked that Whitley had decided to withdraw from the National competition at this late stage. > KINGSTON SEAHAWKS It is reported that Kingston Hawks will go back to the popular name of Seahawks next season (probably Kingston Seahawks). This has come about from the sponsorship from British Aerospace ending - as they required Kingston to be the Kingston Hawks. > INTO THE STORM RECENT UPDATES Since the re-launch of Into The Storm, I have slowly been adding and improving things. One of the most popular new features is the Manchester Storm Message Forum. Also added is Storm Chat where you can meet other Storm fans and chat with them - this is only really useful if more than one person is in the chat-room at once! Therefore, throughout the season there will be designated meeting times where fans can meet and discuss the latest Storm stuff or anything else. The latest episode in the minds of the MISCONDUCT! team isn't quite there yet - expect it from about 1600 BST today (Monday 7 July). The adverts have changed slightly. If you have Java/JavaScript enabled on your browser, you will see a new type of advert at the top of the main index page. The left hand side of it is a navigation tool that sends you to other GeoCities pages and if you click on Stormsites you will be able to go to any of the other Manchester Storm sites on the 'Net from here. The right hand side is an advert for another GeoCities site. If you so not have Java enabled, you will see a similar-looking banner but with no link to other Stormsites. All of the other pages still have the traditional GeoCities adverts, except that there is some sort of problem with the Toyota one - that is beyond my control unfortunately. Incidentally, the adverts will all be gone in a few weeks in preparation for some big news regarding Into The Storm, but more of that in the coming weeks. I have cut down a lot of what was on the front page of the site with all the waffle now in About Into The Storm - this includes the disclaimer and related logos etc. The Following Manchester Storm page has been updated for 1997! The Manchester Storm Discography is in the process of being updated for 1997 - I need a bit of help though! I have compiled a list and description of all the songs that I can think of that are played at Storm games. When complete, all the songs will have a decription and a sound clip to download. If anyone can help with the sound clips (in WAV, AU or MIDI format) then I'd be very grateful. The one I'm having the most trouble finding so far is Fight For Your Right (To Party) by the Beastie Boys. I've found the lyrics but no clip. Storms Around The World now has 30 Storms listed. If you know of any more, please let me know! The Guestbook is now running as July's Guestbook and Dreambook is finally working again after a week offline. If you want to sign the Guestbook when Dreambook is not working, use the backup Lpage one. Swindon Steamers now have a Guestbook and you can visit it from the Guestbook page. Latest News will at last be updated today (hopefully by 1600 BST Monday 7 July). Coming soon to the pages is the Fixture List for 1997/98, a more in-depth look at the squad, the links page will return as well as the long awaited return of the Storm Action Photos. I'm also making a Storm screensaver for download - look out for that soon. Into The Storm is part of the UK Hockey Web Ring - click on the logo on the page to see more details and other sites in the ring. > INTO THE STORM WEB STATS WebTracker, the stats service for Into The Storm, says that in the 147 days that the stats have been operating (ie. since 9 Feb 1997), Into The Storm has had a total of 6909 hits, which is an average of 47 per day. Exactly 50% of the visitors to the site have been there 8 or more times with 3% accessing between 4 and 7 times, 9% accessing 2 or 3 times and 38% accessing the pages just once. The most popular browser is by far Netscape 3 (42%) then Netscape 2 and MSIE 3 (21% each), Netscape Communicator (6%), AOL Browser (4%), Netscape 1 (3%), MSIE 2 (2%) and WebExplorer (1%). Other browsers used by under 1% of visitors are MSIE 4, CyberDog, Mosaic and Java Browser. 31% of visitors have a .uk domain name, 30% are .com, 20% are .net, and 3% are canadian .ca. There have been a number of visitors from Denmark, Australia, Norway, Holland, Sweden, France, Japan and Germany. 2% of visitors are classified as "other". Windows 95 is the most popular operating system with 62% of visitors using it. Then comes Windows 3.1 (27%), Windows NT (4%), Macintosh (4%), OS/2 Warp, SunOS and IRIX (all 1%) and also visits from people using Linux, HP-UX, X11 and WebTV. Weekdays are more popular than weekends with 16% of visits happening on each Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. 17% visit on Wednesdays making it the most popular day, while Saturday and Sunday both have 9% of visits. Midday (UK time) is the most popular time of day with 9% of visits happening between 12 and 1PM. > 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 individually, in bunches of 5 in a .zip file or all at once in a .zip file. There will soon be a Web page to access them all from but currently you can get them by entering the individual URLs : http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/blitz01.txt (replace 01 with the number that you wish to see). To get the groups of 5, go to http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/b01-05.zip (other files are b06-10.zip, b11-15.zip, etc up to b36-40) or you can download all of them from http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/ball.zip. When accessing the individual .txt files, you will be better off saving the Web page to your hard disk and then opening it in NOTEPAD as the Web browsers don't seem to word wrap .txt files. > HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO STORM BLITZ Easy! Send an e-mail to into.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 #47 *** INTO THE STORM can be accessed at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3859/storm.html OR http://www.poboxes.com/into.the.storm