Posted by admin on 16th, 2008
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With a huge win over The Bears in their season home opener, the pressure was on the Blue Tongues to once again prevail over the league leaders. Having been introduced to the smaller rink and hard checking style of play produced by Gold Coast, The Bears were expected to hit back, and fast, against the Blue Tongues in their second game of the double header.
The Bears did not disappoint, coming at the Blue Tongues early in the game and changing their tactics to not only start playing a physical game, but also stamping their authority over the control of the game. Both teams seemed to lack the energy they had during Saturday’s game, and some simple rookie errors caused a line change for the Gold Coast team, starting to run two lines instead of three. Despite The Bears claiming control of the puck for majority of the first period however, it was Dave Upton of the Blue Tongues who netted the only goal of the first.
Tempers flared in the second, with roughing calls on both teams, and it was clear that neither team were giving up on their race to be the next to pot a goal. Both Sydney’s goaltender John Daugulis and Gold Coast’s Simo Mustonen had their work cut out for them in net as each team made shot after shot on goal. However, once again the Blue Tongues made some silly mistakes, costing them dearly on the penalty kill. It was The Bears that led going into the third, winning the period 3 goals to the Gold Coast’s lone goal, ending the period 3-2.
Excitement ruled the third, as the Blue Tongues tied up the scores on 3 a piece, before The Bears took advantage of a lapse in concentration and took the lead once more at 4-3 with little more than 8 minutes left in the game. The Blue Tongues never gave up, and with just under 2 minutes left, tied the game 4-4.
Anticipation was high in the stands as the teams took to the face off after a penalty was called on The Bears, giving the Blue Tongues a powerplay with a minute left in the third. Their fans behind them, Gold Coast focused on the job at hand and with 46 seconds left in the game, defenseman Ross Howell netted the game winning goal. The Bears failed to even up the scores in the dying seconds of the game, giving the Blue Tongues their third victory in the last three games.
The first star of the game was Blue Tongues Captain and centre, Billy Crumm. Second star of the game was Blue Tongues Defenseman, Don Burke and third star of the game was Bears’ Roberto Franchini.
Next weekend, the Blue Tongues face the Newcastle North Stars on June 21 & 22 at Gold Coast Iceland, Bundall. Games start at 3.30pm.
Article Source: Gold Coast Blue Tongues
Tags: IceHockey, AIHL, Blue Tongues, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney Bears, Gaetan Royer, Brian Lachance
Posted by admin on 12th, 2008
The San Jose Sharks have hired a new head coach. Todd McLellan, formerly an assistant coach with the Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings will be formerly announced as the new head coach on Thursday.
“It’s a very good feeling,” McLellan said in a statement released by the team. “From the first moment Doug called to the moment he offered the job, I felt comfortable. I think the Sharks have done a tremendous job. You don’t get that close to 50 wins for a number of years in a row without a lot of talent. It’s a matter of getting over the hump. There are some real parallels between the Wings and the Sharks.”
- NHL – Yahoo! Sports
The Sharks hope that McLellan, who has experience with cup winning teams will help take the Sharks all the way.
Tags: sanjose sharks, detroit red wings, todd mclellan, ron wilson
Posted by admin on 11th, 2008
After a conference low 71 points last season, the Los Angeles Kings have given head coach Marc Crawford his marching orders.
Crawford, who’s record over his 2 seasons with the Kings is a dismal 59-84-21. Last season the Kings tied with Eastern Conference bottom feeders, the Tampa Bay Lightning on points.
“In the end it just comes down to fit,” Lombardi said in a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “It’s just a gut call on fit.”- Yahoo! Sports
In a division that includes strong teams such as the Dallas Stars, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks, the Kings need to do far better to compete.
Tags: losangeles kings, dallas stars, anaheim ducks, san jose sharks, marc crawford, dean lombardi
Posted by admin on 10th, 2008
After 18 seasons in the NHL, 2 MVP awards and 6 Vezina Trophies, “The Dominator” Dominik Hasek has announced his retirement.
“Physically, I’m felling great—as well as ever,” Hasek said Monday as he announced his retirement. “I just don’t feel that I’m ready to compete on the highest level.“I need motivation. Right now, I don’t feel it’s there and I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”
- Yahoo! Sports
Hasek was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks and spent his rookie years as backup to Ed Belfour. In his career he spent 2 seasons with Chicago, 9 seasons with the Buffalo Sabres, 4 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings and a short 1 season stint with the Ottawa Senators.
During his career, Hasek has won:
- Hart Memorial Trophy for MVP twice (nominated 5 times)
- Lester B. Pearson Award twice (nominated 3 times)
- Vezina Trophy 6 times
- William M Jennings Trophy 3 times
- Stanley Cup in 2002 with the Detroit Red Wings
- The 2002 gold medal at the Nagano Olympic Games for the Czech Republic
Hasek has named on:
- NHL first All-Star Team 5 times
- NHL All-Rookie Team in the ‘91 and ‘92 season
- NHL All-Star Game 5 times (although did not play in 2000 due to injury)
In his NHL Career, Hasek played a total of 735 games, totaling 42836 minutes of ice time. He collected 389 wins, 223 losses, 82 ties and 13 overtime losses with 81 shutouts. His career GAA and SV% stand at 2.10 & .922 respectively.
Posted by admin on 24th, 2008
Normally a team others look up for strong defensive play, a never say die attitude and gritty, hard hitting forechecking, the Dallas Stars of late have not fit the bill. In fact over recent games the Stars, who have gone 3-7-0 in their last 10 games are in a major slump, and have chosen the worse possible time to do it.
All teams go through slumps though, and in the NHL these days a slump means very little in the big scheme of things. The Detroit Red Wings, who lead the entire league in points went through a slump very similar to the one the Stars are in, and went on to a hot streak soon after. The San Jose Sharks had a slump before going on their current hot streak.
For the Stars then, it’s surely only a matter of time before the team gains back its confidence and gets back on track. Stars Captain Brenden Morrow spoke of confidence recently…
“That’s probably one way to describe it,” Stars captain Brenden Morrow said. “I think confidence is an attitude you have. We’ve had it at times, but right now we don’t, and it’s going to take more than just one game to get it back. It’s going to take a handful of games where you get ugly, where you dig in, and where you earn your bounces. That’s the way we have to look at this, we have to look at it that we have a lot of work to do.”
- Mike Heika, Dallas Morning News
The Stars face the San Jose Sharks later this week, and hope to break their slump in California. Word is BJ Crombeen has been called up from the minors, so maybe look to see a cold-streak winger be a healthy scratch during the upcoming games.
Posted by admin on 21st, 2008
It’s that time of year again. The NHL Playoffs are just around the corner, and teams are already starting to prepare for the post-season. In the West it’s highly possible that the 8 Playoff teams will be made up of 4 from the Northwest Division, 3 from the Pacific and 1 from the Central. In the East it’s possible that there will be 4 from the Atlantic, 3 from the Northeast and just 1 from the Southeast.
One could argue that the Southeast and Central Divisions are the weakest in their respective divisions, and the current NHL schedule could be seen as biased towards strong teams from those divisions. That is a topic for another day.
Today I want to touch on something that can make or break a game in the NHL, or in fact in any hockey league; Refereeing.
Bad calls are something we learn to live with in professional sports. We must remember of course that the people in the black and white stripes don’t always see things the way we do. There are times however when bad calls have influenced the result of a game. Just this week referees made a bad call and caused a 2 minute minor on a team, then just 30 seconds later failed to pull up a goalie interference call on the opposition team, which resulted in a Powerplay Goal.
The Playoffs however are the be all and end all of NHL hockey. Teams battle it out all season to make the Playoffs and the last thing they want or need are referees not doing their jobs properly.
We can only hope then that we will have a relatively clean Playoff Series, not just from the teams, but also the Referees.
