Blue Tongues Clutch Victory

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

NHL – Detroit Red Wings/Pittsburgh Penguins Box Score Wednesday June 4, 2008 – Yahoo! Sports

NHL – Detroit Red Wings/Pittsburgh Penguins Box Score Wednesday June 4, 2008 – Yahoo! Sports

Detroit Red Wings – 2008 Stanley Cup Winners!

Goal 3 for the Red Wings came off an error by M.A. Fleury after he fell back and pushed the puck into his own net.  The goal was awarded to Henrik Zetterberg.

Sergei Gonchar made it a one shot game with a minute and change to play, but it wasn’t enough. 

Congratuations to the Detroit Red Wings.

Halpern, Sliced Bread in Tampa

Change.  Often said to be as good as a holiday, sometimes said to be a hockey players best friend.  For Jeff Halpern, the change of teams from Dallas to Tampa Bay seems to have litten a spark within him, and he’s been shining on a regular basis since.

You could go as far as to say that for the moment, Jeff Halpern is the best thing since sliced bread for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In the 64 games Halpern played with the Dallas Stars this season, he put up seemingly good numbers of 10 goals, 14 assists for 24 points.  Halpern, the checking center on the Stars roster was not expected to be a top line goal scorer.

The trade deadline however saw Halpern shipped to Tampa Bay Lightning along with team mates Jussi Jokinen and netminder Mike Smith.  Halpern has not looked back!  In the 13 games with the bolts this season Halpern has put up 7 goals and 8 assists for 15 points… better than a point a game!

In todays 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers, Halpern netted a goal and 2 assists.

Jussi Jokinen has 1 goal and 9 assists for 10 points in 14 games with the Lightning, down on goals from his average with the Stars, but up on points.

*** image courtesy of gettys images .
*** Original location of image: http://lightning.nhl.com

Change to format of Video Update Posts

Hi guys, in order to better streamline the website and give myself more time to manage the up updates I am going to change the format of the daily posts alerting to new video updates.  The major change will be that the posts will not include direct links to the update videos.   I will include links for featured videos however.

Thanks for understanding,

2minsforhockey Admin

5 New Categories

You will notice that we now have 5 new sub-categories, and a rename to an old one.  We are working to streamline the site for easier navigation and the addition of subcategories is just part of that process.

The Changes:

• “Game Recaps” has been renamed to “Game Highlights”
• “NHL Game Highlights” is a new subcategory, and will only include NHL videos.
• “Injuries” has been added under “Hits & “Checks”, for clips such as Patrice Bergeron, Ilya Kovalchuk and Richard Zednik’s injuries.
• “Bob Probert Fights” and “Rob Ray Fights” are new subcategories under “Hockey Fights”.  We will also be adding more subcategories here as we find certain player fights popular.
• We also added a “Tributes” subcategory under “Compilations”, which features only videos designed as tributes to favorite players, teams or people.

Menu Change:

you will also notice that we have moved the “Submit Videos” button to the top menu for ease of access to all users, both registered and guests.

We are open to suggestions, so if you have any at all, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Possible Change To Video Categories

I have been kicking around the idea of streamling the video clips into more refined categories.  This would be a 2 step process.

1. Create new top level categories or modify current ones.  Categories i have been thinking of include:
   • NHL Game Highlights (only NHL games would be here)
   • Other Game Highlights (other on ice games clips go here)
   • Top10s & Best Ofs (for clips like “Top 10 goals” etc.)
2. Add new sub-categories that would go under main categories, such as:
   • Bob Probert Hights
   • Rob Ray Fights
   • Shootout Goals

It will be a few days before i begin to make these changes, so if you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and let me know.