Gold Coast Blue Tongues destroy Sydney Bears

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Bundall, Qld - The Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues played the Sydney (Penrith) Bears tonight in a regular season league fixture of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). The Bears, who have dominated the league so far this season had an 11-1 record going into this game, and were playing a Blue Tongues team who had played their season so far on the road, going 5-2. These 2 teams are the extreme oppsosites on the AIHL ladder, with the bears holding the #1 spot and the Blue Tongues coming dead last.

Import Gaetan Royer (from Quebec Radio X) and locals Dave Upton and Ben Spillane helped drive the Blue Tongues to an almost white-wash of the Bears, with the Tongues winning 9-1. Royer netted 4 goals on the evening with Spillane netting 2.

The 2 teams will play each other again tomorrow.

Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues Ice Hockey Club

Tags: Australia, blog, BLUE, club, coast, com, D, Dave, des, Domi, evening, Game, goal, Goals, hockey, Ian, Ice, ice hockey, key, ladder, league, min, Morrow, Net, New, night, Other, play, Quebec, rd, RECORD, Red, right, RIT, road, row, Roy, season, site, size, spot, style, Team, teams, th, THIS, Title, tomorrow, tonight, win, www

Red Wings Grab 1st Playoff Spot

Pavel Datsyuk and the red hot Detroit Red Wings clinched the first playoff spot today by defeating Marty Turco and the Dallas Stars at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. The win gives the Red Wings 100 points on the season, and gives them the win in their Division, and a guaranteed playoff spot.

The Dallas Stars looked good early on, pushing the lead out to 3-1 at one stage with goals from Jere Lehtinen and Brenden Morrow.  Datsyuk scored with just under 4 minutes left in the 2nd period taking the Red Wings to the 2nd intermission only 1 goal down and boosted with confidence.

Datsyuk took just 34 seconds into the third period to score again bringing the score to 3-3.  Mikael Samuelsson deflated the Stars hopes just 25 seconds later when he also found the back of the net.  The Stars never recovered, and in the closing minutes Valtteri Filppula scored an empty netter to seal the victory.

“The first goal was a bad goal and the second, we didn’t check very well,” Stars coach Dave Tippett said. “Once you give up two quick goals to start a period, it’s hard to get the momentum back.”
- Yahoo! Sports

The challenge for the Detroit Red Wings now will be to maintain momentum through the final10 or so games of the season.

Tags: back, Brenden, Challenge, check, closing, coach, confidence, Dallas, Dave Tippett, Detroit, didn, Division, Filppula, goal, Grab, hockey, intermission, Jere, Joe Louis Arena, lead, Lehtinen, marty turco, Mikael Samuelsson, momentum, Morrow, Net, netter, pavel datsyuk, period, playoff, Red, score, season, spot, stage, Stars, today, Valtteri, victory, win, Wings, yahoo

Cinderella Teams

As we head towards the NHL Playoffs we start to hear phrases like underdogs, rental players or cinderella stories.  The trade deadline is where these phrases really start to be thrown around.  Teams battling for 7th and 8th spot on the ladders start looking to bolster their lineups with trades, often picking up players they know they will only keep until the end of the season. ie. rental players.

The most recent cinderella story team was the Edmonton Oilers who 2 years back went into the playoffs in 8th spot in the West and battled hard to make it right to the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, only to be beaten by the Carolina Hurricanes.

While the cinderella story teams are fantastic to watch, the fact is, the chance of them actually winning the cup is minimal.  30% of the time, top 3 teams have won the Cup.  80% of the time, teams in the top 5 have ended up hoisting the cup.  In fact in recent years i believe only 1 team who started the playoffs in 8th place have won the cup.

But in a world of battlers, doing it hard and fighting to the end, there will always be that spark of belief that says the underdog, the great Cinderella team will once again be victors come June/July.

Tags: belief, carolina hurricanes, chance, cinderella, cup, Deadline, Edmonton, end, fact, fight, Finals, hoisting, July, June, NHL, place, playoffs, right, season, spark, spot, Stanley Cup, story, Team, time, trade, underdog, west, World

West Heating Up

Going into the All Star break this year many people you could have been forgiven for assuming the Red Wings were guaranteed to take out the conference at the end of the regular season.

Who would have thought that the Red Wings, who dominated the season to that point in the competition would come out of the break looking like another, far less impressive team.

At the point of the All Star break, the Red Wings had a 17 point lead over the closest competitor. After todays loss to the Dallas Stars, their 6th loss in a row, that lead has been cut to just 8 points.

If the Red Wings are not scared yet, they should be. The Dallas Stars are on a roll and have their sights set on that top spot. 6 points behind Dallas are the defending champions, the Anaheim Ducks, who have yet to see the success they expected after the return of Scott Neidermayer and Teemu Selanne.

The west is a hot spot, and in the battle for the top 8 spots, there are in fact 12 teams still battling it out with realistic chances of making the top 8.

Tags: Anaheim, battle, break, competition, competitor, conference, Dallas, Eastern Conference, end, fact, lead, loss, NHL, point, Red, return, roll, row, scott neidermayer, season, Selanne, spot, Standings, Star, Stars, success, Team, Teemu, west, West Heating, Wings, year