Blue Tongues Clutch Victory

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

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

Tags: amp, article, Author, back, Billy, blog, BLUE, Brian, call, cap, captain, chance, Change, check, checking, coast, com, cost, Cut, D, Dave, day, defense, defenseman, des, end, error, FAN, fans, First, Game, games, goal, Goals, goaltender, hand, hat, head, hockey, home, Ian, Ice, Ile, intro, John, June, key, lachance, lack, lead, league, league leaders, line, man, Me., min, minute, Net, New, Newcastle, news, one, opener, OUT, penalty, period, play, point, Powe, power, Powerplay, pressure, Produced, puck, rd, Red, right, rink, RIT, Rookie, ross, row, Roy, Saturday, score, season, second, shot, size, source, Star, Stars, start, style, Team, teams, th, Tie, Title, victor, victory, Wee, week, Weekend, win, work, www

Blue Tongues celebrate back-to-back wins

The Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues have done what many believed to be the impossible.  After starting out 5-0 on the road, they have come back to win back-to-back games against the AIHL league leading Sydney Bears.  The game, a hard checking, end-to-end battle came right down to the wire, with the final puck going in the net just 40 seconds before the end of the third period while the Blue Tongues were on the Power Play.

The Blue Tongues now have a week to recover before playing the Newcastle Inski North Stars next weekend. 

Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues Ice Hockey Club

Tags: back, battle, believe, blog, BLUE, cam, check, checking, club, coast, com, D, end, Game, games, hat, hockey, Ice, ice hockey, Ile, key, lead, league, man, Net, New, Newcastle, NY, one, OUT, OWN, period, play, Powe, power, power play, puck, rd, Red, right, road, row, second, size, Star, Stars, start, style, th, third period, Title, Wee, week, Weekend, win, www

Tortorella fired as coach of Tampa Bay Lightning

Tortorella fired as coach of Tampa Bay Lightning - NHL - Yahoo! Sports

It comes as not surprise to those who have been watching the Tampa Bay Lightning over the last few weeks.  Now, it’s officially confirmed.  Tortorella has been fired as head coach of the Lightning, opening up yet another head coach position around the NHL.

It is rumored that former LA Kings coach Barry Melrose is interested in the job.

Tags: Tortorella, tampa bay lightning, head coach, nhl, barry melrose, fired, la kings, bolts

Tags: amp, barry melrose, BAY, blog, Bolts, coach, com, D, end, hat, head, head coach, kings, lightning, New, news, NHL, Other, position, Red, rest, right, Round, row, size, Sport, Sports, style, TAMPA, Tampa Bay, tampa bay lightning, th, Title, type, Wee, week, www, yahoo

Ribeiro Shines as Stars Losing Streak Ends

Losing 8 of the last 9 games is never a good thing, especially in the month of March.  That’s exactly the position the Dallas Stars were in going into todays battle with division rivals, the Los Angeles Kings. Fresh in the minds of the Stars was the devastating and embarrassing 4-2 loss to the Kings last week.  In that game, the Stars led 2-1 right up to the last minutes, and then went on to give up 3 quick goals. Also fresh in their minds was the knowledge that with just 5 games left in the season, more losses could easily mean not making the playoffs.

After a few minutes and a goal by Dallman to put the Kings up 1-0 it looked as those this game could end up like other recent ones.  That, fortunately for the Stars was not the case, and this was the closest the Kings ever got to competing with the Stars.  At the 13th minute point, Stars defenseman Stephan Robidas tied the game, taking the 1-1 score to the first break.

During the second and third periods the Stars shone bright.  The second period saw 4 goals by the Stars, including goals by Stu Barnes, Brenden Morrow and a duo by Loui Eriksson.  The third perid blasted away with Jere Lehtinen, and then Niklas Hagman net a goal each.  Kings forward Michael Cammalleri slipped one past Turco in the closing minutes, but the damage was already done.

“This is something to build on, and we need more of the same. We’re in a lockdown mode,” goaltender Marty Turco said. “The beauty of the whole game was not the score, but how the game went down—just the relentlessness of every period and every facet of the game. It’s great to see. But that’s what we expect, really. Today was a great example of what we need to do every shift from now on.”
- Yahoo! Sports

The Stars ended the game with a very convincing 7-2 victory, with 3 points games from Mike Ribeiro (3A) and Stephan Robidas (1G 2A) and go into tomorrows game against division rivals the Anaheim Ducks brimming with confidence.

* Photo courtesy of Dallas Stars 

Tags: Anaheim, beauty, break, Brenden, Cammalleri, case, closing, confidence, Courtesy, Dallas, Dallman, defenseman, Division, duo, Eriksson, example, facet, Fresh, Game, goal, goaltender, Hagman, Jere, knowledge, Lehtinen, lockdown, Losing, loss, Loui, March, Michael, Mike Ribeiro, minute, mode, month, Morrow, Niklas, perid, period, Photo, point, position, score, season, shift, shone, something, Stars, Stephan Robidas, Stu Barnes, today, victory, week, yahoo

Dallas Stars in a Serious Slump

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.

Tags: A., back, break, Brenden, call, cap, captain, check, checking, com, confidence, Dallas, dallas stars, Detroit, detroit red wings, fact, Game, games, hockey, lead, league, look, Matt, May, Mike, NHL, Other, point, recent games, Red, right, row, San Jose, san jose sharks, Sharks, slump, Star, Stars, streak, Team, teams, th, THIS, Tim, time, track, way, Wee, week, win, winger, Wings, word

Consistant reffing a must for the Playoffs

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.

Tags: Atlantic, black, call, Central Divisions, Consistant, corner, course, day, East, fact, Game, goal, Goalie, hockey, interference, league, minute, NHL, Northeast, Northwest Division, opposition, Pacific, playoff, playoffs, Powerplay, Refereeing, Referees, result, schedule, season, Series, something, Southeast, Team, time, today, topic, way, week, west, year

Marian Hossa out 1 Week

After  such a blockbuster trade on the day of the trade deadline, Penguins and Hossa fans gasped in horror as Hossa was injured in his Penguins debut.

News out of Pittsburgh is good however, and Hossa is said to only miss 1 week with his sprained knee injury.

Tags: Blockbuster, day, Deadline, debut, horror, injury, knee, Marian Hossa, Penguins, Pittsburgh, trade, week