The Chieftains V Cardiff ENL Devils clash always has that edge and Saturdays' game was no different. The Chieftains had put themselves in an unassailable 7-2 lead with a brace from Tom Long and Aaron Connolly each with Danny Hammond, Kyle Jones and Darren Brown, but the game will be remembered not only for the skill on show but with what happened in the final few minutes. With just over 4 minutes to go an incident between BT Williams and Bryn Griffiths ended with Griffiths jumping on BT Williams and throwing punches at the Chieftains tough guy. Once Williams had his gloves off, it was only going to go one way and Williams ended the fight by taking the Welshman down much to the delight of the home crowd.
20 seconds after the first fight ended all hell broke loose when Devils netminder Mike Brabon went to the ice to make a save and clashed with Blaho Novak and this invoked the ire of the Devils players and Brabon who triple teamed the Chieftains youngster. The rest of the players on the ice came over to help out the 17yr old and it ended up being uneven numbers as the Devils had already sent some players out for a normal line change. Williams, in the penalty box, was desperate to get out to help Novak and eventually managed to, once Griffiths had jumped out and gone after star Chieftains forward Danny Hammond. This signalled the remaining players to leave the benches and come on to the ice and a mass brawl broke out with all players on the ice pairing off, or in some cases teaming up with teammates to double-team others. The huge crowd of over 700 were all on their feet cheering and watching something that is quite rare in ice hockey, but in many respects is a special moment to witness.
Once things had calmed down and the penalties awarded, the referee Jurijs Solavjovs, had awarded match penalties to both Griffiths and Williams for leaving the penalty box, as well as match penalties to Tom Long and Steve Fisher. Each side also had 3 players put in the penalty box on roughing penalties. The game itself played out without much further incident and as is tradition all players shook hands after the game, other than Novak and Brabon who visibly didn't shake hands with tension clearly between the two still rife
Chieftains head coach Dean Birrell was delighted with his team after netting 10 goals in 2 games over a disappointing Streatham side. "We've been scoring well recently, but we've slipped up and dropped points we shouldn't have done and getting back to back wins over a side like Streatham is very pleasing. We worked well as a unit and put them under pressure and it paid off as we got 4 points and move higher up the league".
Saturday night was the Tom Long show as he ran in a natural hat-trick with 3 goals in a row in a dominant performance from the Chieftains which saw them give a debut to new boy Kyle Jones who immediately made an impression with the Chieftains fans as he checked every Redskin in sight on his first shift. Once Long had got his third, the Redskins hit back through youngster Chris Rasmussen who shot past Euan King who was making his first start since returning from injury. Less than a minute later and James Ayling had restored the Chieftains 3 goal lead and defenceman Richard Gunn rounded out the scoring on 47:54 when he got his 1st goal for the Chieftains this season. Needless to say, Long took the plaudits and the man of the match award for an outstanding display.
In South London on Sunday evening it was always going to be tougher for the Chieftains as they knew that the Redskins wouldn't take a defeat like that lightly and so it proved as they restricted the Essex side to just 1 goal in the first 35mins of the game and this time it was Matt Turner who got the goal, but was set up by Long, who was having a storming weekend and also won the man of the match award in the away game. Late in the second period and the Chieftains, who had been on the back foot for much of the session, made it 2-0 with an unassisted goal from Blaho Novak. Early in the third it was 3-0 when Danny Hammond netted, quickly followed by Ayling getting his second of the weekend. A mass brawl broke out late on in the period after a nasty check on Hammond left the Chieftains forward injured and his team-mates quickly moved in to stick up for their star forward and it took a few minutes to calm everything down. Jones made sure he made an impact in this game as well as he made it 5-0 to the Chieftains with 30seconds to go to end a strong weekend for the Chelmsford side.
While all this was going on, the Chelmsford second side headed to Hampshire to take on high-flying Basingstoke Buffalo in a game many expected the Warriors to struggle in. As it was, they took the game to the Buffalo early on, but succumbed to a Buffalo goal in the first, however Ben Osborne, on a good run of form, netted before the end of the period. Later in the game, Ashlee Cave, Gary Brown and rising star Courtney Grant all scored unanswered goals to end the game with a 4-1 win to the visitors.
The Warriors now have to wait until the 9th of January before they take to the ice again. The Chieftains have a 2 game road trip next weekend when they take on Bristol Pitbulls on Saturday and Swindon ENL Wildcats on Sunday.
Ringette it would be fair to say isn't a sport that people are familiar with in the UK, but it's a sport that we're interested in. Why is that, you ask?
Sometime in March, on our twitter feed we appealed for people to send us a wierd sport to cover on the blog. This came about after we thought that it would be 'different' to cover something different. As nice as football, cricket, rugby and cycling are, it's always interesting to learn about a sport that's unknown to the majority and one which does not get the exposure in the media.
After only a few people replied back to us including one individual appealing for us to follow his local fishing team, we were only left with one option. David Patterson, Executive Director of Ringette Canada told us about Ringette and the decision was made that Ringette would be the latest addition to our blog.
So what is Ringette? Ringette is a Canadian invention that has become one of the fastest team sports on ice. Sam Jacks, a sports enthusiast from North Bay, Ontario invented the sport in the 1960's when he saw the need for a winter team sport for girls.
Jacks funnily enough was born in Scotland before moving to Canada with his family in the 1920s, so Scots could claim to have invented the sport in an extreme way. The Scot also was responsible for the development and introduction of floor/ground hockey in the 1936, so he has left his legacy in Canada on more than one way.
Since the early 1960s, the sport has continued to grow and currently boasts over 27,000 registered players on over 2000 teams, with over 6500 coaches and over 2400 officials. While it is primarily a female sport, there are currently almost 600 males playing the sport across Canada. The sport is also played Internationally in half a dozen other countries across the world including Finland and Sweden.
Ringette, like hockey, is played on ice with skates and sticks by six players on each of two teams. The mission is to score goals by shooting the object of play into nets at either end of the rink during stop-time periods of play.
But there the comparisons between Ringette and Hockey ends. The stick is straight and the object being pursued by the players (as you've probably guessed) by the name of the sport is a rubber ring - not a puck!
There is no intentional body contact in the sport. And the rules of ringette make it a wide open and dynamic sport, which on those 2 points alone would make it a sport that I'd want to play and watch.
From what I have been told, the emphasis when playing is in creating and skating skills. Players are not allowed to carry the ring across the blue lines on the ice.
Only three players from each team, plus the defending goalie, are allowed in the end zones at the same time. If the term end zone confuses you at all, end zone's are basically the area that's marked around where the net is. Think of it as a six yard box.
The play in the game is generally open and there are lots of sharp offensive moves in the game that means the game often is fast flowing and end-to-end stuff, which means that players have to skate close to their opponents in order to not let them get away.
If you're still confused as to what it is, have a look at this video that our friends at Ringette Canada produced to help explain to people what the sport is. I will have to say that as enjoyable as the sport looks, I would probably need more than my few hours of basic skating training to even keep up to pace with the players. Skating is not exactly my forte!
Thanks to our friends at Ringette Canada, we be following the Canadian national team on their way to the sports world championships held in Tampere, Finland this November. We will be bringing you all the latest squad news as the team prepare to go one better than they did in 2007, when they were runners up to Finland by winning the tournament.
Team Canada announced a squad of 30 athletes a couple of months ago in preparation for the tournament. Girls were selected from all corners of the provinces of Canada, with British Columbia. After meeting up at a training camp in Ottawa on May 21-24, the squad will be cut to 22 with that number going forward to the tournament in the winter. We will be bringing you all the latest news on the national team, as well as finding out more about the people behind the sport including interviews with key players and staff. We hope you like Ringette as it'll be here to stay!
For all the latest news on the sport, head over to Ringette Canada's official twitter account @ringettecanada where you're learn more about the sport. Also head over to Ringette Canada's official website, which offers more information and latest news on the sport http://www.ringette.ca
