Individual News
14th of January 2008
What a week!
This was tough on the guys, we all know how extremely short we are playing, but then send them off to Belfast (trip started 2.30 in the morning, I was there my self to make sure they got away...) and then play Belfast in the evening and fly home on Friday only to meet a full weekend, tough job from the guys there!
Belfast:
I spoke to Ryan about the game, they did very well there, controlled the game in the first period but then ran out of steam in the second and third, no wonder, when you meet a fully loaded team with 4000 fans cheering them on. But I'm really proud of the guys game, as always!
Caps:
10-2 do I need to say more?
What a great evening! Not only did we break a visitor record (under my ownership that is) we also broke several other records this fantastic evening.
All skaters score points! When did that ever happen in the Elite League?
10-2 at home should also be some sort of record.
And all this with only 10 skaters!
We had over 120 visitors who used our kids for £5 and we had a lot of people who turned up with tickets they won at Festival Place last weekend. I saw a lot of new faces in there, and they were really happy with what they saw! If that doesn't bring them back, what will?
Newcastle:
The 3rd game in 4 days, with a serious shortage of skaters and some injuries lining up, not a good start, but as always the guys gave it their all and did extremely well. I'm really proud to be involved with a bunch of guys like this, the motivation is on top and over that, no one can say that they will beat us, not even with only 10 skaters! I can only imagine what we can do with some more skaters on the ice!
Injuries:
Thornton:
Still off the ice, his hand is playing with us and the pain just will not go away! We tried icing him 2 weeks back, but it did not work. A new scan and some shots might cure this according to Thornton himself. I really hope he is back on the ice for next weekend!
Mikko:
Took a serious hit by a puck in the eye in Newcastle, a quick visit to the hospital shows no serious damage, but he is off the ice for 1 week to make sure there is no more bleeding in the eye. I sure hope he is ok, and we are lucky it is not more serious, the guy is needed seriously and plays like a god back there!
Brad:
Brad took pucks on a foot on Saturday and I spoke to him after the game:
T: How's the foot?
B: Don't know, maybe a few broken bones. The problem is when I take the skate off.
T: Hurts does it when you take it off?
B: (Looks at me like I'm an idiot..) No it is not that it hurts, it is that I can't get it back on!
T: ??? You mean you can skate even if you have broken bones?
B: If I can get the skates on, I can skate. I have played with broken bones in the foot before. I'm just afraid that the foot will be to swollen to get in the skate!
Now that's what I call a fighting spirit! Luckily there was no broken bone in the foot, and Brad spent the bus trip to Newcastle talking to his foot making sure it shrunk to a size that would fit his skates!
Peto:
Is in a cast that is coming off on the 31 Jan. He is still in the States and we delayed his arrival to after the cast is off. According to Peto himself he should be playable in mid Feb! We need him!
New players:
We found a good defence guy in the days between Xmas and New Year, but things turned against us and the team he was playing for found a new sponsor to keep him and that was that. We are still looking, trust me, Ryan does this all day and all evening. We need more bodies in and we have a few on the list we are talking to, but nothing is ready yet. It is not the best time to hunt for players, Brits are hard to find and we only have 2 ITC cards left, and on top of all this, it has to fit in to an already stretched budget. Not an easy task at all! But we all know this and we are doing everything we can to get more skaters on the ice!
Other news:
Starting Tuesday 22 Jan we will be holding 'away game' evenings in Q bar at the rink. Since Ryan always gets a copy of the game played I thought it would be good if we gave the fans who could not travel a chance to see the game anyway. This will also be a good opportunity to talk to the fans for me and others and make sure we get one more evening of hockey a week (even if it is only on screens) so book in 19.00 on Tuesday next week for the first one!
Marketing:
Thanks to hard work from several fans it is now starting to pay off, we have more coming and I really hope we get to see a growing crowd every weekend. I'm very pleased with the way it is going right now! Big thanks to all the people involved in this and your hard work!
Knock out cup:
I could not finish this eNews letter without talking about the BKOC! Semi-finals coming our way! The dates are not set yet, since Sheffield and Coventry still has one leg to play, but we are in it and I hope we get our game on 2 Feb, a Saturday currently not scheduled for any game.
The guys played an amazing match against Devils at home and held off good on the away match. I'm really proud of this and I know that none of the other teams are looking forward to meeting us!
OK, this turned out to be the longest eNews letter so far, I have more to say, I always do, but will save it for the next one, so keep checking your inbox!
All the best!
Tomas
To receive Tomas' news direct to your Inbox - [enews.php]
This was tough on the guys, we all know how extremely short we are playing, but then send them off to Belfast (trip started 2.30 in the morning, I was there my self to make sure they got away...) and then play Belfast in the evening and fly home on Friday only to meet a full weekend, tough job from the guys there!
Belfast:
I spoke to Ryan about the game, they did very well there, controlled the game in the first period but then ran out of steam in the second and third, no wonder, when you meet a fully loaded team with 4000 fans cheering them on. But I'm really proud of the guys game, as always!
Caps:
10-2 do I need to say more?
What a great evening! Not only did we break a visitor record (under my ownership that is) we also broke several other records this fantastic evening.
All skaters score points! When did that ever happen in the Elite League?
10-2 at home should also be some sort of record.
And all this with only 10 skaters!
We had over 120 visitors who used our kids for £5 and we had a lot of people who turned up with tickets they won at Festival Place last weekend. I saw a lot of new faces in there, and they were really happy with what they saw! If that doesn't bring them back, what will?
Newcastle:
The 3rd game in 4 days, with a serious shortage of skaters and some injuries lining up, not a good start, but as always the guys gave it their all and did extremely well. I'm really proud to be involved with a bunch of guys like this, the motivation is on top and over that, no one can say that they will beat us, not even with only 10 skaters! I can only imagine what we can do with some more skaters on the ice!
Injuries:
Thornton:
Still off the ice, his hand is playing with us and the pain just will not go away! We tried icing him 2 weeks back, but it did not work. A new scan and some shots might cure this according to Thornton himself. I really hope he is back on the ice for next weekend!
Mikko:
Took a serious hit by a puck in the eye in Newcastle, a quick visit to the hospital shows no serious damage, but he is off the ice for 1 week to make sure there is no more bleeding in the eye. I sure hope he is ok, and we are lucky it is not more serious, the guy is needed seriously and plays like a god back there!
Brad:
Brad took pucks on a foot on Saturday and I spoke to him after the game:
T: How's the foot?
B: Don't know, maybe a few broken bones. The problem is when I take the skate off.
T: Hurts does it when you take it off?
B: (Looks at me like I'm an idiot..) No it is not that it hurts, it is that I can't get it back on!
T: ??? You mean you can skate even if you have broken bones?
B: If I can get the skates on, I can skate. I have played with broken bones in the foot before. I'm just afraid that the foot will be to swollen to get in the skate!
Now that's what I call a fighting spirit! Luckily there was no broken bone in the foot, and Brad spent the bus trip to Newcastle talking to his foot making sure it shrunk to a size that would fit his skates!
Peto:
Is in a cast that is coming off on the 31 Jan. He is still in the States and we delayed his arrival to after the cast is off. According to Peto himself he should be playable in mid Feb! We need him!
New players:
We found a good defence guy in the days between Xmas and New Year, but things turned against us and the team he was playing for found a new sponsor to keep him and that was that. We are still looking, trust me, Ryan does this all day and all evening. We need more bodies in and we have a few on the list we are talking to, but nothing is ready yet. It is not the best time to hunt for players, Brits are hard to find and we only have 2 ITC cards left, and on top of all this, it has to fit in to an already stretched budget. Not an easy task at all! But we all know this and we are doing everything we can to get more skaters on the ice!
Other news:
Starting Tuesday 22 Jan we will be holding 'away game' evenings in Q bar at the rink. Since Ryan always gets a copy of the game played I thought it would be good if we gave the fans who could not travel a chance to see the game anyway. This will also be a good opportunity to talk to the fans for me and others and make sure we get one more evening of hockey a week (even if it is only on screens) so book in 19.00 on Tuesday next week for the first one!
Marketing:
Thanks to hard work from several fans it is now starting to pay off, we have more coming and I really hope we get to see a growing crowd every weekend. I'm very pleased with the way it is going right now! Big thanks to all the people involved in this and your hard work!
Knock out cup:
I could not finish this eNews letter without talking about the BKOC! Semi-finals coming our way! The dates are not set yet, since Sheffield and Coventry still has one leg to play, but we are in it and I hope we get our game on 2 Feb, a Saturday currently not scheduled for any game.
The guys played an amazing match against Devils at home and held off good on the away match. I'm really proud of this and I know that none of the other teams are looking forward to meeting us!
OK, this turned out to be the longest eNews letter so far, I have more to say, I always do, but will save it for the next one, so keep checking your inbox!
All the best!
Tomas
To receive Tomas' news direct to your Inbox - [enews.php]