coventry blaze (9 Viewers)

sky blue zam said:

thats quality, shame #55 has been retired so he may justvhave to settle with #6

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He'll have to! The NIHL I think is £6 for adults but keep it in mind that with all due respect the standard is not brilliant. For newbies it may put them off.

Alternatively Milton Keynes (with the current situation with the City am I alone in seeing the irony in this?!) Lightning are playing all their games at the Skydome this season at around £10 a game. EPL is 4 import hockey so isn't an awful standard. Doesn't quite get close to EIHL though. Between the 3, in terms of value for money the EIHL Blaze wins.

Fixtures have been released today.

First competitive home game is Sheffield at home in the cup on Saturday 7th September (7pm FO). First league game is at Dundee on the Sunday.

If anyone fancies going to a game I might be able to sort out a group deal on tickets. Who would be up for going?

CJ_covblaze said:

Fixtures have been released today.

First competitive home game is Sheffield at home in the cup on Saturday 7th September (7pm FO). First league game is at Dundee on the Sunday.

If anyone fancies going to a game I might be able to sort out a group deal on tickets. Who would be up for going?

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Getting myself a season ticket when I get paid .

How does ticketing work for away games? With football I just go on the website and order them (well, before the problems).

Hopefully blazebluearmy will be putting coaches on for most games.

I'm aiming to go to every match

wouldnt mind going, is there a quick (and simple) way to understand the rules and do get bit lost in league/cup/conference set up!!

smileycov said:

wouldnt mind going, is there a quick (and simple) way to understand the rules and do get bit lost in league/cup/conference set up!!

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Away tickets are on sale at the opposition's rink.

I'll go through it as brief as I can but if anyone has any more questions feel free to ask!

All the teams can ice 11 imports and the rest of their bench is made up of Brits.

There are 5 skaters and 1 netminder (this is classed as 5v5) on the ice per team but a team can choose to drop their netty to play an extra skater if they need to.

3 20 minute periods with 5 mins of sudden death 4v4 overtime if it's a draw. This is followed by a pen shoot out if there's still no winner.

2 points for a win, 1 point for an OT/SO loss.

The two league conferences are:
Us
Them (Nottingham Pan****s)
Sheffield Steelers
Cardiff Devils
Belfast Giants

Hull Stingrays
Fife Flyers
Dundee Stars
Braehead Clan
Edinburgh

Each team plays the teams in their conference 4 times at home & 4 times away and 3 times at home & 3 times away against the teams in the other conference. There is an overall league champion. Due to only the games against the other teams in your conference counting towards the conference standings it is possible to win the league without winning your conference (see below). This happened in the season just gone.

End of the season there's play offs with. The top 8 seeded teams play in the quarter finals like this:
1st v 8th
2nd v 7th
3rd v 6th
4th v 5th

The quarters are 2 legged (home and away) and decided on aggregate score.

The conference system has complicated how the teams are seeded but I'll try my best to explain:

#1 is the overall league champion.
#2 is the winner of the the other conference or the winner of the conference that contains the league champions if they don't win their conference! If this happens the winners of the conference which doesn't contain the league champions are seeded #3.

The other 5 are seeded by the overall league standings.

The four winning teams play semis (Saturday) and then in the final (Sunday) at the NIC in Nottingham.

The challenge cup has similar groups as the conferences but the Giants swap with the Stingrays. Each team plays each other home and away. Top 4 from each group qualify for the two legged quarter finals.

I'll be honest with you the whole system needs looking at but it's the best way atm with the amount of teams in the Elite League. The lower Premier League has a few teams that could make the step up but choose to stay where they are.

As for the rules, I wouldn't worry too much about learning them straight away. This bloke's been going for years and he doesn't seem to know any of them.

Ha Ha nice one CJ, may be i will wander up this season and get you a pint. Be better than having my heart ripped out up the Ricoh!!

Great to hear Smiley. Bleed blue!

nice one will do!! why the bad feeling about Cardiff? apart from because there welsh!! lol

A game at their place a couple of years ago is the only time I've ever seen any violence from EIHL fans. Me and several others got started on in the car park. I had a cast on my ankle at the time too.

wow!! ha ha certainly not quiet then!!

Nope, Devils games are normally pretty tasty! Biggest rivalry is the Panthers in recent years though. Probably down to their jealousy. Before that it was Guilford. Used to hate that lot!

New signing Kevin Harvey. This bloke won't be pushed around!

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=17021

CJ_covblaze said:

New signing Kevin Harvey. This bloke won't be pushed around!

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=17021

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Looks like he has had a few fights in his time,has fought Big Ben Olson as well.Hopefully he will be the power forward in the mould of Andre Payette,who formed a fantastic first line with AC/DC,in the grand slam team.Looks like we are shaping up to be the toughest team in the league this year.Hopefully our last import will be a sniper,to give us a decent balance.I would love our budget to stretch to getting Farmer back,but can't really see it,but that would make us a serious title threat.

Blaze have just announced the news that Mike Schutte won't now be returning due to agreat job offer back in Canada.New Governor of Bank of Canada maybe.Voted the league's best Dman last year,he had a blistering start last year,but injuries meant his form dipped mid season.A great player at his best,but was a little injury prone to be fair.At least the club have time to find a decent replacement.

Shooter's a massive loss but we'll bounce back. Club will have something up its' sleeves!

sky blue zam said:

big blow for blaze, egener the captain and hardman is out for the season. hope he recovers well and we see him back next year.

http://www.coventryblaze.co.uk/inde...1-egener-illness-forces-contract-cancellation

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will be a massive loss. The timing could hardly be worse, will be very difficult to get a player of similar pedigree so close to the start of the season.

Blaze beat Cardiff 3-1 in a preseason friendly on Wednesday. Harvey having a fight in the first period, Henrich missing a penalty shot.
Lost 3-1 against Danish Elite league side Esbjerg tonight. Their goalie was immense. On the plus side I won the chuck a duck and netted myself £50 .

urbanbushmonkey said:

Blaze beat Cardiff 3-1 in a preseason friendly on Wednesday. Harvey having a fight in the first period, Henrich missing a penalty shot.
Lost 3-1 against Danish Elite league side Esbjerg tonight. Their goalie was immense. On the plus side I won the chuck a duck and netted myself £50 .

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Can't believe how we lost tonight, I think the SOG was about 55 shots to 18 shots. The puck simply wouldn't go in, the keeper stood on his head tonight, poor finishing, scrambles ,on another night we would have got 5/6/7. Hopefully we will come through the war in Cardiff on Wednesday, ready for the season proper next weekend.