A full bench plus of 22 players set out to secure the Billy Glover Memorial Trophy for Phantoms tonight, a task they went on to achieve despite a sixty minute battle that would have pleased both coaches looking for pre-season fitness and conditioning.
A very decent Sunday hockey crowd saw both sides launch into the game with great enthusiasm and no shortage of tenacity. Phantoms skated with offensive lines of Ferrara/McEwen/Padelek, Ferguson/Billing/Stepanek, White/Weldon/Pollard, Hunt/Romeo/Escott with three lines of D made up of Norton/Ferrara, Robson/Buglass and Long/Bowering. Corey McEwen, despite wearing a shirt printed with the wrong name (shame on somebody !), was the standout for the home side, showing his trademark pace and stick handling but neither side could get too close to netminders Marr and Mettam in a goalless opening period.
Bison started the middle period with a string of somewhat dubious minor calls from referee Hewitt that Phantoms profited from with a Padelek slapshot from point and a neat Stepanek pass that Harry Ferguson buried from close range, both within two minutes of one another. An even more dubious 2+10 boarding call on Bison import Richard Bordowski gifted Phantoms a third with Padelek bouncing a wrister through an unsighted Alex Mettam on 29:16.
At 3-0, Bison player coach Ashley Tait called his troops in for a time-out after which they steadied the ship and only some smart close range netminding from Jordan Marr kept them from reducing Phantoms lead.
Period three saw both sides, and in particular Phantoms, running out of early season legs, leaving the game to get very scruffy with passes going astray and it was the visitors who were starting to look the more likely. A spell of sustained pressure saw Ashley Tait fire home after a neatly worked powerplay but Phantoms countered just over a minute later as Ales Padelek broke away, made a move on his marker and whiped home a neat wristshot across Mettam for 4-1 and his hat-trick marker. 42 seconds later and a Scott Robson trip gifted Bison a second powerplay goal as Tom Ralph managed to find the net from distance, possibly courtesy of a late deflection. To end a manic four goals in under three minutes, Glenn Billing pounced on a cross ice feed to beat Mettam from the angle and that was it for the scoring at 5-2 ….. but the fun didn’t stop there !
At 54:41, Tom Norton appeared to take exception to a high hit from the livewire Liam Morris (son of Frank Morris who will be familiar to Pirates fans) and the two unleashed the fists against the boards. As players moved in, Nathan Pollard made a move on Tom Ralph who rarely needs an excuse to ignite and ignite he did, flooring Pollard and then proceeding to shamefully continue punching the Phantoms player on the deck. That didn’t go down well with onwatching Phantoms players who united to pile in on Ralph and things were looking a little ugly but credit to the officials who managed to drag the very fired up Bison player out of the melee and bring some sanity back to proceedings !
A 5-12 SOG advantage in the final period showed just how much Phantoms tired but they hung on to deservedly take the win and the trophy (was there one ?) in a game that Billy was probably quite enjoying from up on high !
Ales Padelek picked up the beers so four goals and two MOMs for Ales this weekend ….. can’t argue with that statement of intent !
Never makes too much sense to over-analyse pre-season games. Phantoms certainly put in six periods of hard graft this weekend and that would be #1 priority in terms of building fitness fast. Defensively, Phantoms looked very strong as should be the case and the forward lines look exciting on the gamesheet but will need time to gel. Padelek and Ferrara working with McEwen and Stepanek working with Billing and Ferguson offers the potential for at least one hot line that will be needed this season and maybe two, so plenty to look forward to.
Last but not least, I think we are all going to have to study the new rules as are many of the players as some of the calls tonight appeared bizarre with only referee Hewitt seeming to believe they were correct ….. and he may be right !
Next week Phantoms play Telford back to back in the Autumn Cup with both sides apparently intent on travelling to each other’s rink on Saturday. Phantoms believe they are away on Saturday and home on Sunday but Telford are adamant they are in Bretton on Saturday …… which seems to be the view of the EIHA too so watch this space as they say !
Game Stats HERE
Slava Koulikov interview HERE
Corey McEwen interview HERE