Stuart Coles

"News surrounding the Coventry Blaze, the EIHL and UK hockey in general"

Coventry • United Kingdom • 28 Years Old • Male

[email protected]

Turn up for one period, win 8-1.

That was the story for Coventry on Sunday. After deservedly going one down at the end of the first period, they rallied to score seven goals in the second to ease past thier rivals, Cardiff Devils.

Cardiff are short-benched at the moment, missing their starting NM so were always going to struggle.. but it was the superior creativity and finishing of Coventry in the 2nd that won the day.

It disturbs me a little that the team may now think they only have to turn up for one period to win a game, most other teams in the league will be a sterner test, and not that easy to get past. Certainly Cardiff's collapse in the 2nd could be attributed in part to doing all the things wrong in the 2nd that they had done right in the first.

In particular they protected their NM very well in the 1st, and left him exposed to big shots in the 2nd which were easy scores for the Blaze forwards. And defence, since Neal Martin scored two and Jon Weaver got one. Basically, Blaze could afford to go with a 4 man rush most of the time because they knew it would pay off.

The third period was a glorified training session. Blaze emptied their benches, played the young guys and backups heavily, and still maintained dominance. Mainly because Cardiff had given up and gone home. Not literally, but they wanted to.

So, with an away win on Saturday in Cardiff... that's yet another 4 point weekend. Coventry now lead the EIHL by 5 points from 2nd placed Belfast, who have played 3 games more. Belfast have had an impressive run of form lately, in particular player-coach Ed Courtenay is now 2nd in the league for points scoring with 75 points in 42 games. There are some big numbers being put up this year.