Close but not close enough...

by David Coolegem

13 April 2007 – 18:30, a very strong looking Imperial ice hockey team, unbeaten for the last 5 games departs for IceSheffield to compete in the BUIHA Division 2 national championships. This year 11 teams would compete, with Imperial (unofficially still top of the Southern conference) finding itself in the ‘group of death’ with Northumbria (unbeaten all season), Manchester (second placed in the Northern conference behind Northumbria) and Sheffield (fourth in the Northern Conference). Added to the group were ULU (having only won three games all season) and Nottingham C (not having won a single game all season). In the other, arguable the easier group, were Birmingham, Oxford, Nottingham B, Bradford and Newcastle (the bottom two teams from the Northern conference). With only the top two teams progressing to the Semi-finals, the team was aware that losing more that one game in the group stage could be fatal.

Transporting valuable cargo for the Oxford team, the team arrived at the Sheffield under the cover of darkness and after dropping off the goods, immediately went to sleep to be fully rested for a crucial first day. The first wake-up call came at 8:00am for the team Captain (Dave), Alternate Captain (Ilya) and their personal bodyguard (Paul Gilmartin) to attend the team briefings at IceSheffield. The rest of the team followed under the guidance of our Coach (Vince, aka ‘Old Skool’) and his minder (Paul Morris). Settling into the changing room we were sharing with Oxford, discussions quickly focused on team strategy ahead of our first game against Nottingham C.

Hitting the ice at 12:30, Imperial absolutely dominated the game, spending 95% of the time in Nottingham’s zone. Yet we somehow came away having scored only one goal, kindly provided by Old Skool. Imperial would have to do better in their other games if it could only muster 1-0 against one of the weakest teams of the day.

Next up were Northumbria at 16:00. Somehow we would always face Northumbria in our group game at the nationals. Having only beaten them in 2004 by 1-0, and with Northumbria on a 9-game winning streak, this game would prove crucial in the group of death. A confidant Imperial stepped on the ice at 14:00 and it quickly became clear that this would be a hard-fought game with no side have the upper hand. But the first goal was soon scored by imperial after great play in the offensive zone by line three. Chris skated in deep, passed to Ilya behind their goal, who then passed to Dave after noticing him skating into a good scoring position in almost a repeat fashion of their 2004 game-winning goal. Dave had a clean shot but was flattened by one of the Northumbria players before he could admire his own goal. But the goalscoring didn’t stop there. Drew scored another goal for Imperial before Northumbria could respond with one of their own. As the game became scrappier and penalties were called on both sides, Drew, assisted by Pete, finished off the scoring to make it 3-1 on a penalty kill.

Thus Imperial finished Northumbria’s unbeaten run, provided the first upset of the day and asserted itself as one of the favourites to win the group and even the championships.

With only a short break, Imperial faced ULU at 17:00. Always arch-rivals, this game would be no different. Having lost home and away games against Imperial during the regular season in decisive fashion, ULU arrived with a squad bolstered by some of their A team players, hoping to make more of an impact this time. But this turned out to be in vain as Imperial set the tone and won the game 2-0 after a great run by Virya and another goal (probably the most stylish goal of the tournament) by Ilya after a fantastic backhanded drop-pass from Dave.
As with any game against ULU, the match quickly degenerated into a series of antics and attempts by ULU to make Imperial incur as many penalties and/or injuries as they could get away with. First there was Chris who fell into the ULU goal after a high speed run and ended up with a cut below his eye as the ULU team piled on top of him, then one of their guys with his own magnetic field tried to start a fight in our end after being told the Burger bar was closing in 15 minutes. But the most serious incident occurred in the second half by one of their perennial troublemakers, who has an unparalleled record of injuring at least one of our players every game. He unwisely chose Vince ‘Old Skool’ as his victim this time as he clipped him and while falling down managed to bend Vince’s knee backwards in front of the Imperial bench. While Vince was still screaming in pain, he pounced on back up with intent to get his own back. As this was the first game reffed by representatives of the association of blind people, both players escaped with only a 2 minute minor for roughing each after we argued that Vince would not be playing for a considerable amount of time anyway due to his injury (Ironically, this would haunt us later).

While Vince received emergency treatment by team medic Alex, Nick was now promoted to full-time playmaker on line 1 for the rest of the tournament. Imperial now still had to play Manchester in their last game of the day, a team that came second in the Northern conference and had tied with Northumbria earlier in the day. ULU suffered further setbacks that day as they not only lost all their gamesbut were also to become the only team the whole season to have lost to Nottingham C.

The last game of the day was Imperial vs Manchester. Although missing our charismatic coach, we felt upbeat after our earlier victories and by the fact that Manchester had just tired themselves out by managing to force a draw against Northumbria with only 8 players (Northumbria had 18) only half an hour earlier. Manchester gave a very spirited performance but could not find the net after several dangerous attacks by their forwards. As the game continued, Manchester were visibly tired, but their goalkeeper did not have time for such trivialities. An absolute machine he stopped shot after shot to keep Manchester in the game. But even his time came when Alex skated all the way up from our own end and delivered a powerful drive across the goal to take us up 1-0. As the final whistle blew, and the Manchester players collapsed onto the ice, We went back to our changing rooms celebrating a successful day in which we did not drop a single game. With only one game left the next day in the group stage (against Sheffield), we were confident of being able to go through to the semis.

So the next day Imperial hit the ice at 12:00 for their game against Sheffield without major concern. Sheffield however had to win the game in order to progress to the playoff stage, while Imperial could lose and still top the group if there were no major upsets in the amount of penalty minutes handed out . The Sheffield team proved to be a formidable opponent. They were strong, well conditioned, fast and played some great hockey overall. Sheffield managed to score 2 and take themselves through to the semis. This also meant the end of Imperial’s unbeaten run.

In the end we came top of our group, on equal points with Sheffield, but 2 less penalty minutes. Northumbria weren’t happy after being stopped in their pursuit of victories in their game against us and being forced to settle for a draw against Manchester meaning they ended the group third even though they had won against Sheffield 2-0 the previous day. In the other group, Bradford played some very good hockey to avoid coming last in the group, while Birmingham managed to come top by avoiding losing any games (they did draw twice) followed closely by Oxford in second place. The semi-finals thus were Imperial vs Oxford and Sheffield vs Birmingham.

Having beaten Oxford the last time we played them in the league (albeit marginally), and Oxford only having 2 full lines, we were still wary and did not want to go home having lost all our second day games. The first period proved very eventful with both teams having very strong offensives capabilities but lacking defensively. Our defence, after playing so strongly on the first day, simply couldn’t stop their numbers 56 and 4 who were just to fast. Then a very harsh call was made as Drew shot the puck only instants after the whistle was blown to be handed a 10 minute penalty for personal misconduct. But at the end of the first period the score remained 0-0, with both teams staking a claim to be in the final. However it was Oxford who stepped up after the break. Their fast break-outs by 56 and 4 continued and more and more of our forwards complained that the Oxford players simply seemed to be ‘everywhere’ and could not stop their offensive. Imperial were the first to go down, but Drew wasted no time to put us back up in seconds. But Oxford were determined to go through to the final and Imperial seemed unable to stop a surging Oxford team as they pulled ahead to 4-1 before the final whistle.

It was gloom all around in the changing room as for the third time in a row; we failed to get past the semi-final stage. Just the week before, third place had tasted so sweet with a surprise package of a B team amongst better teams. Now the A team could not be but disappointed after dominating the first day and being widely tipped to go through to the final. Hearing Oxford party in the changing room next door didn’t help either. After a speech by Vince, Imperial got back up determined to set the record straight against Birmingham in the 3rd/4th playoff later that day. The main theme of the speech: we are not going home without winning at least one game today!

Imperial recovered from their gloom in time for the 3rd place playoff and played back up to their old standards. Drew seemed especially motivated playing in his final game for Imperial. Not having scored all day, Drew proceeded to overcome his fear of scoring and slotted three fine goals past the Birmingham goalie. As usual, he was assisted by his fellow American and partner in crime, Pete (also on loan from CSB-SJU). A fourth goal by Alex put the game beyond Birmingham’s reach and Imperial still managed to creep onto the podium as the crowd cheered.

We all stayed to watch Oxford swoop to the title by 4-1 from Sheffield, feeling a bit disappointed as Oxford seemed to play as good as they did during the first day of the tournament, but not near to the level the played against us. Most of us also couldn’t help but theorise what would have happened had we placed second in our group on Saturday.

Unfortunately our bad luck hadn’t finished yet, as it turned out that TGI Fridays was closed for our usual after-championship-meal everyone was craving for. Oooh and those cocktails! Pizza Hut (second best in Sheffield) was closed too, so was KFC and to everyone’s shock and horror McDonalds too. We ended up finding solace in an overpriced Costa Coffee at a highway rest stop around 12am. After an emotional and touching speech by our fearless Captain Dave, Vince was handed a thank-you from the team for coaching us to new heights this season. After fighting back the tears, Vince announced his return for next season as Head Coach under the new management reshuffle that will also see the return of Dave as permanent coach of the B team and Assistant coach of the A-team as well as further unspecified duties (probably co- chairman of the department of personnel and cargo transportation with Ilya ). Both will report directly into recently elected President Steel on administrative matters but will have a free hand with respect to team and player decisions. Heading the treasury will be Paul Gilmartin who will also report to Steel.