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The GM's review

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Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since my last review and for that I apologise. Things have been a bit hectic both around the team and away from it, and time for reviewing has been at a premium.

Anyway, we're here now so let's get to it. First of all, it sure is nice to get a little run of results going our way and especially after the dreaded lurgy hit the camp over Christmas and New Year and the tough games we've just played. Once again, the resolve and character of our players was tried and tested and once again, they came through with flying colours. Right now, confidence is pretty high and here's to it remaining so over the coming games which as you now know are all on the road until the 28th. That said about confidence being pretty high, nobody is getting carried away and you would be surprised how realistic and down-to-earth the players are about the job ahead of us.

We've already said during this season that we won't get too down on a low and we won't get too high on success, as the game has an uncanny knack of turning around quickly - the key is to keep an even outlook on things, working to eradicate errors and weaknesses while continually striving to capitalise on strengths.

We still have a lot of hockey to play once we get into February as the games begin to come thick and fast once we move into the Ice Dome, and that trend will continue right to end of the regular season as March is a busy three weeks too... and we still have two games to arrange.

Looking outside the club a while now and I recently read a couple of articles penned by a long-time hockey writer and someone who truly believes he has his finger on the pulse of the game in this country. They were actually sent to me for potential inclusion in our matchnight programme - I declined the offer on the grounds that I believe our programme to be a quality production and I hope you all do to, and I judged that their inclusion would have been detrimental to it.

Basically, the writer (who shall remain nameless) questioned the wisdom, sense, and logic in the Elite League for agreeing and permitting two teams - Cardiff and ourselves - from competing when neither had home venues ready for the start of the season. Furthermore, the writer continued (and still does) to doubt the sanity of the Elite League for continuing to allow both clubs to compete while awaiting delayed construction projects.

Had I responded to him, it might have read something like this... "well, the directors of the Elite League were prepared to believe that both projects would reach fruition and in the original time expectations. Both clubs have since said that had they known or indeed had any inkling of the delays that have beset them, they probably would not have operated this season. In your eyes, the Elite League were wrong to approve the start of the season for Cardiff and Manchester, and doubly wrong for allowing them to continue. What a pity you have no faith in the spirit of the league, the two clubs, their staff, players, fans, sponsors and in the game itself to do its damndest to prevail against adversity."

Despite the delays, the heartache, the additional costs to both clubs, the additonal costs both sets of fans have endured and the unbelievable stoicism of players playing on limited training schedules and equipment managers in attending to kit matters without the ideal facilities to work in - both clubs are making a pretty darned good fist of their bmibaby Elite League campaigns.

Despite all the ups and downs, my betting is that there aren't too many Devils or Phoenix fans who would have read these articles and not been spitting feathers at their content... so I hope you all forgive me for acting as programme censor.

Okay, that's my rant over!

Now to some praise we received... last Saturday we played in Nottingham and prevailed thanks to Simon and his beautifully struck overtime winner. Naturally, we were all delighted and the Panthers were somewhat down. After the game my counterpart Gary Moran, the Panthers GM, brought me our copy of the game video on which he had been doing commentary for the Panthers video sales.

Now Gary and I have been friends for many years and I know he bleeds black and yellow, and knew he would be disappointed at his teams loss. No sour loser comments came from his mouth though - the total opposite in fact as his comments were praise for our team and our part in a great game. "Congratulations Andy," said Gary adding, "Great game, tell Tony well played. In fact, without doubt, that is the best and most entertaining game we've had here this season." Like I said, Gary and I have been mates for a long time and I know when he's being facetious - he wasn't and I duly thanked him for his comments.

Finally for this review - a few words about Sunday - not the game but the problems we had in Ice Sheffield. Luck would have it that we had trouble with the game clock and on a night when I was scoring - first time in a number of years - and we had a guest time-keeper on the clock as our own scorer and time-keeper were both unavailable. Let me tell you, it was a bit frenetic down there on Sunday as when the clock went wonky, we had the Steelers fans behind us giving us grief, players on the ice not knowing what was going on, both benches gesticulating like crazy, you guys on the far side waving and shouting and all the time we're trying to co-ordinate stop watches in order to keep the game going while corrective actions were sought.

Probably the calmest man in the building was referee Andy Carson. I kept him informed of what we were trying to do and he was smashing about it. He knew it wasn't the time-keepers fault, that it was the machine and he did his utmost to give us time to correct the wrong readings and get back to the clock rather than the stopwatch scenario. At no time did he get irritated or in the least bit agitated, he took it all in his stride. Andy Carson is a referee and in most fans eyes, can never do right for doing wrong... last Sunday, he couldn't do wrong for doing right !!

That's it for this review folks, have a great week and hope to see lots of you in Hull next Saturday.

Cheers,

Andy C.