Saturday 4th February 2012
Fylde Flyers 3 - Solway Sharks 14
Period Scores: 0-4, 2-5, 1-5
Shots On Goal: Flyers 54 - Sharks 80
Penalties In Minutes: Flyers 56 - Sharks 34
Flyers Scorers: Ric Hulme 1+1, Elvis Veldze 1+1, Janis Grinbergs 1+0
Flyers Most Valuable Player: tba
stock photo - not from tonight's game
photo by David Morrison
Report
Anybody who imagined that a second visit by runaway league leaders Solways Sharks to ENL newcomers Fylde Flyers in consecutive weeks might be a little dull will certainly have been eating their words after this thrilling encounter at the Sub Zero rink in Cleveleys.
Upsets DO happen in ice hockey - like the USA beating the Soviet Union for the Olympic gold medal in 1980 and Peterborough Pirates beating Cardiff Devils in the 1991 Wembley Play Off semi final - but they don't happen all that often and the top teams with the the big name players usually do tend to beat the smaller teams on an annoyingly regular basis.
So with the greatest respect to all concerned, and despite the heroics of last weekend when the Flyers held the Sharks to 2-2 at the end of the first period, the result of this game was never really going to be in any doubt.
For those who were hoping for a rematch in the "Jersey" Joe Murphy v Marc "Fifer" Fowley big fight, that didn't happen either but - luckily for the fight fans at least - quite a few of Murphy's team mates more than made up for it.
In the first period, the Flyers made all the running and were 16-0 up in the penalty stakes by the hooter - Janis Grinbergs sitting most of this out after receiving 2+10 for a head check.
After the restart, the Sharks upped their game a bit and contributed 14 penalty minutes of their own but the Flyers were pulling away by this time with Kurtis Hall's 10 minute misconduct and Chris Butcher's roughing penalties helping to keep the tally respectable at Flyers 34 - Solway 14 after 2 periods.
The 3rd period saw 44 minutes of penalties dished out - 22 to each side which made for a lively match for the fans (Flyers 56 - Sharks 36), if not necessarily a great game for the purists.
In between all of this going on, the occasional spat of ice hockey broke out, but we won't let that spoil a good story.
Joking apart, credit must go to everybody involved in putting this game on today: to the Solway team and supporters who travelled down from Scotland on the worst day of the year weather wise, to the Fylde club for getting the game on and to all the local fans who braved the ice and sleet and cheered both teams on throughout. Well done everybody!
Oh yes - Solway won, by the way - but you probably knew they would anyway...
