StockcarGOLD news and views

Pre Christmas the last game was against local rival Nottingham Panthers and featured a war of words in the build up. Basically Blaze described the Panthers as Team Hollywood and said that they’d do their talking on the ice.



It was always something that would come back to bite the Blaze and it certainly did. Nottingham fully deserved their shut out victory with a 4-0 win. To rub salt in the wounds it was their first league victory in Coventry’s Skydome for 3 years. No wonder their supporters were ecstatic and fair play to Nottingham Coach Corey Neilson for being magnanimous in victory and not rubbing our noses in the defeat.



Given the nature of the defeat the highlights video which has now been released after waiting for Sky TV to air their programme takes a different and fun format.

It seems that although there was a grave danger of the pre match hype coming back to bite the Blaze bums the intention was to put more bums on seats rather than psychological gamesmanship between the teams. So at least that worked with perhaps the best turnout in the Skydome so far this season.



Perhaps sad that the business side of the team dictates the match planning but then again I don’t have my personal income invested in the team.

OK so this may sound rather sad but please indulge me.



The Powerplay Manager Hockey season mentioned in the post on 21 November as just starting season 4 has now completed the league season and play offs.







After the initial couple of wins my team – IceRayz – slumped before an influx of overseas players and full use of available tactics pulled the team back up to a 5th league place finish and 6th overall after the play offs.



Unfortunately the 1.1 million prize isn’t real and goes towards next seasons team and facilities.



Each game has a play by play account and a match summary with detailed game statistics. It is evident from the text of how the games unfold that the developers have a knowledge and love of ice hockey. Just a few of the many different quotes is below.

Julien Maillet skates out of the crease to stop the dumped puck at the back boards. But the puck takes a bounce. Roland Laurent also misses it and the puck bounces into the slot to Michael Alexander who has an open net and scores! This was an easy put-away and he couldn’t miss. Both the goalie and Roland Laurent are just looking sadly at one another, wondering what just happened.



Connor Walsh wins the puck in the corner, he skates in behind the net. Passes it into the slot to Corey Gibside who onetimes it. His shot is deflected by Dominik Korytko onto the stick of Billy Viveash, who has no problem flipping the puck over the sprawling goalie and scores.



Býly Andely start an attack in their defensive zone but they mess up. Prokop Machácek gets to the puck and takes a onetimer. Dominik Korytko makes a kick save with the right pad. The puck gets to the stick of Jay De’Ath who takes a quick shot from point blank range, and Dominik Korytko can’t stop that rebound. The goalie is mad at his teammates and he lets them know, that they shouldn’t be causing him such troubles.



Stanislav Tajovský gathers the loose puck in his zone and passes it. But it is a dreadful pass. He sends it right on the stick of the opponent Corey Gibside, who passes it quickly to Connor Walsh. He is closed down by Štefan Kompas who attacks him heavily. That was a textbook crosschecking penalty. Connor Walsh goes down on the ice while Štefan Kompas argues with the referee that his play was legal. And the referee has the same opinion!!! That is a questionable call and the fans are not happy with the decision.

The game originates in Slovakia so the language may appear unusual at times but it does the business.



As in reality not everything goes according to plan and I had the annoyance of buying a couple of players only for them to be injured within days of joining the club. Then just as the play offs were due my starting net minder – all of 21 years of age – suffered from angina and was pulled from the squad. Mind you he recovered after 2 days to re take his place. Hardy stock these ice hockey players don’t you know!



The really sad bit is that as Powerplay Manager is still at the BETA stage when the formal online game is launched I expect to loose my current players and arena and have to start from scratch again. I’ve nurtured these players and don’t want to loose all of them – a couple I’d be happy to see the back of but mainly we’re in this together so I’d like to take them further.

February sees the 28th running of the SuperStock Teams Championships at the Palmerston North track in New Zealand. And the big BriSCA news is that for the first time Great Britain is sending a team over.



Team racing in New Zealand is massive but has never really caught on over here, this could be the subject of another article.



We are sending a team 5 of drivers – Frankie Wainman 515, Stuart Smith 390, Tom Harris 84, Murray Harrison 97 & 490 Mark Taylor – although only 4 drivers will compete at any one time. There are 12 teams taking part in 4 groups of three and each team will race twice in each group.



The clip below shows some of the type of action the team is letting itself in for – rest assured there is no love lost between the NZ locals and the GB interlopers. Many will find themselves on the receiving end of some pretty evil bumper work. WARNING - this is not for the faint hearted!

I wish them well.



Hopefully I will post more about this over the coming weeks. In the meantime there is a Team GB Racing site here.