Saturday Night Hockey

The truth is, we were probably out-ranked from the start. The Sheffield Scimitars were a formidable opponent, and even my attempts at optimism or blind faith in the Chieftains seemed to fall flat with friends before the game. I kept saying I had faith the Chieftains could win it, we'd give our predictions for the final score -- and I did think the Chieftains could pull it off.

The first period was close, and toughly fought -- until first blood when to the Scimitars with minutes left on the clock. As I've said before, though -- put the Chieftains in a corner, and often they come out fighting. Often literally. The second period saw the goal lead for the Yorkshire men increase further, but not without some great effort and defence from the Chieftains -- but the truth was, they just weren't good enough.

Last week was some of the best Premier League hockey I have seen -- they were on form, and their victory was hard-won and well deserved. Saturday's game was frustrating, the passes weren't caught, the puck frequently lost. They just were not up to form, despite starting their comeback with a powerful goal instead of rising to the challenge from the team second in the league, the Chieftains seemed to struggle.

The third period really turned the heat up on the rink -- the Chieftains weren't going down without a fight, and in the space of mere minutes, Sheffield's lead had been closed to a draw. Even a draw against Sheffield would have been a result to be proud of -- if not necessarily earned -- and the tension was getting unbearable. As the final period started dwindling, we thought Chelmsford had done it -- a shot at goal and for a second it looked like it went it. Instead it was as close as it might have been possible to get, and that was all the Scimitars needed.

We barely had time to curse them for being Northern bastards before the score went from 3 - 3, to 4 - 3 and finally 5 - 3. The Chieftains took the final buzzer as a good time to pick a fight, eventually the players were dragged off each other. Not ones to let it end there, although Sheffield took their win, the teams took the fight off the ice -- expressing the frustration of the home fans to have come so close to beating a team with an 8-game winning streak.

It's a small consolation, however, to see that the Milton Keynes Lightning lost 6 - 0 to the Peterborough Phantoms this weekend. You're not singing any more...