Devils v Blaze - 16/10 - 7:00pm - CC - Chat/Updates...

[TheStub]

Fair play to you Finny, an excellent report on the game and Hicks poor performance. Can't understand however that in a report that is so detailed you failed to pick up on a couple of fairly important things i.e how bad we actually played last night, how poor our discipline was, how ineffective or D once again looked, how out of sorts Matzka is and has been lately, how we lacked any sort of leadership once Finnery left the ice, I fully expected to see Adams verbally encouraging his players and he didn't, also how Finnerty was asking for trouble from the off, looking to goad the Blaze players into retaliating to his constant late shoves after the whistle had gone etc and they just ignored him and wouldn't get involved. Yes he was slashed but not a major call so he got what he deserved I have to say. And Michels sarcastic stick tapping applause was sheer frustration, he also got what he deserved even though it made no differtence at that stage of the game. I am more in agreement with Martynwho's view of the game than your own strangely very one sided viewpoint. I think you have let your emotions get the better of you in your post, even to the point of getting involved with the Blaze bench, no wonder they just gave you a grin. G has a huge task ahead of him, he has recruited a very poor D, and a good Offence ( despite Matzka's performances lately) Time to gas some D and bring in players who don't go awol under pressure and don't get pushed around by smaller forwards, which happens each and every game I've seen. Having said that, we'll probably win in Cov tonight !!

Very true - we lacked in a number of areas last night. The truth sits between you and Finny. What we saw last night was a Devils team who didn't play to the ref in front of them - but it was obvious both teams were dumfounded by Hicks performance.

I feel cheated, because the Blaze were on the up and it was going to turn into a real classic. What we ended up with was the Hicks show IMHO. He always calls a poor game, but last night was probably the worst I've seen. What I fear when he is that bad is a total disintegration on the ice - tempers really getting frayed and players actually getting hurt. Trouble is, we lost - what we need is to complain when he has a bad game and we win... but when you win it is hard to rally the mass support.

What says something was the reaction of the Blaze players, fans and the comments from Thommo on the Devils website this morning.

Yes the Devils did play poorly, and let the ref rule the game. But we need to view both separately.

 

[wildthing74]

I've been holding off posting as been trying to calm down.Whatever has been said by some in this thread it comes down to 1 idiot spoiling the game.
By far the worst ref performance I have seen in many,many years.
Forget blaiming the likes of Finnerty,his job is to get under the skin of the opposition and if they react then great but he should not be blamed for going around doing his job.
Right from the blantant trip leading up to the 3rd goal,Hicks turned an excellent game into a farce.The Michel incident when Fulgham had him around the neck was a joke.Was right in front of us and Michel looked straight at Hicks as if to say "look at this" and he calls Michel for roughing for doing nothing.
I have not been as incensed at a game for years and thank god I have my kids with me as I may have lost in and done something stupid that I would later regret.
The fact that he has this stupid constant smirk when he is getting stick grates on me too.
By his standards he has been pretty low key in the last few games but typical of him to go and spoil the biggest game so far this season.
On a side note Matzka for me is not doing his job.He was lauded by G as his best Devils signing to date and he has not lived up to that.For our main guy he goes missing in games and missed 3 open goals which is a worry.Maxi seems to have gone missing on that line and for my money the 3rd line looks the most dangerous line and that can't be right.
Still not convinced by the Smiths,particulalry Mark.I think he was even benched at one point last night.

 

[osh]

Sorry Stub, I can't see anything by Thommo on the website, any chance of a link ? ( or point me in the right direction pls)

Wildthing; I'm certainly not criticising Finnerty for attempting to wind the opposition up, that's what he does so good, the point is that last night the Blaze just wouldn't react to him and thats called good discipline created by a very good coach. Finnerty got slashed, reacted in a way he shouldn't have and that is what I am critical of, the lino has every right to call a major penalty if he sees it that way. Hicks is useless, and we all know that, and despite whatever emails people intend sending etc to the league, we are stuck with him and nothing will change, we just don't seem to have the savvy coach wise or player wise as to how to play with him, other teams do. We totally lost our way last night especially when on the 5 minute penalty, to then go and get another couple of stupid penalties was ridiculous and we got punished for it. Too many of our players went missing last night and too many posters are using Hick's performance as a sort of shield. Tonights game will show us whether we have the ability to put last nights result behind us and go and reverse last night's result.

 

[ASHIPP]

Think we're all agreed that Hicks's reffing was exceptional(ly bad) :evil: last night BUT he can't be totally to blame. One thing above all else cost the Devils the game - lack of discipline. How the hell can the Devils go from controlling the early p1, fantastic pk, earlyish goal to playing with no composure or direction at all? By p3, they weren't even icing a competitive team against the Blaze.
The turning point was Finnerty's ejection from the game (whether Hicks was right or wrong) - that in itself cost the Devils 2 very neat pp goals to the Blaze. Then, serving additional time on the pk because of Francis's penalty and other technicalities, it gave very little opportunity for the Devils to re-group and set themselves up for the attack. Their failure to absorb pressure and stay composed, to me, just further exposed problems that the team have been struggling with this season - lack of confidence and coherence.
Some players were panicking and making howlers, others were completely 'absent' and made no contribution. :evil: Standouts for me: 3rd line of Tylor/Stu/Sam (relentless and hardworking) and G/Justin who had the back played a solid game and made v few mistakes.
Blaze PIMS in p3? ZERO ........% PP conversion for the Blaze? :shock: Let's not even talk about it.

The Blaze were composed, well-drilled and wore down the Devils mentally and physically. Their PP was lethal, their defending and puck interception was relentless. All credit to them.
Devils were taught a very harsh lesson in an important game about how to control frustation, and how to capitalise on every chance available. At one point, Jaeger faced 3 of our forwards, unmarked, around his net and none of them could get the puck in it!

Never mind, move on to the next game......oh yeah, I forgot, it's another 'must win' against the same team that thrashed us last night. :roll:

 

[EJ_Styles]

Nothing is going to come of Hicks, the league wont ban him or anything as there are so few qualified (somehow Hicks is qualified) referee in Britain. I think it's well established that he has a personal hatred towards the Devils, for whatever reason I honestly don't know, but near enough every game that he officiates for us he cheats us out of a win. Just wish we could go back to the good old days where you could throw fridges or ovens at people and get away with it, now sadly we'd all do time at Her Majesty's pleasure

 

[osh]

ASHIPP; Good post, you've covered most points and not let our frustrations of last night veil the ongoing problems. I'm hoping for a complete turnaround in fortunes tonight, not exactly holding my breath, but if it doesn't go our way I hope the club act accordingly and do what should have been done weeks ago and bring in new blood.

 

[ASHIPP]

ASHIPP; Good post, you've covered most points and not let our frustrations of last night veil the ongoing problems. I'm hoping for a complete turnaround in fortunes tonight, not exactly holding my breath, but if it doesn't go our way I hope the club act accordingly and do what should have been done weeks ago and bring in new blood.

Osh - I'm not holding my breath for tonight, but hopefully the guys can produce a composed performance. Frustration and anger just erodes confidence and coherence - and plays into Hicks's hands. Last year, the Devils seemed to master the art of composure - ironically, one excellent example was a game at the Skydome when the Blaze just went 'nam' on their own ice and the Devils played it cool and outplayed them. The Devils' successful home record last season was built on composure and teamwork.......every player knowing exactly what their role was. I'm afraid I didn't see much of that last night after Finnerty was thrown out.

 

[wildthing74]

Sorry Stub, I can't see anything by Thommo on the website, any chance of a link ? ( or point me in the right direction pls)

Wildthing; I'm certainly not criticising Finnerty for attempting to wind the opposition up, that's what he does so good, the point is that last night the Blaze just wouldn't react to him and thats called good discipline created by a very good coach. Finnerty got slashed, reacted in a way he shouldn't have and that is what I am critical of, the lino has every right to call a major penalty if he sees it that way. Hicks is useless, and we all know that, and despite whatever emails people intend sending etc to the league, we are stuck with him and nothing will change, we just don't seem to have the savvy coach wise or player wise as to how to play with him, other teams do. We totally lost our way last night especially when on the 5 minute penalty, to then go and get another couple of stupid penalties was ridiculous and we got punished for it. Too many of our players went missing last night and too many posters are using Hick's performance as a sort of shield. Tonights game will show us whether we have the ability to put last nights result behind us and go and reverse last night's result.

Osh you are a poster that usually has a sensible balanced view and I will take not of what you say but I can't believe you are saying we played without discipline.We got called on things that Cov were getting away with and clearly only 1 team was going to get penalised.
Fair play to Blaze,they were lethal on the PP but no way did we player any dirtier than them just in the end frustration took over and had I had a stick in my hand and a Devils shirt on I would have felt the same.

 

[wildthing74]

Sorry for the garbage typing on that last post.I was trying to watch the footy and type at the same time and not a good combination :lol: Unable to edit the last post.

 

[osh]

Sorry Wildthing, I do understand where you are coming from, but that is exactly what I'm saying. Our discipline was not poor, it was very poor! Like I said, Finnerty was trying from a very early stage to wind the Blaze up, it didn't work. he got slashed (unseen by Hicks ) and not called by the lino because it wasn't a major pen. Sadly he retaliated with a 2 hand slashing call, the lino is within his rights to inform the ref if he thinks its a major pen, now, that was our captain's poor discipline to act as he did, simple. Our discipline was poor during the 5 minute 5 on 4 which very soon became 5 on 3 (twice) and cost us dearly. I haven't mentioned anything about us being any dirtier than the Blaze, I'm saying they played the ref far better than we did and got away with it, good coaching as against our poor coaching and lack of discipline both on the ice and from our bench coach, Franny should know better ! I'm as gutted as anyone about last night, but I think many are using Hicks too much as a smokescreen for what was a poor team and coaching performance.

 

[Finny]

I'm not convinced we were poor with our discipline.

It's not like we were picking up minors every 3 or 4 minutes or so.

In the first period we gave away two penalties plus the fight. In the second we had the Pelle tripping call and then the nonsense call against Michel for roughing whilst in a headlock.

The problem was the 5+game called by the linesman. I didn't get the best view of it but it looked like what Smith and Finnerty did to each other was even. The linesman didn't call Smith though so we got screwed.

The Kenton slashing call was one which always confuses me. You are allowed to slash/'tap' the other persons stick to try to gain control of the puck. However, if the other person isn't holding their stick firm enough and lets it go - then it's a penalty.

In the final period we had two calls against Hill.

Without checking the stats, my first thought is that compared to other games of this nature we didn't actually give away that many penalties.

 

[DevilDom]

What puzzles me about the posters blaming the players for poor discipline is whether those people thought the discipline was poor in the 1st period?

We were on top in the first period and were still well in the game when the indiscretions started - from a game point of view we had no reason to lose our disciplne. The discipline was lost because of the constant one-eyed view Hicks had of the game - starting with the Blaze 3rd goal. Anger and frustration then built-up and eventually boiled over.

Should professional players know better? Yes Maybe, but we all love passionate players and with the way the game was called last night I think a Saint would have lost it. Tylor and Phil Hill are players not reknowed for losing it or showing anger in the way they did; I think that just shows how poorly the game was officiated.

The stat Finny quoted earlier about the % of games Devils win with Hicks as ref is astounding and surely reason enough for the Devils management to appeal to the league for him not to ref our games.

I'm not sure of his relationship with CH Sports but could his grudge stem from the fact that the Devils are now selling their own merchandise and they have stopped his shop from selling a lot of it? The fact that he has such a link in the first place is surely a conflict of interests as well.

 

[osh]

Finny, you are relating the poor discipline topic to penalties taken as a result. I'm including not just poor discipline with penalties taken, but also with other areas of poor discipline i.e poor positioning by our D in general and especially on pk's, poor positional sense by our forwards, poor discipline by letting decisions get to us when we really should know better, lets face it, every time we have Hicks the forum is full of how bad he is, yet our team both on the bench and on the ice don't seem able to cope. You may not think discipline was a problem last night but I did.

Change of subject, but any news on Sawyer, he looked in a bad way just before the end last night?

 

[gandl]

have just spoken to Andy French about the language used by hicks last night
he is looking at the game dvd on tuesday andwill review the way hicks lost control

 

[Nargroth]

PPG after PPG sunk us but it is fair to say our discipline was poor tonight but then again G hardly set the tone with a meaningless hugfest as a result of what - a few cross words? Wasn't sure what he was trying to achieve at the time!

I feel I must say that G's fight showed that he is willing to stick up for his team, Selmser was taking liberties with Matzka (I think) and G stood up and showed him that won't stand in our rink, something i'd like to see IMO from the likes of Sawyer and Voth (when he's back)

G was right to fight Selmser, if you manhandle a star forward you can expect to get slapped at some point!

 

[drainage]

have just spoken to Andy French about the language used by hicks last night
he is looking at the game dvd on tuesday andwill review the way hicks lost control

Glad its being looked at but how can he see Hicks swearing ??? It was as he left the ice so wont be on there??

I think the fact Finny has stated our chances of winning are halved every time he refs should be considered.

I am still fuming ......how can such a pointless person wind me up this long !!!

 

[TheStub]

Sorry Stub, I can't see anything by Thommo on the website, any chance of a link ? ( or point me in the right direction pls)

This news story http://www.cardiffdevils.com/newsheadline.aspx?cpid=915 has been edited since I posted my reply.

Initially there was a quote from Thommo saying how disappointed he was at the nature of the win, and how poor reffing had a hand in it.

I guess someone in the league took exception to the article and requested it be changed. I should have taken a screen shot before hand.

To me, yes the Devils failed to change their game to suit the fact that Hicks had money on a Blaze victory. They should have been able to keep their composure, and kill off the 5 minutes. I think if they had been able to kill the 5 minutes, we would have seen a different game. The Smith slash was total non-sense, obviously a dropped stick makes it a serious offence... and the Tyler "roughing" call was idiocy. So, I am with you on the team need to be able to keep it together, and keep their cool.

What I am incensed about it the overall quality of the reffing. I stand at the top of the stairs between blocks 1 and 2, so have a fair bit of time talking to away fans. Every Blaze fan I spoke to told me how much they hate Hicks before the face off - and then were in total disbelief at the calls he was making. They were booing calls in their teams favor. The fact that they won, and still booed Hicks off the ice speaks volumes to me, and makes me more confident in my overall assessment of the game.

So, yes Devils have things to work on... but Hicks should not be allowed to officiate above the occasional ENL game until he has proven he has the skills to do it.

Every game I see Hicks lose control, the game get away from him and someday I fear players will be hurt. He far too often misses nasty things, and the lets the retaliation build and build. He is a disgrace, and shouldn't be allowed to officiate.

Plus, his position with CH should rule him out. Especially from Devils games, and any team wearing his jerseys. Your refs should be above reproach.

 

[samidevils]

from THF Finny's original post.

From the Devils official website:


QUOTE
...Coventry Blaze Head Coach paul Thompson apologised to the Devils for the manner of his team's victory

 

[Lid]

then again G hardly set the tone with a meaningless hugfest as a result of what - a few cross words?

Don't you mean a few cross checks? Which happened right in front of all 3 officials as it was before the puck was dropped at the face off.

 

[Mark666]

Calmed down now... (sundays result helps).
Hicks was pivotal on the result and that isn't good at all but the Devils cant let him shoulder all the blame (MOST of it tho). Maybe some of his calls were far fetched but the outlook could have been different if the Devils hadn't let it get to them. I say could, having seen Sundays game i'm leaning more that way TBH.

The one thing i wanted to add to the discussion more than anything is to stick up G for his fight, some people were saying was unnecessary. I'd noticed the Blaze player (forgot his name now) was throwing his weight around in the centre sending out some reckless open ice hip-checks (off the puck) that only just weren't landing. And before i could turn to my girlfriend and mention the new trouble-maker G was down in the corner making his own observations known. I think he did well to spot someone who was out on the ice (or been sent out) purely to spread a bit of violence and dealing with the situation straight off.