Post Game Recap - June 7 & 8 (North Stars & Rhinos)

The Ice Age "Has" Cometh (coaches report)

The Ice Age "has" Cometh

The Bartercard Gold Coast Blue Tongues after two months of away games are finally opening their ice hockey season for the first time on the Gold Coast this weekend. The Blue Tongues will play two games this weekend at Iceland on Strathaird Road, Bundall with both games starting at 3.30 PM. Saturday's game will be officially opened by Mayor Ron Clarke with the ceremonial "faceoff" between both team captains Billy Crumm for the Blue Tongues and Murray Wand from the Sydney Bears. The Blue Tongues have had a slow start to the season with a 2-5 win-loss record and having played 7 fewer games than most of the teams in the league to date. All this will change with the team playing their last 21 games in the next 11 weeks, and 14 of those games here on the Gold Coast.

Coaches Report

Our first home games are upon us this weekend and the team is pumped to show our fans that our 2 and 5 start on the road, although, being what it is, will not be the type of hockey or the results that our fans should come to expect with the line-up we are now able to put on the ice

Our task this weekend will be a difficult one as we face the League's first place team and defending champions, Sydney Bears, Our team gained a tremendous amount of confidence with a hard fought 5 to 4 road victory in our last outing against the Central Coast Rhinos, and I was impressed with the boys in the fact that we came out strong and weathered the early Rhino blitz then took a commanding lead in the second and continued to play sound hockey to hold on for the victory.

The boys practiced well this week and are chomping at the bit for this weekend's games. As I have mentioned in the past with the way our schedule was set up we have numerous games in hand on the teams above us in the standings, however, games in hand are a misleading stat, unless we stay focused and take one shift, one period, one game at a time and ultimately put W’s in the Win column, the games in hand mean diddly!

When playing at home a lot of teams have the tendency to get away from playing a simple well thought out defensive game and revert to playing run and gun to put lots of goals on the scoreboard for the fans. Like any team that does this our team will have to make a focused effort to stick to our game plan. I am confident with the leadership group we have and the individual team concept accountability the team has shown that we will be successful, and as we have shown in previous games when we stick to our game plan and stay out of the penalty box we can compete with any team in our league.

This weekend’s line-up will be as follows:

Goalie:
#30-Simo Mustonen, Import, Simo comes off a “player of the match” game last Sunday
Back Up Goalies:
#1-CJ Anderson and Brenton Cooney
Defence:
# 44-Don Burke “A” and #8-Cam Trew who were both solid last Sunday
# 17-Ross Howell and #21-Chris Martin-Import. Ross and Chris have been anchors on D
# 24-Rob Avey- Rob’s experience back in the line-up will be valuable
# 4-Chris Kerr Import, still nursing and upper body injury will be assistant coach
Forwards:
#22-Gaetan Royer Import, # 7- Brain Lachance Import, # 16-Jack Connor
Gates and Brian (The French Connection) will be totally over their jet lag this weekend and their hard nosed play and offensive abilities will be on show this weekend, Jack( equal leading scorer with Davey Upton) will be a pleasant surprise to our fans that have not seen him play
# 9-Billy Crumm “C” Import, # 88-Davey Upton, # 10 Jon Bale
Like “The French Connection” Billy will be over his jet lag and his smooth skating and all round skills will be on show, Davey has been the relentless “Rock” of the forward squad so far this year and can be used in any situation. Jonny has stepped up and compliments Billy and Davey well.
# 5-Ben Spillane, #11 -Matt Lehotzky, # 19-Robet Orosz
With the addition of Matt for his first game of the season, this will only enhance the effectiveness both offensively and defensively that Ben and Robert showed playing together last Sunday.
#14 Kristian Sullivan rounds out the forwards and Kristian speed will be used when needed
Waiting in the wings are:
#15- Eric Sewell, #23- Ben Maher, #12- Nick Jones, #28- Marco Bertossa, #18-Michael Blackwell
Who have all practiced and or played well when given the opportunity, and Michael Blackwell is out with an upper body injury.

So come out and support YOUR Blue Tongues and make the Lizard Pit a location where visiting teams hate to play. I can assure you the boys will hold up their end.

Kevin Sands

Intermission Activities:

End of 1st Period:
Relay Race - Gold Coast Grizzlys Junior Ice Hockey Club - Bears Vs Grizzlys
End of 2nd Period:
"Shoot for Goal" - Each week we will select 3 people to have a shot a goal to win a prize. The three people will be drawn from business card raffle box, kids entry tickets, and raffle of the day tickets.

By Kevin Sands June 13, 2008

Upcoming Games

DATE	HOME	AWAY	TIME
-	-	-	-

Season Schedule

Previous Games

Home teams on top row

Date	Teams	P1	P2	P3	F
24 August	Blue Tongues A's	0 3	0 3	0 1	0 7
23 August	Blue Tongues A's	2 0	0 3	0 0	2 3
17 August	Bears Blue Tongues	3 2	3 2	2 0	8 4
16 August	Knights Blue Tongues	3 1	2 2	4 3	9 6

Game Results

AIHL Standings

Final Season Standings
	GP	Pts
The Bears (Sydney)	28	61
Melbourne Ice	28	54
Western Sydney Ice Dogs	28	54
Newcastle North Stars	28	53
Canberra Knights	28	34
Adelaide A's	28	32
Gold Coast Blue Tongues	28	27
Central Coast Rhinos	28	21

Full League Standings

Individual Leaders

Final Season Statistics
Goals:	Gaetan Royer	22
Assists:	Bryan Lachance	22
Points:	Gaetan Royer	36
PIMS:	Bryan Lachance	188

GAA	Simo Mustonen	4.75
SV%	Simo Mustonen	85.16

Player Statistics