Seeing as the official thread isn't working.....

[Shaggy]

.....I thought I'd answer via a new one.

Helen B said:-

1. we were rubbish

2. carson was even worse

3. you beat us up in the 1st

4. we did not turn up after that

5. mckenna is nothing special

;D ;D
Dear oh dear, sour grapes or what?

1). I wouldn't exactly say "rubbish", but definitely poorer than any fan of the team would want. Suited us fine, though!

2). Cobblers was he - you're just annoyed that he didn't give the Steelers every advantage as normal.
Funny - could that have something to do with the fact that the Referee Supervisor (or whatever the title is) was seen at the game? Perhaps Andy Pandy had to behave himself properly?
Think yourselves lucky.... he still managed to miss an enormous amount of the trademark Sheffield clutchy-grabby stuff.....

3). Beat you up? If you mean hard-checking.... YES! And that's exactly what needed to be done.... something I've noticed every time we do that is that the Steelers just don't seem to be able to handle being on the receiving end of large numbers of hard checks. Tough titties....

4). I wouldn't go that far, but - the Steelers were none too impressive. Against the Panthers team that played against Belfast on Tuesday - they probably would have done enough to beat us. But not tonight ;D

5). Nothing special? Dear me, launches a couple of crunching body-checks, manages to carry on skating forward despite getting hooked to all hell, intimidated at least 3 Steelers players from trying any rough stuff with him, played on the wing, played in D, big, fast, strong, skilled, good at team-building..... that may not be the definition of anything "special" up the M1, but it'll do me quite nicely!

The better team won, fair and square.
End of story.

[heja]

not jealousy, fact. He's only used to playing 7 mins per game. He was totally out of breath after the 1st.

The one that Cardiff has got is a class act.

Well i think you would be out of breath too if you hadn't played since feb 2004 and suffered a season ending injury.

[DerbyDave72]

Yes, noticed the official thread isn't working too..no "reply" option showing.

I was sat right behind our bench last night..just to say McKenna's banter and encouragement to his teammates and good humour were great to see..he brings a dimension to the team during the game off the ice I've not seen before! And he enjoys himself....great to see and watch play.

Ivan is a 100% guy, just like Jinman in that respect, even if he does appear to behave strangely at times. passionate about his hockey and his stick!- carresses it and fondles it during the game more than any player I've seen!

Lastly although there were other good performances, Ricci's recognition at last was well deserved. Class!

Dangerous times in the 3rd period....we really don't know how to hold a 2 goal lead, do we?

[Ian]

My thoughts:

Steelers were very poor. We should have won by a far larger margin (still, I will settle for a comfortable 3-1 victory over them any time).
There has been plenty of bleating from Sheffield about the refereeing. Personally, I thought he reffed it pretty well. Made a few harsh calls on both sides and missed some blatant offences by both sides - but he called it down the line. And for all their complaining, there was only one team who had a player sat in the stands for two periods after taking an unpunished elbow in the eye, and it was not the Steelers.

I was amused with Mike Peron's antics - happy to hit the smaller players from the front, but anyone who he thought might hit him back it was a cheap one from behind and a swift exit to the bench. Each one of said cheap shots resulting in his name being sung by the Steelers blocks. Tells you all you need to know really.

McKenna looked a good acquisition, brought some stability and confidence when he stepped on the ice.

Still not much sign of team spirit and togetherness from our boys - better than London on Friday but still worrying from my perspective.

Ricci was outstanding. He controlled the entire game from start to finish and never put a foot wrong. Great, great defensive performance and would have deserved MOM even if Curtis had got a shut out IMO.

All in all, a satisfying night but still concerns about the way this season is going to pan out. I would still like to see a couple of changes in manpower to address the issues that have been obvious in recent weeks. Having said that, I'd rather be on the black and gold side than the grey and orange this morning. Perhaps Steelers fans ought to stop whining about the referee and those big bad naughty Panthers daring to push around their untouchable angels and reflect on the fact that they offered precious little offensive threat, were comprehensively beaten by a side coming off the back of two abysmal performances and look a very poor side indeed.

[Big Dave Steeler]

Shaggy said:

1). I wouldn't exactly say "rubbish", but definitely poorer than any fan of the team would want. Suited us fine, though!

Sorry Shaggy, but we are in a period where things are just not happening for us. Too much chuffin dump and chase for my liking (at least 5 times we intercepted the puck, only for us just to dump it )

Shaggy said:

2). Cobblers was he - you're just annoyed that he didn't give the Steelers every advantage as normal.
Funny - could that have something to do with the fact that the Referee Supervisor (or whatever the title is) was seen at the game? Perhaps Andy Pandy had to behave himself properly?
Think yourselves lucky.... he still managed to miss an enormous amount of the trademark Sheffield clutchy-grabby stuff.....

IVe gotta laugh at this comment. Missed enormous ammounts of clutch and grab, to be honest, I though both teams were playing that throughout the game.

Gives us every advantage as normal, you are really extracting the urine here. In the 1st period you got away with a number of slashes, dangerous hits (dont come back saying, its only finishing their hits, I hant counted them, caus that is what they are, finishing their hits, thats what pros do) and glad you mentioned Andy French being there, as he would have also seen an inept 1st period from Carson, who I think might have been scared to call anything for you after your fans and club squeeled like mad after the Coventry game. A quick word in his ear between intervals you can imagine from AF, as he seemed to get better as the game progressed.

Shaggy said:

3). Beat you up? If you mean hard-checking.... YES! And that's exactly what needed to be done.... something I've noticed every time we do that is that the Steelers just don't seem to be able to handle being on the receiving end of large numbers of hard checks. Tough titties....

I would say the same, but that is only agressive play, and that is fine, and unfortunatly we have not got any size to compete. Darling is playing like a captain, and knows his full value to the team. Would love to know how many minutes he plyed night in night out, as he does not seem to be off the ice. Christian is the only other sized player, and he was thankfully concentrating on trying to turn the 2 goal defecit around (not that it worked) but we need someone with size who will use it, similar to the new NHL'er you have

Shaggy said:

4). I wouldn't go that far, but - the Steelers were none too impressive. Against the Panthers team that played against Belfast on Tuesday - they probably would have done enough to beat us. But not tonight ;D

I have seen us play worse, but not too much.

Lacked a key element - PASSION. These games you play with tones of passion, you did we did not, enough said

Shaggy said:

5). Nothing special? Dear me, launches a couple of crunching body-checks, manages to carry on skating forward despite getting hooked to all hell, intimidated at least 3 Steelers players from trying any rough stuff with him, played on the wing, played in D, big, fast, strong, skilled, good at team-building..... that may not be the definition of anything "special" up the M1, but it'll do me quite nicely!

The better team won, fair and square.
End of story.

Have to say he did not impress me overly on that performance. HOWEVER (before I get an essay style responce) you can tell from the start he is a team player, and will do what it takes for the team, and that is enough for me to be a good signing. Once he has a couple more weekends under his belt, you might get more out of him, there is definate potential, and you can see why he got over 300 games in the show.

Yes the better team won Shaggy, and we all except that, does not mean to say we've gotta be all happy and cheery when we post do we

I will finish on 2 points, the crowd and a wee finish for AC

For the first time in the new building, you got behind you team, and with more. I like to go to games with atmosphere, and normally for Notts/Sheff games its a case of us singing throughout, and your fans give the odd panther chant. Last night was completely different with both sets of fans singing throughout the whole 60 minutes!!!!!

Carson, as I have posted IMO did have a bad 1st period, and I'm sorry if this upsets folks, but some of the postings about him, have boarded upon hypocrasy. How a win changes an opinion of few, and definatly gave me a laugh.

Might save a few of the perlers for when carson drops a howler against your, and the 'real' comments come out about him, but dont think I am blaming AC for our defeat. We simply was not good enough.

Good to see BJ/YP (Cheers for the pressent) and Heanor Lar and HL Jnr (Who I hope the drink was enough bribery to join the SteelTalk ranks for the tournament later on this year ;D)

Overall a great game, shame bout the result ;D

[Helen B]

It seems to me that I am not allowed to pass comment without it being classed as sour grapes.

I think Mckenna had a poor game, he did not stand out for me, maybe he did for others but I only noticed him on the ice twice and that was because he was next to Peron and was about a foot taller than him.

Am I supposed to come on here and say "oh wow he is fantastic, he was amazing, a class above the rest." Fact is he wasn't he had a very ordinary game. But he was a foot above the rest ;D

The Panthers did beat us up in the 1st, I'm not taking well Carson didn't call any penalties against us (panthers) excuse either. Fact is last year you were all saying oh Carson was hopeless he cost us the game, we're never gonna play in another match with the Steelers if he is reffing, so surprised you turned up last night.

Carson didn't cost us the game, we cost us the game by not playing well. Carson did miss 3 obvious calls against you in the 1st dunno why they were right under his nose. 2 of them were disgusting calls, the 2 handed slash across Christian's wrists and Cadotte smashing Lake's face into the plexi.

Oh and for the Panthers fans out there, saying you beat us without getting out of 3rd gear. What a load of tosh, your players definitely looked to be giving all they got last night esp. in the 1st.

And any Steeler fan out there who says that we were tired from Saturday night needs their head checking because the 3rd on Saturday night was nothing more than a glorified training session.

[martin]

Well, I don't say this often but...

I thought that the game was reffed well last night! Well done Carson!

Very refreshing!

Apart from that, I thought we put in a good performance and certainly deserved to win, probably by a bigger margin.

McKenna was great. In the first minute or so he was hooked on the blueline by a a Steelers player but just powered on regardless, dragging the hapless Steeler along with him!! And there were a couple of times when players attempted to check him but just went down like a sack of poo poo, as though they'd just hit a brick wall!

Good performances from the rest of the team too. No player had a bad game IMO. 'Most improved player' would go to #15 who put in easily his best performance this season.

Someone said did Clarke get a touch on Krulis' goal... No!

Well done Panthers - keep up the good work! ;D

[martin]

Oh and for the Panthers fans out there, saying you beat us without getting out of 3rd gear. What a load of tosh, your players definitely looked to be giving all they got last night esp. in the 1st.

Well we watch 'em week in week out so we'd know! Believe me, the way they played in France - THAT was 5th gear.

[Helen B]

I said looked, I didnt say they were.

[martin]

So what?

[NevesMetro]

Helen said:

I think Mckenna had a poor game, he did not stand out for me, maybe he did for others but I only noticed him on the ice twice and that was because he was next to Peron and was about a foot taller than him.


? SO THE TWO TIMES YOU DID NOTICE HIM HE WAS POOR WAS HE?

Well let me tell you about all the other times that he was on the ice

Never gave the puck away, Created space for himself and his team mates, crisp clean passing to the stick of team mates, made the right decisions, hard clean hits, Cool head. Does all the little things right.

To me the guy looked class and you could tell that he had played at a higher level than most (if not all) of the players out on the ice. Hopefully we can keep him for a few months.

Maybe you only notice guys who beat 5 skaters and then stick it over the top corner There's a lot more to great players than that.

[nuttyrockeress]

Official thread is now working - please continue on there!!

Ta

Lynds - nutty