GDT: Continental Cup (18/10 - 20/10)

[Yotes]

2014 IIHF Continental Cup
Round 2, Group B
October 18th to 20th, Nottingham


Friday October 18th

Game 1 - Juniors Riga v HYS The Hague




Game Notes Riga goals from Bicevskis, Kondrats, Maslovskis, Sarkanis (2), Rosinskis, Kurmis and Begovs. Henry, Collins and Van Bentem for The Hague.


Game 2 - Bipolo Vitoria-Gasteiz v Nottingham Panthers




Game Notes Murray, Ryan, Clarke (2) and Capraro for Nottingham. Sosa, Munoz and Gavilanes for Vitoria-Gasteiz. Green replaces Kowalski for the 3rd period.



Saturday October 19th

Game 3 - Bipolo Vitoria-Gasteiz v Juniors Riga




Game Notes Sevcenko (2), Begovs, Lipsberg, Skisnis, Jelisejevs and Bicevskis on the mark for Juniors Riga. Engstrom and Bauer with the replies for Bipolo Vitoria-Gasteiz.


Game 4 - Nottingham Panthers v HYS The Hague




Game Notes Francis (3), Clarke, Salters, Benedict and Loyns for Nottingham. Wurm (2) and Natte for The Hague.



Sunday October 20th

Game 5 - HYS The Hague v Bipolo Vitoria-Gasteiz




Game Notes Van Bentem (3), Wurm and Henry for The Hague. Mannermaa (2) and Mackintosh for Vitoria-Gasteiz. The Hague finish in 3rd place in the tournament, Vitoria last.


Game 6 - Nottingham Panthers v Juniors Riga




Game Notes Francis, Clarke and Salters for Nottingham. Siksna with lone reply for Riga. Ryan and Wren, Skuratovs and Begovs ejected from the game in first period for fighting. Nottingham win competition and progress to Asiago for round 3. Riga finish runners up.

[Rob Scott]

Awesome! Fill the Arena, Roar the Panthers to victory! This could be once in a lifetime....

[BlogFromBlock15!]

I am very excited about this and hopefully all I will miss all weekend is the first period of the first game!!

[Pies]

A whole weekend of hockey - not going to grumble about that!

[PantherG]

Really looking forward to this but I suspect we'll be playing to an Arena that is sparsely populated. When I last checked Iwas shocked to see so many tickets still for sale.

[BigLad]

Ditto. Can understand the Friday afternoon to some extent, but the numbers available is shocking.

What happened to all the Panthers fans that bought up other teams tickets for the PlayOffs the last few seasons??

Can't see it being held here again if the arena is empty.

[panthersdave]

+1 to all of the above. Just a quick scan around the arena and the way it looks at the moment we will have crowds of about 2000 for each game.

Some blocks have only sold a few dozen seats and blocks 1,2,18 and 19 look to be closed.

Unless there is a ticket surge there could be a few red faced club officials this weekend.

I think this is in no small part due to the number of non season ticket challenge cup games plus the David Clarke testimonial. Its all just too expensive!

[kezypanther]

Dave I think you got it right there. With people having to pay for ST's. Then added to that 3 (?) CC games not on the ST. Plus DC testimonial you can see why people just simply can't afford to keep paying.

[jester]

Do you think its to do with the perceived poor quality of the ooponents?

[kezypanther]

Oct 14, 2013 9:59:42 GMT jester said:

Do you think its to do with the perceived poor quality of the ooponents?

I don't know if I am explaining myself properly here but hey - I was thinking that a lot of people wouldn't have taken much notice in the opposition more of seeing a competition that is outside of the regular hockey we get to see week in week out. I for one don't know anything about the teams we are playing but looking forward to the competition as a whole.

[Yotes]

Agree with Kezy, I doubt anyone really has a clue as to the standard of the opposition. I'd imagine it is a case of going to the well once too often, as already suggested by others. It'll be a shame though if it's very empty.

For me this is something out of the ordinary, 3 days of hockey against unknown opponents, start of our Road to Rouen (via Asiago) and European glory Can't wait, let's smash em!

Looks like we'll be able to play Saari alongside our usual quota of imports for this one. Obviously Eric will be out but hopefully Capraro will return. Still no mention of the absent-from-Hull Lynn Loyns so assume for now he's fine.

[EMB]

Perhaps they should pull the curtains round and move everyone closer together, the atmosphere would be alot better then. Although I'm going I have found the last few weeks rather expensive what with the CC games not being on the season ticket, the money spent for the last month or so just cannot be plucked out of a monthly budget that easily so I can see why people aren't buying. Its a shame really because I think we could have really showcased the area. I wonder if there is going to be a stream done by any foreign tv for those fans not travelling?

[Yotes]

Oct 14, 2013 11:31:42 GMT EMB said:

Perhaps they should pull the curtains round and move everyone closer together, the atmosphere would be alot better then.

Hope not (selfishly perhaps), I sit at the back through choice

[Smudge]

Any advice on which team is likely to provide the most competitive game for us. Not sure I can afford all three games so have to be a bit choosey and would prefer to see the best that the continent has on offer this weekend.

Any help gratefully received.

[Shorty]

Latvia are ranked 11 in the world, but its a "junior team". Predominantly early twenties and feeder team to the KHL Riga team. One or two will have played at that level.

GB are ranked 22, with Netherlands 24 and Estonia 28.

The Estonian team had to go through a qualification tournament to get here, whereas the other two did not.

[KimThePanther]

Oct 14, 2013 12:09:04 GMT Smudge said:

Any advice on which team is likely to provide the most competitive game for us. Not sure I can afford all three games so have to be a bit choosey and would prefer to see the best that the continent has on offer this weekend.

Any help gratefully received.

We're in a similar dilemma. We can only really do one of the days, but can't decide which. At the moment we're leaning towards The Hague game, but only because Saturday is our preferred hockey day. If we can find out a bit more about our opponents before the weekend we might change our minds.

[Yotes]

My money (for what it's worth) would be on the Latvians being the toughest opponents for us. We've seen Dutch opponents before, and the Estonians had to come through the first round.

I don't know if they've deliberately scheduled it so we play them as the last game, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a decider.

[Deleted]

I realise money is tight for everyone but I took the decision long ago to go to the continental cup rather than the challenge cup games. I've paid £43 for 6 games of ice hockey rather than £48 for 3 !!
I also get to see 3 different teams that may never be seen at the arena again rather than seeing a team that I'm still going to see 4 other times this season !!

[OwenB]

Hello folks,

All being well, BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing commentary online on all three Panthers matches this weekend.

I'll post links as and when they're live.

Wish me luck with the names . . .

Owne

[Caesar]

Owen, nobody will know if you get them wrong or not! We've never heard of em before :-)

[Deleted]

Oct 14, 2013 18:54:44 GMT OwenB said:

Hello folks,

All being well, BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing commentary online on all three Panthers matches this weekend.

I'll post links as and when they're live.

Wish me luck with the names . . .

Owne

I'm just doing a bit of work for the weekend, Owen, so here's one from Tallinn for you to practice:

Вадимс Вабиščевиčс  

I will be going round the teams before the first games to check pronunciations so pop down if you want.


Interesting to note that in their qualifying round a couple of weeks ago Tallinn's first game drew 175 spectators. The second had 35, before the climax against the hosts CSKA Sofia, watched by 50. Total of 260 for the three games.

[Shorty]

Looking at the list of players who have played for Riga Juniors, there are a number who have played in the KHL and also represented the full national team. Whether they are coming back from injury, or trying to get back in the first team squad there are some useful players.

Maris Jucers could be in the net for them, having played 19 KHL last season and 16 the season before, plus a few appearances for Latvia as well.
Roberts Bukarts has only played once for the Juniors this season, but 128 KHL games at the age of 23!

One or two others have played a small number of KHL games as well.

[Panthers_44]

Oct 14, 2013 18:54:44 GMT OwenB said:

Hello folks,

All being well, BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing commentary online on all three Panthers matches this weekend.

I'll post links as and when they're live.

Wish me luck with the names . . .

Owne

Looks like you'll need all the luck you can get if you can't even get your own name right

[bill238]

Oct 14, 2013 9:23:47 GMT BigLad said:

Ditto. Can understand the Friday afternoon to some extent, but the numbers available is shocking.

What happened to all the Panthers fans that bought up other teams tickets for the PlayOffs the last few seasons??

Can't see it being held here again if the arena is empty.

Not really, the record for a round 2 game in the continental cup is just over 2,000 while most games are attended by a few hundred people max. We will break all the attendance records at this event and if anything the IIHF will want to host more things here in Nottingham

[OwenB]

Oct 14, 2013 20:28:57 GMT Panthers_44 said:

Oct 14, 2013 18:54:44 GMT OwenB said:

Hello folks,

All being well, BBC Radio Nottingham will be providing commentary online on all three Panthers matches this weekend.

I'll post links as and when they're live.

Wish me luck with the names . . .

Owne

Looks like you'll need all the luck you can get if you can't even get your own name right

That's the Latvian spelling of Owen

I'll see you down there Stef! Just hoping we get squad list ahead of time - the IIHF must have something by now.

O