ENL - Whitley Warriors v Solihull Barons 8-4 - Sunday, February 28, 2016

Once again a big thank you to Bobby Dixon for supplying this weeks game report.
Well that was a fantastic 25 minutes and 30 seconds of hockey. It had everything the bumper crowd could wish for, 4 fights and 7 goals, the whole build up on social media was Payette v Doyle, I think majority of us forgot there was still a hockey game to be played, personally I didn't think the 2 of them would go in this game, boy was I wrong.
The 1st period got underway and it didn't take long for the fighting to start with just 98 seconds in the game gone, faceoff in warriors zone, Barnes and Heape squared off at the drop of the puck and fight number one took place, Barnes took a canny punch to the face that would have rocked many but he regained his composure and laced in to Heape 2+2 roughing for both men, then at 6 mins 4 seconds it happened, all of the hype and it took place, Pye put a decent hit on Doyle to which they squared up but nothing came of it but Payette came on for a line change and headed straight for Doyle and round 1 took place and unlike the hugfest down in Solihull this time blows were exchanged and some heavy blows to both men too, I gave it to Payette but wasn't really a 1 sided fight, linesman scraped Doyle's blood off the ice and both men served 2+2 for roughing, although you could see in the penalty box that these 2 guys weren't finished with each other as the talking continued throughout their stay in the box, then at 12:23 gone in the period round 2 happened out of nowhere they grabbed each other and went at it again, this time a more convincing victory for Andre, again more blood needed scraped off the ice and again referee Steve Wardell dished out 2+2 roughing calls to the big men, then we seem to remember there was a hockey game to be played, Tinsley scored a lovely goal assisted by Longstaff and Kippin, just over a minute later Richard Crowe equalised for the Barons and what a hit it was, slapshot from the blue-line which pinged in off the bar, Smedley grabbed the 2nd for the warriors with a lovely wrist shot, was a great dummy shot to fool everyone (he meant it honest) then at the 2nd attempt fired it in on goal and evaded everyone in front of the net including the Barons netminder to make it 2-1, Warriors made it 3-1 soon after when Joe Stamp hit a rocket of a shot to beat the keeper assisted by Reynolds and Barnes. We soon made it 4-1 when Dean Holland scored assisted by Watson and Good, 4-1 on the scoreboard and 3-0 in fights certainly was an entertaining 1st period.
The 2nd period got underway and it took us just 42 seconds to increase our lead to 5-1 with Tinsley scoring assisted by Longstaff and Kippin. In the 25th minute Watson scored a powerplay marker assisted by DJ and Tinsley, then at 25:30 Cooper fell awkwardly at the boards, I honestly didn't see the incident but apparently he fell and hit his chin off the top of the boards which I guess caused a whiplash style injury, Doyle was 1st man over to see if he was OK after the ref finally blew his whistle to stop the play, and as I've said on numerous occasions we are not privy to what is said on the ice but something incensed Andre, he was really angry and shoved the linesman out of the way to get to Doyle and round 3 took place, whilst there was some heavy blows thrown by both guys, they were clearly tired and ended hugging it out, honours even in that contest, meanwhile Cooper lay motionless on the ice, as soon as the fight was over Gail [physio] could get on to see to him, it soon became apparent that this wasn't just a minor knock, both teams were sent back to the dressing room while we waited for ambulance crew to arrive to attend to Scott, 35 minutes it took for them to get there and see to him which seems very excessive especially for a suspected spinal injury.
With such a long delay and the Barons obviously wanting to get away as they had a long drive home it was decided that the remaining 14:30 of the 2nd period and 3rd period would be played without the 2nd intermission and no cutting of the ice to be done in-between, we then got the announcement we all thought was going to happen Payette and Doyle both getting match penalties for fighting, which means we will be without Andre for the game versus Solway. The break done us no favours and we seemed to lose the intensity we had built up and the Barons capitalised on this and in the 27th minute grabbed one back when Niklas Ottosson scored a well worked goal, and at 35:55 the Barons made it 6-3 Tomas Janek fired another off the frame and into the net. I for one was starting to worry in the stands as the Barons looked to be getting the upper hand but when DJ good scored after 39 minutes that seem to stop the Barons in their tracks and we were looking comfortable again, the game was just cruising along by this point and I think both sets of players were just happy to get this game over with and it took until the 57th minute for another goal to be scored with DJ Good grabbing his brace assisted by Kyle Ross, the Barons got a consolation goal in the 58th minute when Josh Bruce scored for them.
On to the most baffling part of the game, the man of the match awards.
Warriors MOTM went to captain Jamie Tinsley, which was fair enough he had a canny game grabbing 2 goals and 2 assists
The baffling part was Barons MOTM which went to Perry Doyle, he lasted 25:30 into a 60 minute game, lost 2 fights and drew the 3rd, there was some players who put in decent shifts for the Barons and Doyle wasn't really one of them, I know it's a text vote but what possessed people to vote for Doyle, crazy in my opinion.
Next game is the last home game of the season, lets hope we can remain unbeaten at home.


Other Results
Saturday, February 27
Telford v Billingham 3-4
Solway v Solihull 7-5


Sunday, February 28
Billingham v Sheffield Spartans 7-3