Mid Season Report

11 games into the 2011-12 season, and the Stars today moved into joint top of the NIIHA league. Its been a while since our last report, during which time the team has played 1o games, recording 7 wins 2 losses and 1 draw. On Sunday 9th October the Stars played their first home games of the season where the Belfast Bruins and Bangor Chiefs were the opposition. In the first game of the day the Stars recorded a 9:2 victory over the Bruins. This game saw the return of Martin Olas and Kornel Szabo to the Stars linup. Olas offcourse has been the club and leagues top scorer for two years in a row and returned to the lineup having missed the first game of the season. Szabo hadnt played in a Stars jersey since the 2009-10 season after a long standing knee injury, nither looked like they had missed any time from the game with both influencial in an impressive victory.

Game two of the day say the Bangor Chiefs ruffle a few feathers with their high intensity forechecking style. Denis Kurelass was in top form between the pipes for the Chiefs and continually frustrated the Stars attack who had by far the most scoring chances but Kurelass was giving his team a chance to win. The Chiefs played the counter attack well and took advantage of a powerplay oppurtunity and penalty shot to tie the game at 2:2. With minutes left in the game the Stars scored their 3rd of the game, but nither referee could confirm the puck had gone in and it was waved off. Afterwards it was indicated that it was a good goal but it wasnt to be on the day and the team had to settle for a 2:2 draw and 3 points from the days efforts.

On the 30th October the Stars travelled to Bangor to take on the Bangor Chiefs and East Coast Blaze. First up was East Coast Blaze who were the league leaders at the time and high on confidence. ECB were 2:0 up within the first few minutes while the Stars struggled to put passes together. The team didnt panic and by the half way mark of the first period had tied the game. The rest of the game was a back and forth afair with both teams leading at various times. ECB got momentum with 7 minutes remaining and notched two quick goals to take an extended lead. Much to the annoyance of the Stars management the team seemed to accept defeat and allowed ECB to dominate the remaing minutes of the game to eventually win 9:6.

Having recieved a stern talking to at the end of the ECB game the Stars were a very different team in the Chiefs game later that day. Again the chiefs proved tough competition but the Stars competed harder than any other game so far this season and recorded a very good 5:3 win.

On the 6th November the Stars travelled for their first round of games at the Valley Leisure centre this season. The first game of the day saw the team take on the Bruins. Jody Williamson started between the pipes for the Stars and had one of his best ever games, frustrating the Bruins throughout the whole game. This was a total team effort by the Stars with some excellent hockey played throughout the game. Final score 8:6.

Later that day the Stars took on the league leading Northern Cyclones for the second time this season. The team had been struggling with consistancy since the start of the season and the performance vs the Cyclones could not have been more different from the earlier game of the day. From the start of the game the Cyclones dominated all aspects of the game and found themselves several goals infront by the half way mark of the first half. The Stars did manage to get a couple of goals back but never managed to claw the scoreline back with the Cyclones well worth their 7:3 victory.

Sunday the 20th November could potentially have been a devastating day for the teams aspirations this season, at one stage it looked as if the team would have to forfeit the two games scheduled for the day due to a fundraising walk organised on that day for teammate Sean Eoghan Mc Caffrey who had just got home after 7 months in hospital following his bad car accident. The league didn’t allow the clubs games to be raarranged but they did allow the time of the games to be altered to allow time for the club to get back to Armagh for the walk. As a result the Stars travelled to Bangor for an 8:45am start vs the Bangor Chiefs followed by a game straight away vs East Coast Blaze. The first game of the day for the Stars was a relatively comfortable encounter for the team, with the Chiefs missing their star netminder. A 3:1 scoreline at halftime showed the energy and effort the underpar Chiefs put into the game, but the Stars stepped up a gear in the second period to record a comfortable 10:2 victory.

Dispite only getting 5 minutes rest between games the team managed to record their first double wins of the season with an impressive hard fought win over East Coast Blaze. Indiscipline on the Blaze team allowed the Stars a large number of powerplay oppurtunities which they capitalised on a number of times. The team earned a 6:3 final score and a valuable 4 points from the day in what was by far the teams best games of the season to date.

Today (20th November) saw the teams second round of home games when they welcomed the Belfast Bruins and East Coast Blaze to Dungannon Leisure Centre. The Stars came up against a much improved Bruins team who dominated large portions of the game. Kornel Szabo was in good form in the Stars nets, while the top line was leading the teams productivity. The Bruins where two goals up early in the game which forced the Stars to alter their lines slightly. The changes seemed to help with the Stars getting back into the game by the half way mark. The game was wide open the whole 40 minutes with both teams making use of the bigger court and playing some good hockey. A five minute period of pressure proved to be the turning point for the Stars early in the second half when they started to pull away and dug deep to record a 9:7 victory.

In the second game of the day the Stars took on ECB for the second weekend in a row. ECB were under strength only fielding 6 skaters in the game. It the Stars thought they were going to have it easy due to the numbers they were wrong. ECB showed great desire and team effort to cause problems from start to finish. This certainly wasnt the teams best game of the season, but again the team responded positively to the managements concerns from the earlier game of the day and were fairly comfortable for most of the game. A 10-6 scoreline wrapped up a good days work for the team and extended their winning streak to 4 games, while also taking them joint top of the table for the first time this season.

The team now has no more games until January 8th when they take on fellow league leaders the Northern Cyclones and the Belfast Bruins in what is sure to be another exciting day of hockey. Player coach Stephen Lynch said:

11 games into the season im very happy to be sitting where we are right now. We didnt set an specific targets this season as we knew we were in a rebuilding phase with some new faces coming into the lineup. The most pleasing thing right now is how the team is grinding out results. We didnt play well today, and dispite being down a few goals at times we never panicked. With 13 games left in the season there is a long way to go and there will be ups and downs to come.

This is a very interesting season with all teams capable of beating each other on any given day. Right now ourselves and the Cyclones have a few points on the rest but its only a couple of wins away from flipping the tables so we just take each game as it comes and be happy where we are for now.

Stephen Lynch

Related posts:

1. New season off and running
2. Stars blowout cyclones
3. 7 Game Winning Streak!
4. Big win for Stars
5. Stars extend winning streak to 3

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