Banners On The Road – Solent Junior Devils vs Haringey Huskies 26/11/23
Posted: 29/11/2023 Filed under: Banners On The Road, NIHL | Tags: Banners On The Road, haringey huskies, NIHL, solent junior devils Leave a commentNIHL 2 South
Solent Junior Devils 3-2 Haringey Huskies
Devils: Harman pp, Peacock x2 (1sh)
Huskies: J. Hepburn, Tearall
Frozen thinking: So, it was back to Gosport for a different reason. When Saturday suddenly became very busy, my wife decreed that I needed to go to a game on Sunday and then in the fixtures, a gem that made sense.
I’d recently interviewed Harry Cloutman, Solent Devils defenceman at division 1 level and the youngest head coach in division 2 so the chance to see the Junior Devils and make that comparison to their big brothers.
On the other side, the Haringey Huskies. The Huskies had announced in the late summer that they intended to step up to South 1 for 2024/25, had been regularly selling out their home rink at Alexandra Palace and came into the game fresh off of a 12-0 destruction of the Streatham Blackhawks. Being another team that I’d never seen before, this seemed like a barn door game to go and attend.
It was a wet drive down the M27, outside the rink was wet and inside the Gosport Ice Arena, it was frigidly cold. I could feel the cold and damp slowly seeking into my bones and the rink coffee would only stave it off for so long. The excitement of something new would have to keep me warm.
A small contingent of Huskies fans had made the trip from North London and in total there were probably around 60 odd people in the rink, a mixture of friends, family and Devils fans who fancied keeping an eye on the second team.
It was also the first time for some time that I’d seen a two-man officiating system, Mr Brothwell and Mr Coyne were given the honour of this encounter but outside of division 1, this seemed reasonable.
I’d been warned by a Haringey supporting follower on Twitter that the Huskies struggled in 22/23 in the second half of back-to-back games. The game itself started in the way that all games in Gosport traditionally do; it was incredibly scrappy. The Huskies clearly had the players with the higher natural skill level and were trying to do something with that, only to be met with the Devils showing all the initial finesse of a tractor on a country road.
Eventually, a few penalties were called and after swapping powerplays, it seemed that the Huskies were starting to impose themselves on the game a little bit. They were forcing Rory Martin-Edwards in the Devils’ net to make a string of stops.
However, a powerplay the other way proved the initial difference. Jack Peacock was brought down by Cassius McCormack and whilst the powerplay didn’t get a chance to really set up, the breakout and a quick burst of speed up ice saw Peacock find Harvey Harman who snapped a very good wrist shot over the glove of Huskies’ goalie, Luke Clark to give the hosts a 1-0 lead at the end of the first.
The Huskies tried pressing early in the second, a Sam Roberts shot hitting the stick of Martin-Edwards and looping agonisingly open the goalie and the net. The visitors then were insistent that the puck had crossed the line after a shot clipped off of Martin-Edwards. Neither official was of the same opinion, neither I confess was this writer but an scuffle in front of the goal shortly afterwards saw the Devils’ Joe Silvester head to the box. The powerplay was decent but the lack of being clinical cost the Huskies again as the Devils went up the other end, this time Harman setting up Jack Peacock. Luke Clark got a piece of the shot but it wasn’t enough and it was a 2-0 lead for the hosts.
However shortly afterwards, the Huskies justifiably got themselves on the board. Having failed to be direct enough for the large swathes of the game, the first bit of really paid dividends. James Hepburn took Tom Avery’s pass and forced his way up the middle lane, taking the chance to backhand the puck over the glove side shoulder of Martin-Edwards.
The Huskies immediately turned up the pressure but the Devils responded to try and shut things down to retain the lead at the second break.
The visitors came racing out of the gate for the final frame and got an immediate result. Joe Tearall was on hand to slam the shot past Martin-Edwards from the low slot and within two minutes of the restart, the game was tied.
As you can imagine, the game then became very attritional and nervy, a tightly poised affair where the Huskies were pushing the pace and the hosts were happy to frustrate and wait for the right moment. The tempo was high and the physicality was high but nobody could seem to find the golden touch. The Devils weren’t really creating loads and the Huskies kept being frustrated by Martin-Edwards.
After Roberts hit the crossbar for Haringey, the visitors were given a golden chance. Graham Ruddick had been solid at the back for the hosts but a clumsy hit on Connor Smith was adjudged as a 5 minute boarding major. With 4.45 left to play in regulation, it meant Solent needing to see out the remainder of the 60 minutes a man down.
The Huskies powerplay, that had looked decent enough all night, went to work and went looking for the golden moment to win the game and keep the pressure on Peterborough and Guildford at the top. Instead, they were left to think about the one that got away. Jack Peacock, who had looked the best outskater for the hosts all night, powered his way out of the zone and bore down on Clark. The initial shot was saved but Clark was forced out of his net to the right to make the save. Peacock beat the backchecking defenders to the puck and his backhand shot beat Clark to make it 3-2 with less than two minutes to play.
The visitors kept pushing, called their timeout and pulled Clark from the net but they ran out of time. Rory Martin-Edwards was mobbed at the other end and after losing to Lee Valley the week before, the Devils had pulled off one of the upsets of the South 2 season.
The Haringey Huskies will be kicking themselves for losing this game. This was on a plate for them to win and they had all the momentum in the world after their dominating performance the night before. Unfortunately they ended up looking mentally a bit spent after putting in a lot of effort for little result.
Let’s get this straight, at this level Haringey are clearly very good. They appear to have a good mix of skill and grit, Luke Clark looks like a very handy goalie at this level as well. However the Huskies fell into the trap that Invicta fell into during one of the early editions of this series. You can’t play expansive, pretty, stick handling heavy hockey in the phone box that is Gosport. You have to be direct. You have to be less ballet style precision and more battering ram.
The Huskies were guilty of trying to do too much in too many ways and ended up paying the price for it. The counterargument will be that you don’t go into Solent’s rink and try to play Solent’s game because they’ll be better at it. It’s a fair point but sometimes you don’t need to add Worcestershire sauce or some greenery to anything fancy to a cheese toastie, you just need cheese, bread, butter and to toast it. What Haringey needed to try and do was focus the clear skill element of their roster more on getting pucks and quality shots on net rather than trying to stickhandle for the sake of it.
Cassius McCormak took the man of the match honours for what I call an industrious performance and I had no argument with that. The former Milton Keynes junior is finding his way in senior hockey and this was a good showing.
Harry Cloutman looked tired after the game but it was a very happy tired and it was justified. Following their loss to Lee Valley, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that this game would be one sided and even more so after Haringey gave Streatham an almighty kicking. Instead what we got was the antithesis of what they played against. They met skill with steadfastness.
The Junior Devils are a development team in the true sense of the word, an improving one, but where the Huskies have silverware in their plans, the Devils are there to get the players better. They don’t have the same level of skill as the Huskies but what they did was to not overcomplicate things. The hosts sought to frustrate and they frustrated. They sought to disrupt and they disrupted. They sought to hit on the counter and hit on the counter three times and then let Rory Martin-Edwards pick up the rest.
Some will wonder why Jack Peacock didn’t get man of the match and I did wonder this myself for a bit as he was arguably the most effective outskater across both sides and scored the game winner but Rory Martin-Edwards did face a ton of rubber and turned over 50 shots away from a team that has had multiple double digit wins this season.
The trick for the Devils going forward is some level of consistency in their play. It’s not fluctuating from good to baffling but the roster, all of them, learning how to do that week in and week out. However the entire team can take credit for this night. It was an excellent team performance that they should be proud of.
Lowlight of the night: The carbon monoxide monitor going off and the olympia being started up next to it probably didn’t help.
Highlight of the night: The game winner, superbly taken goal.
Banners On The Wall 