The pointy end of the season is truly upon us. The Blue Tongues have wrapped up their home games for the season and now have just 4 games left to play, all against tough opponents in even tougher venues.
As it stands right now the Blue Tongues are in 4th position on the ladder, just 1 point ahead of the Adelaide Adrenaline and 7 points back from a 3rd place Sydney Ice Dogs. The Adrenaline are the biggest threat for the Tongues and have the advantage of an easier schedule.
Here is how the 2 teams break down of the final 4 games including the record against those teams this season.
Gold Coast Blue Tongues
Away – Melbourne Ice (1 win, 1 loss, 1 shootout loss)
Away – Melbourne mustangs (3 wins)
Away – Newcastle North Stars (2 losses)
Away – Newcastle North Stars
Adelaide Adrenaline
Away – Canberra Knights (1 win, 1 loss)
Away – Sydney Bears (1 shootout win, 2 wins)
Home – Canberra Knights
Home – Sydney Ice Dogs (1 win, 2 losses)
The Blue Tongues don’t really have any easy teams to face, except maybe the Mustangs.
Tobias Falk has been consistently good all season for the Tongues and deserves to be #1 choice for team MVP
They know they can defeat the Ice as this last weekend showed, and they have the confidence of knowing that they can compete with the Ice down in Melbourne. The North Stars are the key to this series I believe, as the Tongues history against Newcastle, in Newcastle has not been good at all over the years. That said, Matt Ezzy has been very normal this season so as long as our boys can bring the firepower they should compete. The last time they played the North Stars they did so without a full roster and zero team chemistry, so the next 2 games could be vastly different. The Tongues should pick up a win against the Mustangs and I believe they should pick up a win against the North Stars. That gives a short estimate of at least 6 of a possible 12 points.
The Adrenaline on the other hand are playing well and have a relatively easy run of things. The Bears are an easy team for them based on past history with the Knights and Ice Dogs being the key to their season. The game against the Bears will almost certainly be a win (although would love it not be). The Ice Dogs I believe will win once again and based on games this season they should split the 2 games against the Knights. That gives the Adrenaline a short estimate of 6 points from 12.
If both teams pick split their series, the Tongues will remain 1 point ahead and will secure that finals spot.
Right now it’s too close to call.
With just 4 games left in the regular season for our Blue Tongues, and all 4 of them against the Newcastle Northstars, the Tongues have just one thing on their mind… turn out the lights on the boys from Twinkletown!
Matches between the Northstars and Blue Tongues has always been some of the best hockey to watch, and these last few games shall be no different. The Northstars bring with them a strong offensive lineup and solid netminding from Matt Ezzy (product of Gold Coast Ice Hockey, btw). The Blue Tongues bring size, grit and a strong offensive scoring punch from imports Mike McRae and Dallas Costanzo. This season the Blue Tongues have a new weapon however. One that could play a huge role in these final 4 games; Reese Kalleitner. Reese has been solid in all his games played this season, and looks to continue his domination between the pipes this weekend.
Going into this weekends games, the Northstars have just 8 regulation wins, but have managed to pull off a whopping 7 shootout victories, ensuring their place in the standings with 39 points! The Blue Tongues have 9 wins and 1 shootout victory and currently sit tied for 4th spot with 30 points. While the Stars have put up more goals this season, the goals against for both teams (62 & 66 respectively) are both in the top 3 in the league.
The current standings are:
| TEAM | GP | W | L | OTW | OTL | D | PTS | GF | AVG | GA | AVG | PCT | L10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newcastle North Stars | 18 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 39 | 85 | 4.70 | 62 | 3.40 | 0.722 | 7-1-0-1-0 |
| Melbourne Ice | 18 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 35 | 90 | 5.00 | 52 | 2.90 | 0.648 | 4-4-0-0-0 |
| Adelaide Adrenaline | 20 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 86 | 4.30 | 75 | 3.80 | 0.533 | 3-2-0-2-0 |
| Gold Coast Blue Tongues | 18 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 69 | 3.80 | 66 | 3.70 | 0.556 | 4-4-0-1-0 |
| Sydney Bears | 19 | 9 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 30 | 55 | 2.90 | 77 | 4.10 | 0.526 | 5-4-0-1-0 |
| Canberra Knights | 18 | 5 | 11 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 68 | 3.80 | 83 | 4.60 | 0.315 | 2-6-0-2-0 |
| Sydney Ice Dogs | 19 | 3 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 55 | 2.90 | 93 | 4.90 | 0.211 | 2-7-0-1-0 |
The AIHL finals last weekend hosted some of the most exciting hockey many fans have seen, not to mention the sellout crowd to see the Gold Coast Blue Tongues make their first ever appearance in the AIHL finals. The Blue Tongues lost to the North Stars, who in turn lost to the 2009 AIHL Champions, the Adelaide Adrenaline in what was fast paced, end-to-end hockey.
The weekend however was not without controversy. Going into the weekend, Blue Tongues fans were aware that the veteran Milan Novysedlak would be starting in net, a move which had fans and opponents alike wondering “WTF?”. It turned out, this sentiment was not had by only Tongues fans.
- Fans feel Milan robbed Fiveash out of his goalie spot
Saturday evening during the first intermission between the Blue Tongues and North Stars I had a number of North Stars fans ask why the Blue Tongues regular season starter, Luke Fiveash, was not in net. We could only shrug of course, because that question is one we’d like to know the answer to also.
It must be said that Milan played a solid game in net on Saturday, and this blog post is not designed to take anything away from him or his game, merely to beg the question as to why he got the nod over Luke Fiveash.
According to the AIHL website, Luke Fiveash played 14 games this season (7W, 6L + 1 game where we lack correct stat data), averaging just 2.97 goals against and putting up an 88.86% save percent. He had the best GAA of all starting netminders (those who played 50% or more of their teams games). His save percent was equal to that of Newcastles Matt Ezzy. Luke also outplayed Matt Ezzy in 2 games earlier this season on the gold coast, only to have the defense let him down resulting in 2 shootout losses.
Compare this to Milan, who played 4 regular season games (3W, 1L), having missed the majority of the season due to a bad injury. His first game back after that injury was a bad 9-3 loss to the Melbourne Ice just 2 weeks ago.
OneNorth Stars fan commented that they were shocked that the Blue Tongues would play Milan when Luke was not only ready to play, but had already proven his ability to take on the North Stars. I had similar comments come from Ice, Ice Dogs, Bears and Adrenaline fans, as well as 2 business owners in the Newcastle region.
Since the game, there are rumours floating around that Milan may be announcing his retirement. Could this be connected to why he started? I don’t know. I feel for Luke. He’s a solid netminder who is a solid team guy, always doing what’s asked of him and never complaining. He helped carry the team to the playoffs, fans would have liked to see him where we believe he belongs; between the pipes.
In less than 2 days time, old friends, trans-tasmin brothers, and fellow ANZACs will go into battle to defend their countries honor. No, i’m not talking about the Bledisloe Cup, i’m referring to the Australian representative team heading over to face off against the Kiwis in a 2-game Ice Hockey matchup!
Unlike the Bledisloe, where the All Blacks are by far the better team (go on, admit it, you know it’s true), the Ice Blacks are not so fortunate. Over the years, they have never beaten Australia, something that as a fellow kiwi, i can’t say i’m all too pleased about.
So how is this year different to any other year? Well, the Aussie team is not actually THE Aussie team, instead it’s a rep team put together from the Newcastle North Stars and Sydney Bears AIHL teams. This rep team isn’t just some mix-match either, they have some solid import players such as John Halverson and great Australian local players in Rubes, Stransky and Matt Ezzy.
That said, the Kiwis are ready. They know they’re the underdog, and they’re ok with that. One thing is certain, this coming weekend things will heat up on the Ice in Dunedin, NZ!
