Thanks to all of the helpers who have made this competition possible. Particularly Jane Soper who organised the entire event. The scorers for scoring, the equipment shed volunteers for keeping our new players geared up, Kyle Matthews for technical advice and head referee Phil Handcock for making sure the league was always provided with excellent referees.

The semi’s are over, so the 3rd-6th placed teams are just playing some friendly games this week.

Friendly Game 1: Jets vs John McGlashan

John McGlashan has had it’s ass handed to it on a plate this season. They’ve gone from being one of the strongest teams during the previous two seasons to getting totally whooped in every game. They began to redeem themselves last week with a hard fought game vs the Bears, but they still didn’t look like winning and ended the game 3-0 down. This week however they’re breaking out the big guns! Since this game doesn’t count for jack all apart from pride, Stampede player Stefan King is gearing up to bolster their team. The Jets are a much stronger team than the bears, but will have their work cut out slicing their way past Stefan and had better make sure they can score when he’s not in the ice or they’ll be in trouble. My Pick, 4-1 to Jets. Two goals to Sedgwick, Noble and Reymond to share one apiece, Owens to score zero goals coz he doesn’t exist and Wilson to score off an assist from Wick.

Friendly Game 2: Kings vs Bears

Kings are straight off a soul destroying win to the Bullfrogs and will be looking to sink a few goals into the Bears net. The Bears lost 4-2 to Kings last time they played and will be looking to improve on that this time around. The key for the Bears will be holding the ruthless attack of the Kings forwards. My pick 3-2 to Kings. Woodhouse, Mitchell and Harrison King to pick up the goals for Kings, Wood and Ronayne to pick up the Bears goals, Hellyer to look like an idiot with a camera stuck to his head.

FINALS: Bullfrogs vs Sharks

Ohhh, the big game is here!

The Sharks have been a ruthless goal scoring, soul destroying machine all season long. With some uber awesome coaching from veteran Richard Sykes, no weak links, some serious fire power up front and the most experienced (relaxed?) goalie in the league, they’ll be looking to stomp the gribbit right out of the Bullfrogs once and for all. The key for the Sharks will be ensuring that their speedy forwards can make it past the solid Bullfrogs defense.

The Bullfrogs started the season with a draw against the previous seasons wooden spooners, the Bears. But with a couple of extra recruits, some extremely aggressive defensive work, good team work and the best full-time goalies in the league, they’ve managed to make their way through to have a chance for glory in the big finals game. The key for the Bullfrogs will be ensuring both their defense and goalies can stop Laing from scoring.

My Pick:

The Bullfrogs to shutdown Laing and the Sharks attack nicely to only let goals in from Regan Wilson and Johnstone. The Sharks to let in two goals, one from a goal-line to goal-line waddle from Phipps-Black, another from a pass from Hareb straight across the goal for a tip in off the far post from Honore. Final score 2-2 to put them into sudden death overtime. Laing to get two and both Wilsons to get one minor penalty each, no goals will be scored. Then the big game will be down to a shootout. They’ll be neck and neck until Laing shoots and scores to win the Dunedin Ice Hockey League B-grade Spring 2007 season for the Sharks.

Wooden Spoon – Bears vs John McGlashan

My pick: 10-0 to Bears

An overestimate this one! Despite John McG’s insistence that they would get thumped in this game without some help, they have proven themselves wrong by putting up some solid defense against the Bears onslaught. The Bears were missing a little firepower as Roth and Patchett seniors were off galavanating round doing whatever it is that they do when they’re not playing hockey (curling for Roth senior apparently!?) and four of their players were still recovering from a VERY tiring pink field hockey game the night before. An easy chip in by Hellyer and some goals from both Patchetts (I think) rounded out a 3-0 game. Wick had a blinder in goal, ticking Hellyer right off by stymying (sp?) his deft deke around three players, deke the goalie and backhand it over their leg pads move by coming about a meter out of the goal.

Congratulations to the Bears who are now the official second last place winners in the DIHL Spring 2007 season. Woot!

Semi-final numero uno – Sharks vs Jets

My pick: 4-0 to Sharks. Kliegl, both Wilsons and Johnstone to pick up the goals.

7-1 to Sharks in the end. The Jets were looking pretty solid for a while, holding the Sharks out 1-0 for quite a while, but then the Sharks got their groove on and decimated the Jets as expected. The Sharks are certainly look the class act of the DIHL Spring 2007, but the Büllfrögs who they will be facing in the finals next week are looking like much tougher opposition now than they were the last time the Sharks face them.

Semi-final numero duo – Büllfrögs vs Kings

My pick: 1-1, goals will go to Läïng and Dilkes.

Jeepers! My prediction was a bit off here. The Bullfrogs fought an aggressive game and shut down the Kings forwards nicely. Congratulations to both McDonald and Dudley Snr who’s deft goalie skills prevented Läing from scoring any goals whatsoever. If the Bullfrogs rapid aggressive improvements continue at their current pace, we may yet see someone challenge the mighty Sharks as numero uno in the DIHL Spring 2007 season!

Christos finally ended Toby’s chance of a shutout by putting the Jets on the board, just 30 seconds after Paavo’s goal to make the score 3-1. The Sharks regained their three goal cushion thanks to James and his blistering slap shot from the point to round off the 1st period scoring with the score sitting at 4-1 in favour of the Sharks.The 2nd period saw a rejuvenated Jets team. What ever Bode told them, it seemed to work as they came out guns blazing. First was Chris Sangster cutting the sharks lead to 4-2. A minute later, Watson cut the deficit to one goal and got the score to 4-3. However, that would be the closest the Jets would get in the game as James increased the lead to 5-3 with another tally with 13 minutes to go. Stefan put the score to 6-3 with eight minutes to go in the 2nd. Late I the period, O’Keefe took the puck off the face-off and had a wonderful end to end goal to make the score 6-4 and round off the second period scoring. The Jets did have a power play at 7:08 when Larry Wheeler took a holding penalty. The Sharks were able to shut them down and limit them to just one shot on the power play.

In the 3rd, the Sharks kicked it up a gear. A minute and fifteen seconds in, James gave the Sharks a commanding 7-4 lead with his hat trick goal. Watson cut the lead to 7-5 with his tally with ten minutes to go, but it wasn’t enough as the sharks went on to score two unanswered goals from Kemp, to get him the hat trick, and Stefan late in the game. Near the end, the game started to get rough, but Referee Nigel Dobson said both teams were equally bad and he was al for the flowing game. He did comment that the game was a lot better played and made his life easier with not having to hand out any penalties. Andre also took a deflected puck in the face that left a cut on his face. It’s all about the sacrifice in this series.

The Sharks will look to sweep the series next Tuesday night, August 7th at 8:30.

By Ryan Wick

Early in the third period Sangster #16 made a break for the net, he entered the zone with tremendous speed and managed to drop pass the puck to Phillip Bennett # 3, who slammed the puck past Toby closing the gap to a 4-3 lead by the Sharks. The Jets had a lucky break, when Toby decided to give us a present and knocked one in for the opposition giving the Jets a 4-4 tie with 3 minutes to go. Feisty Canadian Joe Sales decided to spend his last Kiwi hockey moments in the sin bin, Paavo could see Joes disappointment and decided to join him, when Paavo received a delay of game penalty. It was time to turn on the Jets, as they were on a 5 on 3 power play with 1 min. to go! The Jets gained the zone and were moving the puck around, when there was a slight mix up at the blue line (by slight I mean … big mistake) by the Jet defense, however this mistake was defiantly due to the fact that the ice was not cleaned between periods creating a snow build up. James van Leeuwen #4 crashed through and ended up on a breakaway with 10 seconds remaining. Nick Metzger made an honest attempt but James got lucky and poked it past him giving the Sharks the 5-4 lead with only 3 seconds to go. ( it was a conspiracy between the van Leeuwens as Hans conveniently was busy for the ice clean between the 2nd and 3rd period)

For the record the feisty Canadian Joe Sales was on the ice for the goal!! (He needs all the + he can get) JOE, you will be missed by everyone!!

It was a close game at the end and both teams battled it out considering most of us were recovering from the Erewhon cup weekend. Well done guys and girls!!

By Jenel Bode