The stats will be available from the first round once I remember to bring them in from home and pass them onto our statistician. Duh me.

I emailed you a contact list yesterday evening. Did you get it?

Ooh yes, we’re under way again, with a new streamlined, smooth-as, DIHL. Four B grade teams vying for… y’know. Winning lots of games and gloating over the other three teams.

Let’s run through the teams:

John McGlashan: Defending champions Jonnies return to defend their B grade title. They’ve dropped a couple of top players out of the team, and picked up a couple of young’uns, but Leask in goal is an improving player and is going to be a big help to them. Jonnies work hard on their hockey and the kids have a bit of a profile up at the school, so they’ll be going all guns again. A little bit of settle down and play the game rather than the player, and they’re going to be hard to beat this year.

Beasts: Losing finalists last year, Beasts are back and just as strong. They’ll be looking to do one better this year, and they’ve picked up another ex-field hockey goalie to help them out – Neil Dudley, younger brother of 2006’s Mark. There’s a big lineup of solid players – Li, Sedgwick, Noble, Hareb, Mitchell and they’re my pick for the title.

Bears: A mishmash of Peewees, midgets, parents, odd-bod students and whoever else accidentally filled in a piece of paper, the Bears will struggle this year, but they’ll have great fun doing it. Children will laugh as their parents wipe out into each other, and they’ll play 100%, and might push a couple of the better teams at times. Watch for American exchange student Tess, DIHL regular Hellyer, Kinraid, and Roth the younger, who’s been cutting up the ice in the peewees for the past couple of years. He can score a few goals, and might clock up some assists as well.

Kings: Kings are back and looking solid as ever. A couple of new players, but a lot of the team that placed third in 2006 are still there. Watch out for King, Bodnardvik (is that spelt right?), and Auton, all of whom scored a fair bit last year. Goalie Williams has been around the scene for a while, and should be looking for some good numbers this DIHL.

Picks!

Yes, we know you all love it.

Jonnies vs Beasts: Kinda serious for first up, I didn’t plan it that way, honest! Teams are going to take the first week to settle themselves down, but I know the Beasts have been building for a big season, with playing in the Southern Ice Hockey League Senior Non-checking as well. Jonnies are a good team, and will be wanting a victory first up over their major rivals for the title. Key for Beasts – taking advantage of when they’re on the powerplay – good puck control, keeping the pressure on, and getting it on net, and putting the rebounds away. Key for Jonnies – keeping those opportunities down, and looking to their better players to make the Beasts goalie have a bad night. My pick: Beasts 5-3.

Kings vs Bears: I think both these teams are going to be off to a bit of a cold start, and it’ll take a while for them to sort their systems out and figure out who should go where. Key for Bears – working well as a team, they don’t have the skaters that can go coast to coast, but some of them might think they can. This ain’t peewees/midgets, this is big person hockey, and good passing and working on assists as much as goals is important. Getting players to the net and making good shots and putting away rebounds is key. For Kings, not so much. They’ve got some players who can cut up the ice pretty well, so they’ll be looking to get those players out in the open and away, and see how the Bears goalie copes. Special note for Peewees goalie Jaimee Wood, who’s fronting up and facing some serious offence coming her way, hope she has a good game. Kyle’s pick: Kings 7-2.

Well I’m not sure what further practices they’re planning to put into the schedule. The new things are the powerskating classes, one of them is going into Tuesday night, the other into Sunday morning, but as far as I know both those times are already set.

I urged a principle to be adopted of keeping practices away from time periods where people are playing games. So B grade games shouldn’t be on a night when practices are on that involve B grade players (peewees, midgets, adult beginners, high schools). Adult beginners refused to move however, so there’s a clash which I suspect doesn’t help either the beginners or the DIHL B grade.

If practices and games need to be on the same night, then they should cross over. So Prems practice on a night when B grade games are on, and Peewees practice on a night when A grade games are on. It’s mostly worked out that way, but not perfectly.