Ice Hockey: Winning start is key to 2020 for EIHL teams

The Elite League may well have been the most open for the first half of the season, but now it’s getting serious.

The festive schedule marks the  transition into the business end of the campaign and, game by game, the league is starting to take shape.

As the dust from the Christmas-Ne'er schedules begins to settle, two distinct sub-sets are now evident.

The title contenders are, once again, the big four. 

Well, three plus Nottingham Panthers who like to hover on the edge rather like a fan trying to peer through the window to catch a glimpse of the action.

The mid-table is currently  the domain of Guildford and Coventry,  and that then leaves the race of the others -  Glasgow Clan, Fife Flyers, Manchester Storm and  Dundee Stars - for the final two play-off slots.

Six points separate the four clubs, with Clan also having games in hand.


On the evidence so far, they must be favourite to pull away from the chasing pack and find a comfortable spot in the play-off places.


While there is a lot of hockey yet to be played in a league where ‘shock’ results are so common they really don ‘t carry a shock factor, the backmarkers have all to play for - and everything to lose.


Two results over the Ne’er period also tightened the race considerably.


Storm’s 2-1 road win at Guildford Flames halted a grim five-game  losing streak which hit its low point with a 7-0 shut out at the hands of Sheffield Steelers.


The sequence did yield a couple of points through OT losses, but kept Manchester firmly in ninth slot.


One win and they are now tied on points with Flyers - a team  in freefall desperately trying to pull the parachute cord before it hits the ground.


Flyers’ wretched December run  hit a low point with a 5-1 loss in Braehead, and now they welcome Glasgow to Kirkcaldy this weekend.

Nothing less than redemption - in terms of a result and a performance - will appease a Kirkcaldy support which has grown increasingly tetchy at how this season has unfolded.

Flyers and Storm also go head to head in Altrincham on Saturday, January 18; a game that may well be crucial to their play-off hopes.

In fact it is one of a series of games between the bottom three scheduled between now and late March. That league within a league could make for fascinating watching and hopes ebb and, possibly, fade altogether.

The pressure begins this weekend with Fife at home to Clan and away to Cardiff - a rink which has delivered little in the way of tangible success over the years.

Storm have a home double header against Nottingham and Cardiff, while Dundee Stars, a team which has posted some eyebrow raising wins as well as flatlining and rarely shifting out of the bottom two, hit the road this weekend to Nottingham and Guildford - venues where previous visits ended in 6-1 and 7-1 drubbings respectively.


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