Report by new sledge hockey superfan, Wendy Wigger
Firstly you have to know I am NOT an Ice Hockey geek or fan, never watched a real game, the little I know about Ice Hockey comes from years of watching films like Youngblood and The Mighty Ducks over and over again.
So why Sledge Hockey? I was watching some highlights of the Sochi Winter Paralympics and saw a clip and it immediately caught my attention. I watched the Semi Finals and the Final and thought “I want to see me some of this”. I was totally blown away by the game and the athletes.
I found that there was a small UK League which I was thrilled about, so researched a little more and found 4 active teams in the UK - Peterborough Phantoms, Kingston Kestrels, Manchester Phoenix and Cardiff Devils, by which time I was disheartened as I live down south and have a major anxiety about driving long distance (for me that’s over 70 miles).
But I found the teams on Twitter and some of the players and decided that I would take Peterborough Phantoms as my team as they were the nearest to me. When the league dates got posted I gave myself a challenge to go and see one of the Phantoms home games because I really did want to actually watch a game and not just support them. I enlisted a friend to come with me as co-pilot but a week before the game she let me down, so I was having a mini melt down on twitter and all the sledge hockey community on there were so helpful and supportive and Phantoms asked me to name Man of the Match, so now I had to go (only joking).
My 16 year old daughter said that she would come with me instead. We live in Croydon which is on the South London/Surrey boarder, so we set off early, I gave us about 5hrs of travel time, and we landed at Planet Ice Peterborough with about 1.5 hrs to spare so we did the public skating session - we had brought our skates just in case. Then the lights went on and the teams came in. We sat intensely watching the warm up and the first thing I noticed was, there was only a small amount of players, I expected there to be at least 10 on each team.
The game started and I have to be honest I had a little trouble keeping up at first, I had read the rules online previously and I think I was concentrating too much, Phantoms scored the first goal and I didn’t actually see who scored it. The puck was passed around the ice quickly and with skill, the play moved from one end of the rink to the other, although I did feel at least in the first period that Phantoms had more of the puck. We also scored our second goal and I saw it this time it was scored by #13, Gary Farmer.
I enlisted the help of my daughter for the Man of the Match, my first thoughts by the end of the 1st period were #13 [Gary Farmer] and #07 [Matt Coleman] for Phantoms and #04 [Matt Woollias] and #07 [Ian Warner] for Kestrels. These guys just seemed to be everywhere - including the penalty box. Well #13 and #07 for Phantoms were.
Second period was just as good, the play again went from one end to the other, both teams had shots on goals that were saved by the goalies, there were plenty of body checking and skillful playing, they make gliding round on the ice look easy - but I bet it isn’t. By the end Phantoms were still winning by 2 goals to 0 (Go Phantoms).
Third period and although you could see the guys were understandably getting worn out as the Kestrels only had 1 extra player that they could change up with and the Phantoms had 2, so these guys were on the ice continuously, the battles were good and lead to a few tense moments around the Phantoms goalie who did a great job not to let any Kestrel goals in, by the end of the game I was getting quite involved in the play and shouting a few things.
My daughter by this time was cheering for the Kestrels (or the Minstrels as she was calling them), which was great actually, because we were oohing and aaahing for different reasons.
So the final score was Phantoms 2 - Kestrels 0, but it was a very even game it could have gone either way.
As for Man of the Match #13 Phantoms stood out initially the most, he was everywhere, he scored the goals, did penalty box time and hit the puck over the barrier into the spectators. #07 Phantoms stood out also much for the same reasons, he seemed to everywhere. But so did #04 Kestrels as again he seemed to be involved in lots of plays, so I chatted with my daughter and she said that as I came here as a Phantoms fan I probably shouldn’t really pick a Phantoms player, so I picked #04 Kestrels.
The funniest moment of the match was when one of the Phantoms players got checked in the middle of the rink and proceeded to lay on his back with sledge facing upwards and his arms out either side - he looked like he was just having a relax in the middle of the rink.
I also had the pleasure of chatting to Matthew Coleman who I now know is player #7 of Phantoms after the game, (who could have been chosen as my Man of the Match) he couldn’t have been more appreciative of the fact that I had come all that way to support them.
So all in all - it was soooooo worth it, I loved every minute of if it. I did drive a 250 mile round trip in one day that is a first for me and I will be doing it again at their next home game in August. Their next game is on June 14th in Manchester against Manchester Phoenix for which I am just about to book train tickets for. My original plan to just go and watch 1 home game has gone right out of the window, I intend to go watch as many of their games as I can, them being up north, now just means I get to see more of the country. (or maybe just the ice rinks).
So watch out Phantoms you have a new groupie and I would recommend everyone to go and watch a game.
