Cardiff ENL Devils 5, Chelmsford Chieftains 2
Report by Pete Lewis
THIS ENL1 (South) Play-off match was one in which both sides had something to lose. The Chieftains went into the game on an 8 game winning streak, while the Devils had split the two game series against Wightlink Raiders last weekend, albeit in dubious circumstances.
Wightlink allegedly iced an ineligible player, despite the league suggesting he could play and a 7-5 was overturned into a 0-0 draw with Cardiff being awarded the points.
Cardiff had the best of the early chances including Corey Watkins going close, but was denied by a good save from Ben Clements in Chieftains’ net.
Against the run of play, the Essex side notched the first goal of the game on the 8:19 mark when Jerry Pavlus slotted home past Mike Brabon to put the away team 1-0 up. Tim Burrows quickly hit back for the Devils when a bad bounce from the puck went past Rudi Dzurko's stick and Burrows was able to skate down the ice and put the puck past Clements.
Minutes later and it was 2-1 when Chris Jones took advantage of a gap in the Chieftains defensive line and beat Clements with a backhanded shot. Late in the period and a powerplay chance fell to Aaron Connolly who scored an excellent goal past Brabon to send the game into the first break at 2-2.
Tempers had been brewing up, mainly thanks to some inept officiating from Anthony Decaux who was seemingly losing control of the game by the minute.
This didn't seem to affect the deadly duo of Pavlus and Hammond who combined to give Pavlus a good chance, but another good save from Brabon denied the Chieftains a third goal.
The game was nicely poised at 2-2 with just a few minutes to go in the period when Jones netted his second when he saw a hole in the Chieftains backline and scored past Clements while the Devils were on another powerplay.
Early in the third and the game hit boiling point with an appalling hit on Chieftains defenceman Sean Easton by Jones who took a straight match penalty for charging into Easton along the boards and sending him headfirst into the plexi.
Brent Pope was doing his best to wind up the Chieftains fans by gesturing towards them and sad to say the fans reacted and their tirade at the Welsh side reached a deafening crescendo.
A procession of Chieftains players headed to the box, with the occasional Devil joining them, but generally speaking Decaux was doing all he could to seemingly turn the game in the Cardiff side’s favour.
An example being Pope skating into Rich Whiting with his stick up high and Whiting pushing the Canadian off him and the pair find themselves heading to the penalty box on roughing calls. With Alex Green and Blaho Novak in the box, Cardiff took advantage of the extra skaters and Elite league junior Ben Davies popped up to score on 55:59. 40 seconds later an he scored again to make it 5-2 and put the game beyond reach of the tiring Chieftains players.
The excitement was far from over though and as the final buzzer went a group of Devils players converged on Darren Brown.
Both sets of players piled onto the ice and a number of players paired off and fights began to break out over the ice with the main one being Aaron Connolly battering Chris Hart.
Other notable incidents were the two-handed slash on Whiting from Brabon from behind and Pope going after firstly Novak and then Hammond. Once he realised neither of those two were interested in fighting, he then chased down Pavlus and tried to get him to drop the gloves, however again nothing doing and it took Alex Green to step in to defend his non-fighting teammate.
It looked like it might take a while to get things sorted out as scuffles and gloves were being dropped across the ice and other scrums were forming. The officials stepped back and allowed the cooler heads to sort the events out and calm things down.
A commotion by the players benches resulted in BT Williams being manhandled off the ice by one of the linesmen as he was desperate to extract some revenge for the cheapshots his team had been up against al night long. What the linesman hadn't envisaged was players from Cardiff coming over and making snide remarks at a helpless Williams who was eager to give as much back as he could.
Speaking straight after the game, an annoyed head coach Dean Birrell said "We were unfortunate tonight with the officiating. It wasn't anywhere near up to scratch and he completely changed from midway through the second period.
“Up until that point he had reasonable control of the game and was calling a relatively fair game. After that it was downhill all the way and quickly descended into chaos and it's no surprise we saw the scenes we did at the end. We were happy to leave the game alone and get the handshakes and man-of-the-match awards over with, however the Devils looked like they came onto the ice with one thing in mind and that was to start trouble.
“We don't like to get involved in stuff like that, but we're not going to be pushed around and I was glad to see the boys sticking up for one another and showing we're not there to be taken advantage of.
"With regards to the game, we didn't play as well as we know we can do. We made a few mistakes and the Devils took advantage of them, whereas we didn't take advantage of what chances we were given. We will regroup and look at what happened tonight and make sure in the return match tomorrow night things don't go the same way.
“It's make or break night for the Chieftains and things will be on a knife-edge and I just hope we get a strong official who will be able to deal with the game in the right manner."