nedeľa 30. októbra 2011

Tisport Extraliga Round 17 Recap: Crazy Hockey Night under the Tatras

Well, it seems that a number of Slovak Extraliga teams got inspirated by this week´s Flyers-Jets 8:9 game and decided to play some highscoring games in tonight´s 17th round of Tipsport Extraliga. (Although the caziest hockey score of the week still belongs to the Polish league with Krakow´s 18-1 win over Nesta Toruń).

HK NITRA- SLOVAN BRATISLAVA 6:7 Click to view the stats from the game on SZĽH website
The game that reminds one of the Flyers-Jets game the most is the match between HK Nitra and Slovan Bratislava, which ended with a 6:7 win for Slovan. Things looked bright early on for Nitra as they were already up 3:0 in the 12th minute of the first period. Howeer it all changed into a nightmare of the Nitrans very fast as Slovan managed to score 4 goals in less than 3 minutes between 15:42 and 18:12 of the 1st period to turn things around. The closest that Nitra came to winning after that was when they tied the game 4:4 about two minutes before the end of period 1. However Slovan went on to win the game 6:7 led by Miroslav Šatan, who recorded a hattrick.

HC KOŠICE- HK 36 SKALICA 4:7 Click to view stats from the game on SZĽH website
HC Košice, who have won three consecutive championships, but who have been struggling at the start of this season welcomed the surprising ranking leaders from Skalica, who were led by Žigo Pálffy. Despite the SOG being even at 37:37 it seems that Skalica handled Košice pretty easily leading already 2:6 after two periods.

HK POPRAD- HKM ZVOLEN 8-1 Click to view stats from the game on SZĽH website
Another highscoring game, but this time only thanks to one team. I don´t think that anyone expected such result from this game. A very disapointing result for the team from Zvolen, that seemed to be gelling well, just a week ago they defeated Skalica on home ice to top the table. But I guess it was unevitable that they´d crash sooner or later. On the other side fans in Poprad were probably pretty happy, they got to see their team score 8 goals and all that for free (well, unless they were season ticket holders)

MHC MOUNTFIELD- HC 05 BANSKÁ BYSTRICA 5-2 Click to view stats from the game on SZĽH website
Not much to say about this game, a game between two teams near the bottom of the table, who are both struggling with their issues and with Martin they´re not even sure whether they´ll manage to play this season until the end. Martin managed to beat Bystrica pretty easily winning 5:2 with most of the points coming from players who were juniors just last year.

DUKLA TRENČÍN- MSHK ŽILINA 3-2 OT  Click to view stats from the game on SZĽH website
The youngsters from Dukla Trenčín were on a roll to start the season, except for their surprising loss to outsiders Žilina. So today was an ideal chance for revenge, right? But Trenčín has been struggling lately and they were playing their 4th game this week and they looked especially bad against Slovan on Wednesday. It seems that Dukla still have yet to return to their form from the start of season as they only managed to beat Žilina in OT. And Žilina continued its trend from this season, stealing points from favorites here and there.

When you looked at Extraliga standngs before today´s games it was clearly divided into two groups, teams ranked 1st-6th with less than 10 points difference between them and the other 4 teams playing at the bottom of the table. But the results of the actual games don´t seem to reflect this much- Slovan struggled with Nitra ranked last, Skalica took care of Košice ranked 4th pretty easily, 6th ranked Poprad destroyed 3rd ranked Zvolen, Martin defeated ranking enighbours Bystrica pretty easily and 5th Trenčín struggled with Žilina. That´s what I call a crazy hockey night under the Tatras.
EXTRALIGA STANDINGS

SPECIAL ATTENDANCE REPORT
The Slovak Extraliga has been dealing with low attendances (many games with 1000 or even less spectators) so far this season and the interest has been falling.However tonight´s round seems to be differen even in this aspect. Let´s look at the numbers and the logic behind them.

POPRAD 3664 spectators
A lot of games have seen 1 or 2 thousand less spectators this season, but HK Poprad realized that with the KHL team HC LEV also playing in Poprad they would have to have a few games for free. And tonight was one of those games. And just as today in the other two (I think it was two) other games that you could attend for free the attendance was around 4000. Which I guess means that Slovak fans will go even to Slovak Extraliga games, even though they think it sucks, but they just don´t want to pay for it.

NITRA 3389 spectators
I guess Slovan in town will that to you, plus Nitra has been playing better since they got their new coach.

TRENČÍN 2120 spectators
First of all, I really doubt that there were as many people at this game, I´ve seen some of it on HUSTE and at points it seemed to be more silent than in a library and it looked pretty empty too. I don´t think there´s any point in trying to find out why attendance for a game against in Žilina is low- even in Žilina there are few people who want to see them play, few seem to care about hockey there really.

 KOŠICE 6202 spectators
I think this might be the highest (or at least one of the highest) attendance in Košice this season and the reason for thus is that Skalica, who are atop the standings came to town. After the team´s   performance tonight don´t  expect such an attendance next game.

MARTIN 1334 spectators
With all the drama surrounding hockey in Martin right now and their results and play so far this year any attendance over 1000 is a good one, especially when they´re playing an equally unimpressie team.

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