Swindon Youth Flames Tournament

Swindon Skater Hockey Club’s Flames Youth team (U-15s), currently ranked in the top six teams nationally, hosted their first invitational inline hockey tournament at the Croft Recreation Centre on Saturday, where they competed against Borehamwood Crusaders, Chippenham Vikings, Reading Rhinos, Redditch Rockets and Eastbourne Blaze in a round-robin competition for a place in the tournament final.

 Chris Rose, Flames Youth manager said at the start of the day “As with all our invitational competitions, today is a great opportunity for us to play against clubs from regions that we normally don’t meet in the regular season, and as we may be facing some of these teams in the British National Championships at the end of the year, it’s a chance to see how we measure up against them.” Chris continued, “However, as a small, friendly community-based club the emphasis for today is on having fun, so win or lose, we’re looking forward to an enjoyable day of exciting hockey.”

The excitement got under way when Chippenham Vikings faced-off against Reading Rhinos in the first game of the day. In a thrilling end-to-end opener, which set the tone for the games that followed, the two equally matched teams battled throughout the first period, which ended in a 1-1 stalemate. The second period was another close, hard fought affair with the game ending in a 2-2 draw.

In their first match of the competition The Flames saw action against Eastbourne Blaze. Despite a blistering start by The Flames, which was rewarded with an early goal, Eastbourne, who had been kept in the game by a magnificent performance by their netminder, made the most of a rare opportunity and equalised seconds from the end of the first period. The second half followed much the same pattern with a dominant Flames team battling against a stubborn and determined Blaze defence. Again The Flames went one goal in front and again the Blaze managed to capitalise on a single goal-scoring opportunity to draw level. With the game seemingly headed towards a draw The Flames at last broke through the Blaze defence to snatch a goal 15 seconds from the end of play to claim a 3-2 victory.

The Flames next faced Reading Rhino’s in another closely contested game, which see-sawed from one team to another and which eventually ended in a 4-4 draw. The following games against Chippenham and Borehamwood saw a dip in the form of The Flames, which ended their chance of a finals place, losing 4-1 to the Vikings and 4-3 to the Crusaders.

In their last game of the day The Flames faced off against Redditch Rockets determined to improve on their last two performances but also aware that, as they were no longer in contention for the final, the game was an opportunity to rest some of the senior youths and to give some of the squad’s less experienced peewee “play-ups” the chance to stretch their legs . The move to play a largely development side paid off as they went on to record a 3-2 win and secure 4^th place in the competition.

 The tournament final was a repeat of the first game of the day, which saw Chippenham Vikings competing against Reading Rhinos for the winner’s trophy.

As with their first encounter the two teams battled each other in a hard fought and sometimes-feisty affair in which neither team could establish any dominance over the other. Reading broke the deadlock first and ended the first period with a 1-0 lead. Not to be denied Vikings struck back in early in the second period to level the scores at 1-1. The game continued at a frenetic pace as both teams fought to take the lead in an tense but exciting end to the competition until, with less than three minutes left on the clock the Vikings fell victim to their own ill-discipline – following a minor penalty the Chippenham team became embroiled in an altercation which, once resolved by the referee, left them with insufficient players to continue the game. The match officials  were then left with little choice other than to award the game to the Reading Rhinos.

Although the circumstances of the Rhino’s victory was less than ideal, they ran out worthy  winners of the competition and were presented with the winners trophy after game.

Club Chairman, Les Satchell said “ Despite the hotly debated finals result, today’s competition has been a great success for the club, a lot of fun for the players and spectators and an invaluable experience for the Youth team in their preparations for the 2007 National Championships now less than two months away.” Les continued “Congratulations must go to all the teams, who played some great hockey, but a special mention must go to our Youth squad who played with great spirit, determination and skill throughout the day and did themselves and the club proud. It was especially pleasing to see how well our peewee “play-ups” performed at this level which is a testament to the success of the development programme run throughout the club ”

The Flames Youth Team

(back row, from the left) Mike Weymouth, Jack Townsend, Ryan Martin, Chris Weymouth, Adam Rose, Hannah Archer (capt.), George Wagerfield, Matthew Baxter (ass. capt.)...(front row, from the left) Anthony Bayliss, Liam McGuire,Oliver Thompson,Alex Baker, Jamie Baker, Jamie Morgan, Terry Silvester, Josh Lane