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Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Top teams gear up for ice war
SkyCity Stampede's Connor Harrison helps Mako's Markus MacDonald get some air time during the teams' game in Queenstown last Saturday. PHOTO: SUPPLIED There was a risk Friday night's game between the SkyCity Stampede and Auckland Mako development ice hockey teams was going to end up with a cricket score. At the final whistle it was 11-2, to the home side, the Stampede having piled on 6 goals in the first 20 minutes, courtesy of Jack Robbie, Jett McCullum, Taylor Clark and two apiece from Axel Ruski-Jones and Colin McIntosh. Ruski-Jones found the net twice more in the second period while Max Macharg restarted the scoring in the third, McIntosh got his trifecta and Connor Harrison slotted one in, too, with the Mako's second goal coming in the last minute. Additionally, McIntosh led the assists with four, followed by Dylan Devlin (3), Connor Harrison, Callum Burns and Jordan Challis (2 each), and Ben Harford, Taylor Clark, Jessie Hutchins, Blake Campbell and Jack Robbie (1 each). While Stampede still enjoyed a comfortable 6-1 win on Saturday (Harrison, 2, Nolan Ross, 2, Ollie Ruski-Jones and Axel Ruski-Jones, 1 each), Mako, primarily comprising emerging players from the Stampede, Phoenix Thunder and Canterbury Red Devils, managed to save 57 of the shots on goal. Points from that round don't count in the NZ Ice Hockey League, in which the Stampede and West Auckland Admirals are in joint first place — the titans will play each other, in Auckland, next weekend. In the New Zealand Women's Ice Hockey League, the Wakatipu Wild had a hard-fought 4-2 win over the Phoenix Thunder in Dunedin last Saturday, and a reverse of fortunes last Sunday. In the first game, Caitlin 'Judy' Heale got the Wild on the board, assisted by Kelli Burstein and Kellye Nelson, before the Thunder answered back. Nelson put the Wild back in front in the second period, assisted by Heale and Caitlyn Hollyer, but the Thunder equalised again at the beginning of the third. But two unanswered goals from the Wild — from Inge Kemp and Burstein, assisted by Nelson and Heale — got the job done. On Sunday the Wild lost 3-1 — their only goal coming from Kemp, assisted by Bobbie Weeks and Gabby Mills, in the second period. The Wild, in second on the table behind Auckland, have two weekends off before playing Canterbury, in Queenstown, on June 13 and 14.
BBC News
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Fossier helping Panthers hit high notes in hunt for EIHL title
Mitch Fossier is the singing winger hitting all the right notes for Nottingham Panthers in their Elite Ice Hockey League title 27-year-old American is Panthers' top points scorer with 15 goals and 35 assists in 38 appearances since arriving in has been a prolific influence that has Nottingham challenging league leaders Belfast Giants and fierce rivals Sheffield Steelers for the title going into the final weekend of the regular while he has been a hit with a hockey stick, it is with a guitar that he has been working on what he hopes to be a breakout song to be released at the end of the season."Hockey is something you can only do for so long and if there was any way that I could make a career out of music I would in a heartbeat - it's just so much fun," Fossier told BBC Sport."A lot of the stuff I've written in the past is very slow and it's very melancholy and the song I'm releasing is a little more poppy and upbeat and hopefully more prone to success, and just easier to listen to for your average person." Fossier has been releasing his own music since he was a teenager, with one of his earliest songs 'Howling Sound' generating more than 300,000 streams on 2023, when playing for hometown club Atlanta Gladiators in the East Coast Hockey League – the third tier of the sport in the United States – he put out a full-length songs, recording tracks and playing gigs are just as much part of his life than his hockey career, which has taken him from the University of Maine to Slovakia with Banska Bystrica as well as a number of ECHL and American Hockey League sides along the way."They play off each other," he said."It's a cool contrast in the sense that hockey and music are so different that they're good escapes from the other."With an acoustic guitar in hand and folksy, tender sound, Fossier the musician appears to be completely different to the goal-hungry winger he is on the what is considered to be the fastest team sport in the world is more in tune with thrash metal music."You're right, the contrast is kind of funny and it's probably not what most would expect," Fossier even as an ice hockey player, he sees himself as "a smooth and steady kind of guy" who craves the art that comes with attacking."One of the reasons I love hockey is the creative aspect of it," he said."There's creativity that I don't think you find in any other sport, so I think instinctually I like to make plays."I can definitely see the parallel between liking to play music and there being a hint of that in the way I play hockey." Fossier's approach made him an instant fan favourite at Nottingham Panthers, a club that has failed to win a major trophy since he arrived in November, Panthers were seventh in the heading into the final regular season weekend, they are third and just four points off top. They could still claim the title if they win both their matches against competition leaders Belfast - who they visit on Saturday before hosting on Sunday - and second-placed Sheffield slip up."It's still mathematically possible, but we need things to go our way at this point," Fossier said."When you look too far ahead it can get overwhelming and you kind of forget to be in the moment. So honestly, I'm trying not to think too much about it. "We are going to Belfast to try and win that game, then we'll see what happens and how the rest of the league looks."The drama of the league title race, which will be followed by the play-offs, means Fossier and his Panthers team-mates have nothing but must win games ahead of comes after that remains less certain for the American who is yet to have a contract in place for next season."We'll just worry about that after the season," he said."But I will say that there's not too many places that would be better than this to play at outside of playing in the NHL and making millions of dollars."
