{"id":10644,"date":"2013-01-14T11:41:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T11:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=10644"},"modified":"2013-01-15T00:01:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T00:01:44","slug":"streatham-night-wolves-versus-statesmen-ice-hockey-match-brixton-ice-rink-sat-12th-jan-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/streatham-night-wolves-versus-statesmen-ice-hockey-match-brixton-ice-rink-sat-12th-jan-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Streatham Night Wolves versus Statesmen ice hockey match, Brixton Ice Rink, Fri 11th Jan 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

I’ve never been to an ice hockey game, so when I heard that a friend was playing a match at the Brixton Ice Rink on Friday night, it seemed too good an\u00a0opportunity\u00a0to miss.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

Suitably refreshed by a pre-match drink in the\u00a0Albert, a gang of us went down the rink to cheer on the\u00a0Streatham\u00a0Wolves who were playing the Statesmen. The game started late at 10pm.<\/p>\n

It was free to get in and we joined a rather\u00a0intimate<\/em>\u00a0crowd in the chilly stadium. This was the first time I’d visited Brixton’s rink and I was rather impressed with the place (apart from the huge\u00a0Tesco\u00a0banner hanging along one side).<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

My mate was playing for the\u00a0Streatham Night Wolves<\/a>, so this would have counted as a home game.<\/p>\n

Presumably to take make the most of the home\u00a0disadvantage,\u00a0 a rather mutant\u00a0sounding\u00a0wolf howl would\u00a0occasionally\u00a0trickle though the PA. I don’t think it\u00a0scared\u00a0the opposition much.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

I know next to nothing about the sport so it was\u00a0interesting\u00a0to see how it all works. \u00a0My\u00a0first\u00a0thoughts\u00a0was that it’s fast,\u00a0furious\u00a0and rather\u00a0exciting. I like it!<\/p>\n

What I didn’t like so much was\u00a0the super-cheesy blasts of music that\u00a0accompanied certain events during the game. Comically, song snippets ended as\u00a0abruptly\u00a0as they started with no fade outs, so it sounded like the ‘DJ’ was playing the music on an old cassette deck.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

It took us a while to find our\u00a0friend as the players have so much padding and\u00a0protection\u00a0on that it’s hard to make out who’s who.<\/p>\n

It’s made more\u00a0difficult\u00a0by the fact that the players are always swapping over, with gangs of up to five players from each team suddenly charging off the rink to curt blasts of music.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

Inside the rink, there’s a small amount of raised seating around the rink providing good views, with a transparent plastic wall protecting spectators from an airborne puck.<\/p>\n

You can also stand and watch the action, although it’s a bit disconcerting when a puck slams into the wall right next to you\u00a0with an\u00a0almighty\u00a0thud.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

The game was fast – \u00a0really fast – and in the first period, all the action was coming from the Wolves who seemed to be cruising. Go Wolves!<\/p>\n

They went one up in the first period and when they scored again in the second\u00a0period, it looked like the game was in the bag.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

I have to be honest: there wasn’t any where near as much argy bargy as I was\u00a0hoping\u00a0for, but here’s a little scuffle-ette – and there’s another one below.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

The subs (or whatever they’re called) lined up ready to take their turn. As far as I could work out, very few players take part in the entire game.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

In the third period, the Statesmen were a changed team, and took control of the match and swiftly pulled a\u00a0goal\u00a0back.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0minutes on\u00a0the clock, the Wolves were desperately hanging on to their lead as the Statesmen piled on the pressure. This was tense stuff!<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

A\u00a0fierce\u00a0attack is launched in the dying minutes and the\u00a0Statesmen\u00a0slam home the\u00a0equaliser\u00a0after a goal mouth scramble. Boo!<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

The Statesman cheer while the Wolves look deeply unchuffed.<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

\"Wolves<\/p>\n

The game\u00a0ended\u00a02-2. \u00a0I really enjoyed watching the match and reckon I’ll be along for another one soon.<\/p>\n

About the rink<\/strong><\/p>\n

A little bit of background to\u00a0Brixton Ice Rink. It opened\u00a0almost\u00a0exactly a year ago, and was built on the site of a multi-story car park – a move that stirred up\u00a0considerable controversy<\/a>\u00a0among local traders and businesses at the time.<\/p>\n

The rink is only a temporary fixture in Brixton, and is set to move back to Streatham\u00a0through\u00a0a much-criticised deal with Tesco. Read the full story on the urban75 bulletin boards.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been to an ice hockey game, so when I heard that a friend was playing a match at the Brixton Ice Rink on Friday night, it seemed too … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,194,193],"tags":[1191,508,507,222],"class_list":["post-10644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brixton","category-london-features","category-places","tag-brixton","tag-hockey","tag-ice-rink","tag-streatham"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/ice-hockey-match-brixton-14.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-2LG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10644"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10658,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions\/10658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}