"Love and Pride" - King

Back to the song titles for my column titles (hehe, how many of the young ‘uns will remember THAT one?!), as pride is the overwhelming feeling for me in relation to MK Lightning this week, and there was a lot of love for a little lady in the Thunderdome last weekend. You know the old saying, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death, I assure you it’s much more serious than that” - well even if you substitute ‘football’ with ‘ice hockey’ it’s still not true - and events that were the background to last week’s home game against Guildford were proof of that.

Lightning were fund raising for six year old Millie D’Cruz last Saturday. Last summer she was diagnosed with Metachromatic Leukodystrophy, which only a handful of people in the UK have, and probably won’t live beyond her teens. Treatment to slow the illness will cost at least £200,000. Nick, Vito and Smults found out about Millie when they went to her school last month, for the MKL Schools Enterprise Scheme and pretty much within an hour or so of their visit, I had an email from Nick saying Lightning were involved and we needed, in his words, to “sing this from the rooftops”.

We involved Millie’s parents every step of the way, they even saw our press releases before they went out, so that they knew exactly what we were going to say. The Supporters’ Club decided to give the proceeds of “Natty’s Grid” from the Guildford game to the fund, as well as collecting on the night. I got in touch with Guildford Flames’ management who immediately agreed to publicise what we were doing on their official website, so their supporters travelling to MK that night would know what we were doing. And Olivetti very generously donated a netbook computer and case as the “Natty’s grid” prize!

Ice hockey’s treated as a minority sport and most teams struggle to get decent exposure beyond local newspapers and hockey websites (one of the local TV channels recently featured indoor bowls rather than ice hockey). So I could tell it might be a strange day when I was asked on the morning of the game if I’d heard from the German TV channel RTL, as they wanted to come and film at the match....hmmmm?!!

In the second period I caught up with the guys from RTL, Bob Stott the chairman of the trustees of Millie’s fund then with the young lady herself, her parents and some friends, and they all seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their evening. One lady told me that they were really enjoying it...didn't understand the rules at all, but it didn't matter - which, some evenings, is pretty much how I feel about it!!

Millie’s a beautiful little lady and it was great to meet her after hearing and writing so much about her. She looked slightly overawed by the occasion, but I guess when you're six it must be hard to take in that all this fuss is for you. And at the end of the match it was absolutely amazing to hear that nearly £1,700 had been raised for her treatment fund - £500 of that from Natty’s Grid and £300 from the bucket collections!

But for me the best bit was seeing Millie and her family and friends all on the ice for a photograph with the team after the game – it was such a lovely conclusion, fantastic to see that mass of happy faces. I know it’ll sound soppy but it felt like there was such a lot of ‘love and pride’ going on at that point – I felt so proud to be a small part of what we ALL achieved for Millie that evening – team and supporters alike. Scroll to the bottom of this article to see one of the official presentation pics, courtesy of one of our brilliant match photographers, Tony Sargent.

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But there’s no getting away from the fact that Lightning failed to win last weekend. To put things in perspective, just look at the stats. If you ONLY look at recent results you could correctly say the lads have lost 3 of their last 4 games. BUT...look at the bigger picture. They’ve won 10 of the 15 games since Christmas. They won seven on the bounce including beating the Mancs 6-3, and stuffing Guildford 5-0 in their own barn! Yes they COULD have got stuffed 5-0 by the Mancs last weekend..but they didn’t. I wasn’t there but I saw a few posts on the forum saying the guys only ‘turned up’ for 10-15 minutes. But that was the period where they put 4 goals away and by all accounts made life very uncomfortable for the Tony Hand and his merry men. And the previous night it looked like they’d get stuffed by the Flames. But they didn’t...... you could say it was too little, too late - alternatively you could say that any fightback is better than no fightback at all.

It’s a marathon not a sprint, there’s still six weeks to go of the season, and just because the lads’ form has wobbled recently doesn’t mean it’s the beginning of a downward spiral. I bet you that however much losing hurts us the supporters, it hurts the players even more. There’s still so much to play for and some absolute crackers of games still to come – including a rescheduled MKL v Manchester fixture. I know everyone’s entitled to an opinion but in MY opinion, you’ve really got to look at the bigger picture rather than rush to concede defeat. As the saying goes, “Keep calm and carry on”...carry on getting behind the lads. Let’s go, Lightning!!!!!!!!!!!