"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!!!!!!!!!!!

Fairground attraction

To quote Ronan Keating, life is a rollercoaster and it certainly has been for MKL supporters. After seven wins we were chucked right off our pedal-boat recently and onto the big dipper – candy floss not included.

I suspect most of us were still on a high from beating the Mancs, so it was a long way to fall when Flames got their own back for us for dousing them 5-0 at the Spectrum a few weeks earlier. I really didn’t enjoy the game – not because we lost, I can cope with that – it was just too niggly, too nasty. Muzzy got into one helluva ruck with Liddiard, who continued trying to thump seven kinds of you-know-what out of him even when he was down on the ice, and Mr L duly got chucked out of the game. It must be the motherly side of me that makes me wince when I see any of our players roughing – my first reaction is to want to separate them myself, clip them around the ear and tell them off for fighting with the other kids, but when fights get nasty, I get concerned – and for a few seconds I was genuinely worried about our Muzzy.

The following day and a road trip to Bracknell, driving courtesy of Dave aka Warthog. G-Man and Michal Pinc had an altercation which continued in the sin bin, and it was a close thing for a while whether we should be watching the game or the sin bin for maximum entertainment. Nicky Watt came round to mouth off at the MK faithful but met his match in Lightning’s lovely Jan who called him a flipping twit (or something like that) but the security guard by the box wouldn’t let him through, so he skulked off back to his cage. Pinc swung a left hook round the plexi at G-man so they both ended up leaving the action early, and when Grant tried a low key exit from the changing room to come and watch the game, we blew his cover with a loud chorus of his song. After the second period break he and Monir came and sat just behind us, and we treated Monir to a rendition of his song, too. I swear I’ve never seen anyone go THAT deep a shade of red..... A fantastic evening in the company of Dave, Jan, Golly and Vito's wife Mickie, plus an introduction to Blaz's partner Sylvia, who was excited about 'Red Hot Blaz Night' a couple of days later. All in all, a fab time was had by all. I'm starting to really enjoy road trips!

The following weekend and time for Sluff vs MK - strangely, a Saturday road trip rather than Sunday. Bubbsy, Louisa and Golly allowed me to join them and we hit the M1 just before 4pm on Saturday. On the way down, Bubbs had Five Live's ongoing football coverage on the radio, and we chuckled about how Arsenal were throwing away a 4-1 lead to the Mags....how careless! We parked just as a young blonde lady stepped out of her car nearby and strode off towards the rink. It couldn’t be........could it? Yup – Joy Tottman. Bugger. We guessed she wasn’t there just to spectate. We grabbed viewing spots right behind the away team bench, so it was great to be able to watch the dynamic between the lads, see their reactions when they went on and off the ice, hear them shouting encouragement to each other.

To cut a long story short, the lads found themselves 4-1 down, early in the second. Dubbsie shouted at Sluff, "Arsenal couldn't keep a lead and neither will you" - and he was only blimmin right! :) Nick called time out and within six minutes we were even at 4-4....fantastic!! It wasn’t to be our night though and we lost, going back to MK empty handed. The speed of players like Calder and Sheppard was absolutely gobsmacking; once they broke away, they were pretty much uncatchable. At Slough we were beaten by the better team, as opposed to being bullied out of the game the previous week. And Joy had a half-decent game too.

If nothing else though, we know Lightning have bouncebackability and it was there in buckets on Sunday at the Thunderdome, as the boys quickly recovered from 0-2 down to even the scores. Nick and the lads subsequently threw everything at the Bison goal but nothing went in, but it was satisfying to see the guys so in control of the game. So then....penalties. I hate penalty shoot outs with a passion, a hangover, I reckon, from THAT football play-off final in May 98 at Wembley, Sunderland vs Charlton. Carrsy stepped up first, looking cool as a cucumber that’s been on manoeuvres in the Arctic for six months....job done. Barry saved Bison’s first attempt – woohooooo! Then nerves got the better of me and I literally couldn’t watch. I was standing with Andy at the plexi in front of F block and turned my back on the ice. Daft, I know because it’s not like it was for the cup or the playoffs, it was “just” a league game. But it’s never “just” any old game with Lightning.... Andy said Blaz was skating on for our second, and I turned back just in time to see him collect the puck and slot it away with not a hint of bother. Bison missed their second penalty and that was that....the two points were ours. It was a fantastic feeling....and the lads on the ice were celebrating like they’d won the league all over again. What a night!

It’s been a rollercoaster of a season too, and it’s not over yet by a long chalk. For a start, we’ve still got four games in hand and one of those is against the Mancs at our barn – another epic to look forward to! The addition of Blaz has given the team extra depth and options, and it’s going to be SO good when Monir comes back...I’m PROPER missing him on the ice: when him and Smults are on the ice at the same time it’s sublime - you can almost see them reading each others’ mind.

I know you can say "some you win, some you lose" but for me it's always going to hurt when the guys lose. I suppose we were spoiled a bit with seven wins on the bounce, but even so - I hate to see them lose. The MK Lightning rollercoaster is in full flight – I know some people (me included) don’t like the big dippers, but to paraphrase Michael Schumacher (I know some people don’t like him either), experiencing the lows makes you appreciate the highs even more!