The Stuff Of Legends….

Last night I had what is quite probably the best hockey night I ever will.

It was the game organised to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of ice hockey in Peterborough, the rapidly becoming legendary (if you pardon the pun) Legends of Peterborough game.  So what?  Well, it’s not often that a hockey team outside of the NHL can boast a list world class players in its line up over time.  The most impressive name (amongst many impressive names) has to be the Iron Man himself, Garry Unger.

Yep, the Iron Man of the NHL, Garry Unger played for Peterborough when the team was known as the Pirates. The guy is 60 and was mixing it and hassling the opposition and still had an eye for the pass.  Tremendous.

The game was 3 periods of history coming back to life before our eyes, with guys, who in their younger days could quite honestly wipe the ice with some of the current “talent” out there.  Some of the guys could still play today, maybe a bit slower than they’d like, but with skills few players could match.  They’d make a fearsome lineup!

The players were selected from the 80s, 90s & 00s periods of Pirates/Phantoms hockey and were formed into Blue & Orange teams.  The guys went head to head and although it was a friendly game, you could see the competitive instinct come to the fore when they got the puck.  A real pleasure to watch!  They were obviously enjoying themselves as all night they were smiling, even when staging mock fights and sliding along the ice on each others’ backs.

The best bit, I got the Iron Mans’ signature and had a few words with him and the guy is a gent, one of the most famous NHL players and a thoroughly down to earth & nice guy.

It’ll be a night talked about for a long time, and remembered for even longer.  I won’t list all the names here, just check out the Legends site here.  Suffice to say it’ll be a fair old while before Peterborough (indeed any club in the UK i’d dare to say) could stage a night like this.  Another 25 years maybe??

I’m still smiling about it & laughing to myself on occasion today!

Phantoms Update:

I’ve been lax in reporting Phantoms activity this season because of the lack of time to actually make sensible edits due to, er, training commitments, shall we say.  The news is we finished 4th in the League (only by dint that Bracknell beat us more then we beat them as we finished on equal points).  We are in the playoffs again, which start this coming weekend and this Tuesday and Thursday see the two legs of the knockout cup final against the eternal enemy MK Lightning (Boo! Hiss!) ;-)

Plenty of hockey left to play and a better than average chance of getting some silverware this season.

GO PHANTOMS!!!!!!!