Scimitars Win Fife Tournament

The Sheffield Scimitars were invited by tournament organiser, Barrie Grieg (Fife Flyers), to attend this weekend's tournament, along with the Dundee Stars, Fife Flyers and the Solway Sharks. Head Coach, Jon Rowbothom, jumped at the opportunity of a pre-season tournament in Fife as a good team bonding opportunity and for the incoming imports of returnees Joakim Millqvist and Peter Slamiar plus new defenceman Daniel Slyk to get some game ice under their belts. This was a close run thing for Peter Slamiar who landed in Edinburgh just 3 hours prior to the first game.
Not travelling were Pasi Raitanen, Paul Jones, Lloyd Gibson and Stephen Wallace.

Sheffield Scimitars took on Solway for the opener game and Slamiar scored within the first minute. Solway were straight back at the Scims with an equalising goal just ahead of 6 mins, but is was the Scimitars who were clearly the stronger team and Steve Duncombe re-instated the lead with a bullet from the blue line on 9 mins.

After that the Scims out-hustled, out-shot and out-skated the Sharks with additional goals from Robert Farmer and two more from Slamiar to bring up his hat trick and complete the 5-1 win. The young guns showed they couldn't be pushed around as James Archer and local returnee Fraser Goldie showed they would stand up for their team mates.

Coach Jon Rowbothm was very pleased with his team and he said "the guys were awesome, still plenty to work on but we dominated the game from start to finish. Slamiar looked sharp and well up for it, that said they all did".

The Sheffield Scimitars went straight on into Game 2 against hosts Fife Flyers, who must have fancied the advantage. Dutiame said that the Scims against Solway 'gave as good as they got in the physical battles but were clearly a much stronger, fitter and talented side'. And added that "That said I'm sure my boys will give them a hard game this time around."

The Scims then went on to beat his team 2-0, albeit in a tighter game, with Slamiar again on target, taking the water bottle off the net. The Scimitars, with some slick passing made the Flyers look pretty ordinary and it wasn't long before Archer was given the opportunity to stretch his legs from the neutral zone, going inside, then outside, passing Fife's defencemen with pace and control to hit what was probably going to be the goal of the season after the 2-0 final score, Coach Jon Rowbothm spoke after the game saying how pleased he was with the work rate, cohesion and clear ability of his young team.

Speaking after the game, Ops Director Ian Johnson had this to say " JR and the guys have worked really hard pre-season, and with the arrival of Slamiar, Millqvist and Slyk they are starting to gel and display passion, skill and ability. I was really pleased with the young guns too, Strawson, Goldie, Bowns, M Haywood, Squires and Bell were all magnificent, that said they all were.

Things get interesting next weekend when the Scimitars play host on Saturday at iceSheffield Face off 7.30pm, in a pre-season warm-up with back to back games against Tony Hand and the Manchester Phoenix.

Great value tickets of £6.00 Adults, £4.00 Child and Concession and £15 Family are obtainable from iceSheffield reception and on matchnights.