This past weekend was a crucial one for teams fighting down the home-stretch to make the finals, and one that ended with the second finalist still undecided. With the Canterbury Red Devils – enjoying a bye and watching the rest of the league with interest — a lock for the finals, with 29 points and no possible way to finish worse than 2nd place, the West Auckland Admirals, Southern Stampede and Dunedin Thunder were all feeling the pressure.
The already-eliminated Botany Swarm were given a chance to play spoiler against the Thunder in their last two games of the regular season, while up in Auckland the Admirals took on the red-hot Stampede to try and keep their own finals hopes alive.
The South Island teams were able to come away with all four wins, leading to the mathematical elimination of the Admirals, and leaving the Devils’ 2012 Final opponent to be decided by the outcome of the last two games in Christchurch this coming weekend.
Had the Swarm been able to prevail over the Thunder, the most-tightly contested run to the finals in NZIHL history would’ve been all the more tangled. However, the Swarm once again ran into some third period struggles, and wound up losing Saturday’s game 5-3 (although that one sounded fairly close), and Sunday’s game 9-2 (…yeah, not so much there). This meant the Thunder finished out their season with 28 points, good enough for second place at present, and will be depending on the Red Devils to rein in the Stampede’s six game winning streak to maintain that position.
The Admirals were in a must-win scenario against the Stampede, but while both games were tied for significant periods of time, the Stampede were able to gain the lead and hold it, eventually winning the Saturday game 5-3 and the Sunday night 6-4.
As anyone who’s looked at the league tables this week is doubtless aware, this means that if the Stampede are able to take one win out of Christchurch this weekend they’ll surpass the Thunder to take second place, and if they’re able to take both games, they’ll earn not only a place in the final but also their first home final.
What this also means is that the final Auckland derby of Admirals vs Swarm this weekend (note: games are Sunday/Monday rather than the usual Saturday/Sunday!) will have no effect on the overall rankings; both teams will be playing for pride alone.
The Admirals have a lot of motivation to try to complete an historic season sweep of the Swarm after winning both pre-season games and the two games at the Botany rink, and the Swarm will be wanting to finish the season on a winning note; to overcome, shall we say, the slings and arrows of outrageous (mis)fortune by taking a last handful of points at the expense of their cross-town rivals. Shakespearean/NZ telly references all in favour of my extremely obvious personal bias, naturally.
But enough of this hockey haruspicy; let’s look back at the weekend that was. (In Auckland, that is. I prefer not to look at the Swarm’s last game except possibly through the filter of a very large drink.)
Goodbye Puck Pie 