I have been on a bit of a football diet over the last week or so. Last weekend i swapped my footie shirt, jeans and jacket for a suit, shirt, tie and winkle picker shoes and headed off to Doncaster races for an old friend's stag do. Naturally as a Lincoln City fan my luck ran true to form and I won sod all but it was still an enjoyable day out and something i will definitely look to do again in the future. I didn't miss a Lincoln game as we had got stuffed 2-0 at Cambridge United on the Friday night.
Nor did i take in a footy game midweek. Instead i took in the Nottingham Panthers match with the Dundee Stars at the NIC. The Nottingham Panthers have had a great start to the season and before face off sat in 2nd place in the Elite League standings behind the league leaders the Belfast Giants. As with football we have a pre match routine on hockey nights. The fact that we arrived a 3 and a half hours before face off allowed us to extend the drinking period in the Pit and Pendulum with was all decked out in crappy Halloween decorations.
After a small but respectable win on the football quiz machine we had the misfortune to encounter a freak called Timmy who was wearing a New England Patriots jacket and rambling on about the GMB (The main sponsor on the Panthers' Jersey) He seemed to take a bit of a shine to my worst half so, as Harry Hill would say, we made our excuses and left to make our merry way over to the lace market fish bar for a pre match bite to eat. As normal i went for the kebab meat and chips with chilli and garlic which was delicious. Normally the shop is full of Panthers fans but today it seemed fairly quiet.
The NIC (National Ice Centre) is the largest arena in the league which is fitting as the Panthers draw the largest crowds in the league. The NIC also a major concert venue for the East Midlands with everything from the Saturdays to the WWE stopping off here on tour. Its good to see that Nottingham still draws in the big acts. Its even better to see that Bill Bailey is soon going to return to Nottingham and not let his experience of a drunken Retfordian in the curry house on his last tour put him off. A lads night in Nottingham when he returns messrs Brown and Binks?
Dundee have improved a lot since last season. About the same time last year we watched them get blasted 11-2 in Nottingham after going 6-0 down in the first period. The sides have only met once so far this season, in Dundee with Nottingham running out 4-1 winners. Last weekend Dundee managed to lose three games in three Counties in three days when they lost in Belfast,Cardiff, and at home in Dundee. Its a seven hour plus trip from Dundee to Nottingham but still about a dozen hardy souls made the trip down. I tip my hat to each and every one of them. They made a decent amount of noise as well. We have made some long range midweek trips with Lincoln but nothing like that.
Photography is banned in NIC (boo!) so i apologise for the lack of pics inside the arena. One thing to bear in mind with Ice Hockey games is that they vary rarely face off on time due to the amount of faffing about they do pre game; introducing the teams, the mascot, playing the British national anthem etc. The puck is always dropped by a celebrity with Notts County manager Martin "Mad dog" Allen performing the duty tonight.
The game was quite tight in the first period but it did seem to flow quite well with Nottingham looking to get forward and the Stars happy to hit them on the break. Nottingham opened the scoring when they only had four outfield players on the ice (and one in the sin bin) when Matt Francis scored with a great run and hit it into the roof of the net.
It was much the same in the second period when for all their dominance the Panthers could only add one further goal from Brandon Benedict when he scored with a low backhand goal. Notts had hit the pipework a few times and had had a number of chances to add to the score but fluffed them. Dundee chances had been few and far between but it only takes a second to score a goal and change the game.
Dundee had been well organised for much of the game but conceded four goals in 4 crazy third period minutes when Scott Champagne, David-Alexandre Beauregard, Matt Francis, and Marc Levers all found the back of the net to give the scoreline a very one sided look. Although Dundee didn't have many efforts, what they did have were all stopped by "K-WALL" in the Panthers goal who once again showed his class with a third consecutive home shut out.
The only slightly disappointing thing about the game was the crowd which was the lowest i have every seen at a Panthers game. But with it being midweek and with a big home game against Belfast at the weekend i suppose it was to be expected (even so about 3500 was quoted as the attendance).
The following evening we had a night around Nottingham visiting various public houses and bars. Bargain of the night had to be the six flavoured shots of vodka for £10 in Vodka Revolution.
And of course no night out in Nottingham is complete without a curry at the Mogal-E-Azam curry house and a piping hot Chicken tikka vindaloo. This is one of my favourite curry houses in the country and the one where I had the hottest curry i have ever had back in 2005. It is also infamous for warm Guinness, Bombay mix getting spilt everywhere and international comedy stars getting served before three drunken fools from Retford. Although one of them was perhaps a tad more drunk than the others ;-)
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