| Cody Ogden is the Ducks' top goalscorer so far this season with 6 (Photo by Paul Breeze) |
The Deeside Ducks team were without a
game at the weekend and are now preparing for a big home game against title
favourites Telford Tigers this Sunday.
They are now one third of the way
through their debut competitive season in the NIHL’s Laidler Division and
certainly seem to be heading in the right direction.
From their eight league games to date,
the Ducks have two wins and five defeats – with a question mark over the away
game at Kingston in September that was abandoned due to safety concerns after a
problem with the ice surface. A decision regarding the outcome of that game is
still awaited from the sport’s governing body.
Cody Ogden is the Ducks’ leading
goalscorer so far this season with 6 strikes – including an impressive
hat-trick away to league leaders Telford Tigers
– while Michael Speare, scorer of the winning penalty shot away to
Bradford in the last game – is a close second with 4.
Looking back over the season so far,
Ducks Head Coach Gary Shaw said:
“The season for the Ducks so far has
been a big learning curve from a group of players that we have put together
from all different levels.”
“They are still trying to figure out each
other’s skills and the best way of playing, the biggest problem that we have as
a coaching team is trying to get them to communicate with each other, they are
very quiet when on the ice. If they would talk to each other giving information
of what was happening, this would give the players the opportunity to make the
right decision and not throw the puck away to the other team.”
“The players have a good base to work
from and we just need them to play as a unit on the ice and play as a group of
five and not individually.”
“We give them the opportunity to
express themselves and make decisions, some they get right and others wrong but
as a coaching team we need them to make mistakes so they can learn from their
wrong decisions. We just need them to make fewer mistakes - the less they make
the better for the team and the more chance they have to win the game.”
“For the next few weeks we will be
trying to get the players to be more aggressive in the plays that they are
doing, to get the opponents to turn the puck over and create more scoring
chances for us.”
“Overall we as a coaching team are
happy with the progression of the players, we just need more intensity on what
they are doing in all areas of the ice and try not to over complicate what they
do.”
“With two wins this season already we
have over-achieved, as some new teams that joined the league took two seasons
to get the win.”
“I was not expecting to win any games
this season and focus on keeping the score as low as possible but, looking on
what is happening in the league, I am expecting to win a few more, and
hopefully with the big defeats we have suffered against the top teams in this
league we can try and cut the score by half - with the first one coming up this
weekend against Telford.”
“We the coaches believe that they can
do it, they themselves have to believe it and put it into practice and it will
come right.”
