Tornado suffered 6-3 loss in Reims


21 January 2018

Phénix de Reims and Tornado Luxembourg played a very intense hockey game on Saturday evening. In Reims the ice rink is completely different than any other place. The neutral zone is extremely small and it makes the game flow completely different. When airport size Kockelscheuer has lot of space to control the puck, in Reims only way to cross the neutral zone is to dump the puck immediately into the opponent’s zone and chase.

As always in their home arena, Reims started the game very aggressively by putting lot of pressure on Tornado’s defensemen. After ten minutes of playing, Tornado started to get used to the new rink and the game became more even. Luckily Jesper Miquel on the net was awake the whole period and it was 0-0 on the scoreboard after 20 minutes.

In the second period Tornado started to create some serious scoring chances as well and at 25:31 Colm Cannon scored a shorthanded goal and the game was 1-0 for Tornado.

Unluckily just one minute later Reims managed to tie the game when they were still playing the same powerplay. Only one and half minute later yet Colm Cannon surprised Reims players by taking an offensive zone faceoff straight to the goal. The surprised goalie bounced the puck out to Ossi Uotila who scored on the rebound.

The hectic game kept going. Again, only one and half minute later, Reims managed to tie the game again on 4 vs 4 game when both teams had a player in the penalty box. That wasn’t enough for Reims and a few minutes later, after 33 minutes of playing, they took the lead for first time in the game by scoring their 3rd goal. No more goals were seen in the second period and the teams went for the break with 3-2 on the scoreboard.

During the break coach Fical tried to push some fighting spirit into the team and told the players to be confident. The 3rd period itself didn’t start as planned and Reims scored two goals in 4 minutes.

Finally, half way through the period Tornado got their first chance on power play when Reims took two penalties. Fical put his key guys on the ice and it didn’t take long until the puck found itself into the back of the Reims’ net. It was sent there again by Colm Cannon.

In the end Tornado never got a good final sprint to battle for the points. And since Reims managed to score one more goal, all three points stayed in Champagne region.

After this loss, Tornado is holding 3rd position in the group. Amiens on the 5th place is five points behind and Courbevoie in the 2nd position is 3 points ahead. Both of them have a pretty challenging schedule for the last games. Everything is still possible one way or another.

 

Next weekend Tornado will travel to Paris where they will play against Garges.

RTL Luxembourg had sent a cameraman to Reims and the report should be in TV on Monday.