RAF Eastern Crusade Ice Hockey Club – Tri-service tournament 2009

As summer approached the training intensified in preparation for the annual Tri-service Ice Hockey Tournament. The RAF Eastern Crusade Ice Hockey Club has gone from strength to strength over the 2 years it has been formed. In our First RAF championship we were the Whipping boys being defeated by every other team in the RAF. During last years Tri-service Championships we fought hard and achieved more than the club could have hoped by finishing runners up in the Plate Tournament. This year we were determined to improve on this by either taking home the Plate trophy, or competing with a higher standard of teams in the Cup.

Now you may not have heard of the Crusade before so let me introduce who we are. The team has now been established for a little over 2 years and we consist of players brought together from all the units around the Eastern counties of the UK. We currently have players from Wittering, Cottesmore, Cranwell, Waddington, Conningsby, Honington and Marham. We train in Peterborough, at Planet Ice, which is located in Bretton. We have players of all standards ranging from the absolute beginner (Bambi with a stick in his hand) up to the hot shots who have played at National League level. The Club has several qualified coaches that strive to improve everybody’s fitness, skating ability and Ice Hockey skills.

So, onto this years Tri-services Championship. The hotel was booked, the cars were packed and the team made the relatively short journey to Sheffield, the home of this years tournament. Due to the number of teams competing in the tournament, the teams were split into 2 groups. These randomly picked teams would compete on day 1 to be entered for the Cup or the Plate championship. Day 2 would see teams competing to decide their final game where they would either compete for position, or to take home some silverware.

The groups were decided, Group 1 looked like the group of death, most of the militaries big hitting teams were in this group they were, RAF Lossiemouth Jets, Army Allstars, RAF Cosford Stars, Navy Destroyers, RAF Brize Norton Bluewings. We breathed a sigh of relief we hadn’t been drawn in this group. However when group 2 was announced it seemed we were still in for a very difficult ride. We were grouped with the REME Stallions, RAF Leuchars Knights, AAC Ice Hawks and the RLC Chiefs. None of these games would be easy.

We were in for an.........
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Updated 25th June 2009