THE GAME: BY JOHN HUBBELL:
In England, recreational ice hockey is a full contact sport and as of 2011 the national competition is still a checking event. The Tornados since 1999 have championed a change to make all recreational hockey non-checking.  The Tornados prided themselves in winning four national championships just playing non-checking against the rest of the tournament who played checking hockey.  All except one game.

‘THE GAME’, The game was a semi-final game against a team from up north, who were made up of soccer hooligans on ice, and made it to the semi-finals due to intimidation on and off the ice and dirty play.  The players had a meeting and said due to the opposition and their intimidation tactics, we would play full checking hockey.  At the drop of the puck for the first five minutes the Tornados hit every player on the opposition as hard and as many times as possible.  By the end of the first five minutes, these hooligans had been beaten into pussy cats and were afraid to cross their own blue line.  Obviously we won big time.  The game was videoed and the story retold many times, and so the hits get bigger with time, but it was a defining moment for the team.

THE HIT: BY JOHN HUBBELL
One of the biggest hits I have ever seen in ice hockey was in the final of the national championships.  During the game one of the Stretham Chief players was being a nuisance with his over the top aggressive play. At the end of the game with seconds left to play and we had a goal lead, I was playing defense and this Stretham player was leading a break out of his zone and was crossing the neutral zone.  I notice Alphie Foglio coming after him a zone away, (Al and this guy were mixing it up all game). By the time, the antagonist was about to cross the top of the offensive face off circle Al caught him. He and Al flew into the air, sticks, helmets and gloves every where, a real yard sale of hockey equipment, both players cart wheeling across the ice, the buzzer went we won the game, but a hit for Rockem Sockem Video.

THE TALK By JOHN HUBBELL:
During a Southern Cup Final in Swinden, we could only bring 7 players, there was my self, Bill Gilbert, Denim Blair, Dave Woodey, Simon Woodey, Kevin Barsby and John Glenny.  It was a home and away championship and we were taking a 7 goal lead into the second game.  Well it was one of those games where the ref was a real homer, and by the end of the second period, they had scored 8 goals, we had a man in the penalty box the whole game, and we were getting beaten up mentally and physically.  Between the second and third period we had a meeting and we all agreed that we would walk off and abandon the game. I should say we all agreed except the legend Billy Gilbert.  Bill stood up and gave a speech of such inspiration that I actually thought there was motivational music playing. The talk would have made Vince Lombardi proud. We took the ice and attacked, some how we held them off and allowed magic hands Denim Blair to score two goals to win the Southern Cup.

E-mail: hubbell@sloughtornados.co.uk