The Red Devils impressive season rocks on, and with two games in hand they should overtake Stampede this weekend on the points table as Stampede has the bye. They're backing up from a right pounding handed out to Dunedin Thunder, Admirals will want to show more defense if they want to keep the crowd interested. Admirals have looked good at times, but will have to play out of their skins to topple Red Devils.

I think Canterbury is going to dominate these games and win the season.

yeah, what he said

Agreed. Devils are, imho, the most solid and consistent team int he league. Admirals will have to really pull something amazing out of the hat to get a win.

7 to 1 to the Devils.  Janos played his first minutes.  Scored a goal.  Bit of a rough affair.  There were a few skirmishes.  Eaden confirmed that he can throw a pretty good punch.  Tomorrow should be a good game. 

I heard over 80 penalty minutes.

yeah that sounds about right.  After the first 2 1/2 minutes, we had 3 in the box and they had 4 in the box.  There were 3 or 4 ten minute penalties.  Not sure if Cengiz was a 10 + game in the end.  A number of minor penalties as well obviously.

4 to 0 to the Devils.  Tied 0-0 after 1st period and 3-0 after 2nd.  Game lacked flow.  Our lines had changed substantially due to injuries/suspensions so things didn't click as well as hoped.  Still outshot them 34-16 I believe.  Davis played well for them.  Didn't make anything easy.  Not as chippy as it was yesterday.  Goals were Nicholls, Lewis, Salsl and Eaden.

The Devils are victorious 4-0! That?s right Vpatrol, a shut out to the goalie that the crowd stated is now number 1 in the league?

Now what was with the players benches always shouting abuse the umpires such a disgraceful and dishonourable display of poor sportsmanship. It?s little wonder no one shows up to watch the Devils destroy the opposition when the children are exposed to such disgusting dissention and foul language.
I will leave it with a congrats to the victorious and good luck to their conquest in Queenstown but to both teams tonight I hope you clean up your acts!

The questioning of the refs and foul language is pretty similar in all sports.  I can hear the f-bomb while watching footy on Sky.  Is it necessary?  No.  But its not going to change.  A lot of the profanity was coming from the crowd to be honest.  Many complaints about that since there were kids present.

Stats were wrong after round 8 by the way so I think I'm back to my rightful place of 3rd.  Virtual tie with Thomas (91.75 vs 91.76).  Justin is 91.94 SV% for top spot.  I'm proud to say that I haven't lost a game yet.  Most important stat in my opinion.

And we take over top spot in the league!!!  Forgot to say

The line "it's not going to change" floats around lots of behaviour issues in sports. Things change once administrators, coaches, officials all refuse to accept it.

Currently there is no uniform response to abuse of officials, particularly from coaches. Once players start missing games because they've been abusing officials their attitude to it might change.

Yeah. I've heard similar junk in sports where people say "it's the nature of the sport" or "players need to vent" or some other such crap. It's easy to stop certain behaviours, you just penalize people for doing it and they'll eventually learn not to. Once a few people are banned people will start cleaning up their act.

Some of it seems to come down to the refs too. I've talked to refs whose attitude has been that players start abusing them more AFTER they penalize them. The morons don't seem to click that if ALL refs penalize players for certain activities and have a zero-tolerance policy, then problems will eventually disappear. It's just a matter of creating a culture of behaviour.

"It's just a matter of creating a culture of behaviour." ... works both ways, it helps having refs that are respected for their abilities and performance.

it was more a reference to the profanity.  If the refs feel abused, call a penalty.  Simple as that.  It's already in the rulebook.