Disastrous Start Befalls Team

Chatham General Manager Buffon held a press briefing this morning to reflect upon the teams start to the new season.

Just five games in the Victory sit with an ugly 0-4-1 record and are bottom of their division, conference and the entire league.



“Obviously I am not happy with the way things stand currently but we are not overly concerned at this moment in time.

We were handed a very very tough start to the season. Two games against our bogey team [the Badgers], a divisional champion [Shamrocks], the defending champs [Beefs] and a team that performed well in pre-season [Penguins] is rough by anyone’s standards. We didn’t expect to come out smelling of roses but a return of 1 point is defiantly disappointing.”

When pressed if the lack of offense was hurting the team Buff responded.

“We expect a lot from our top 6, they know that and I think they are comfortable with that. Coming into the season those two lines were feared.

But we can’t expect them to deliver if the team is constantly put on the back foot. We have taken far too many penalties and whilst the PK teams are doing their job [80%] this severely handicaps our offensive stars in the amount of opportunities they can create.

Hopefully the coach can instil a little more discipline in the team and roster changes have been made to address this.”

The Victory have lost 4 of their 5 games by one-goal decisions and so a turn-around is most certainly not out of the question but they will have to demonstrate that they can work as a unit.

“We have a couple of game in hand against our rivals so that is an advantage. Despite poor play between the pipes we have conceded the second least number of goals in the conference and we have a slightly easier schedule approaching. I would say that is three reasons for optimism” said Buffon

“A poor start can really hamper you and it is very easy to fall out of contention [for a play-off berth] early on so all the guys know they have to get going sooner rather than later. But we have guys that can step in if they don’t.”

The Victory can kick start their season with another game against the Penguins sandwiched in between two divisional double headers against the Ducks and Buttercups. Buffon indicated that he expected more than a point per game over the 5 game stretch.



Victory Banners

This season sees the introduction of the ‘Victory Banners’. Each week the 3 top pro players will have banners with their face and number hoisted to the rafters of the Mary Rose Bowl for the week in recognition of their efforts. The inaugural 3 Victory Banners are…

1. Dennis Seidenberg- leads all defensemen with hits [10], shots-blocked [9] and points [1-2-3]

2. Nathan Horton- team leading 4 assists and 6 points, most hits amongst forwards [9]

3. Jason Spezza- leads all forwards with +2, second in assists [3] and tried to get his team going with a fight against Matt Greene

Honourable mention: Bobby Ryan [leads team in goals]