Cardiff Devils: What time’s the face-off again?

Cardiff Devils faced Guildford Flames on New Year’s Day in the Elite Ice Hockey League.

The more hungover fans will have appreciated the delayed start that came because of the referees making an unusual mistake.

The officials believed face-off time to be 7pm, whereas it was meant to be 4pm.

Cardiff Devils Twitter page tweeted out about the delay:

🚨FACE OFF DELAY 🚨

The puck will drop at 4:20pm – not a covid issue, more of a 'refs thought the game faced off at 7pm' issue…

Apologies to everyone sitting comfortably at home.

This gives you 20 more minutes to buy the livestream if you haven't already

— Cardiff Devils (@cardiffdevils) January 1, 2022

With Wales being back under Covid restrictions a lot of games have been cancelled in recent weeks.

Thankfully not the case this time which will be welcome relief for fans who are never sure when they’ll be seeing their team play next.

As a result of these restrictions the game was played behind closed doors however, so nobody was left shuffling around in the cold of the rink.

Cardiff’s media manager Oliver Hampson talked about how it feels being behind closed doors, saying: “I know the fans are missing out right now not being here, the players and staff are missing out as well, it’s difficult being here and not being able to have fans”.

As disappointing as this would be for supporters who only returned to watching in-person recently, they did see the lighter side with one person tweeting:

https://twitter.com/EdSZN_22/status/1477346047290707969

Hampson went on to say: “We just can’t wait to have fans back in the building.

“The fans have been with us through thick and thin and they’ll continue to do so.”

The caveat for fans was the extra time they had to purchase tickets for the livestream, a good alternative whilst they can’t attend games in-person.

When the game eventually did get underway the teams played out an entertaining 2-0 win for Cardiff who scored through Josh Waller and Justin Crandall.

They currently sit second in the table, but first placed Sheffield Steelers have three games in hand.