Stingrays unveil 12/13 EIHL jerseys

It was revealed at Thursday night's fans forum that the Hull Stingrays will suit up in the following shirts during the 12/13 Elite League campaign:

Click to maximise

10/11 Rays to suit up in yellow and blue

The Excel Hull Stingrays last night revealed the clubs new jerseys, complete with new colours, for the 10/11 Elite League season at a meet the players event.

The yellow home shirt and blue away jersey were revealed by coach Sylvain Cloutier and club captain Kurtis Dulle after each player had been announced to fans, and will be accompanied by black helmets and shorts, as well as blue and yellow socks.

Trevor Read and Matti Uusivirta. 

Photo courtesy of Hull Daily Mail

Rays unveil new shirt

The Excel Hull Stingrays have unveiled home and away shirts that they will use for the 09/10 Elite League season.

The shirts, which incorporate the, now normal, black, grey and white Rays colour scheme and along with the new addition of red sections, will be used for the first time tomorrow night against the Sheffield Scimitars at iceSheffield.

Alongside the new red addition, the shirts contain logos of new sponsors including Doncaster College and University Centre, where Stephen Burns will study during the season, and various others.

Sue Pack noted that, with the change in direction of the team, after Sylvain Cloutier replaced Rick Strachan as coach, the team decided to change the shirts slight, saying, "we wanted to add a new dimension to the shirts this year."

Home Kit

Away Kit

Stingray news

Say it quietly......Stingrays return to full strength

Import forward Matt Reynolds and Jamie Thompson look set to return to the Excel Hull Stingrays lineup for this weekend's games against the Cardiff Devils and Sheffield Steelers after five and four week layoffs respectively.

Thompson, who had scored eight goals in 26 games, suffered a neck injury against the Sheffield Steelers some weeks ago whilst Reynolds, who led the Stingrays in points and goals before his injury, broke a finger in the same game. They will both return to full training this week and should they not suffer any re-occurrences , will play in back to back games against Cardiff and Sheffield.

The games this weekend should see the Stingrays return to full strength for the first time since the opening day of the season.

Rick Strachan said:

"Thompson and Reynolds should be ready for full practice this week. We’ve missed them. Matt was our top scorer when he got injured and he plays on our special teams and powerplay."

We will then have a full bench and it is something we are looking forward to. It will take a lot of responsibility of the shoulders of some of our young kids who have been carrying this team. Guys like Jeff Glowa and Konstantin Kalmikov have also been going every second shift for a month and those guys are dead tired and they need a rest."

All Stars Prepare

The Elite League's inaugural All Star game will face off on Thursday night at the Coventry Skydome with four Excel Hull Stingrays in the lineup. And whilst players like Steve Slonina, Matt Reynolds and Konstantin Kalmikov have been at the heart of the Stingrays push for their first ever playoff berth, the Elite League have implemented a two import and two Brit rule from each team, meaning many of the Stingrays 'stars' will miss out.

The result of the rule has seen Brits Slava Koulikov and Lee Mitchell selected alongside the ever brilliant Jeff Glowa and Curtis Cruickshank and all four will lineup on Thursday alongside the rest of the Southern All Stars.

Auctions, Auctions, Auctions...

The auctions for the Stingrays Valentine's Day shirts, used in their 4-3 loss against the Manchester Phoenix, are beginning to come to an end. Currently Lee Esders and Jeff Glowa are the highest priced shirts at £78.01, with Slava Koulikov in second with a price of £77. However there are still shirt's available in the auction including James Cooke's #18 shirt, Aaron Wilson's #23, Pavel Gomenyuk's #40 and Richie Thornton's unworn #6 shirt. The eBay site can be found here.

There is a similar auction for the game worn All Star jerseys to be used on Thursday in the EIHL's first All Star game. The eBay site for this auction can be found here. It contains All Star jerseys for the Stingrays Jeff Glowa, Slava Koulikov, Curtis Cruickshank and Lee Mitchell.

Kerr To Sit Season

With the return to action of import forwards Jamie Thompson and Matt Reynolds comes bad news for defenceman Stuart Kerr, out since November.

With Thompson and Reynolds the Stingrays have 11 fit imports, out of an allowed 11 under EIHL rules, and Kerr, who has played just 24 games for the Stingrays, recording six assists, will be forced to sit for the remainder of the season unless the Stingrays suffer yet more injuries.

Despite rumour of Kerr being let go by the Stingrays, who are one of, if not, the lowest budget team in the league, it seems that Kerr will remain will the team as both a good will move and backup for any more injuries the team will suffer.

The signing, and impressive displays, by young Finnish defenceman Antti Turunen seem to have been the determining factor in Kerr sitting on the sidelines for the final few weeks despite allegedly returning to fitness in the last fortnight.

Caps v Devils

In their only game in hand before they, and the Stingrays, ice 11 times on the same nights in the run up to the playoffs, the Edinburgh Capitals face a Cardiff Devils on Wednesday. The Caps are ahead of the Stingrays by games between the sides after their 7-4 win against the Devils on Sunday took them level on points.

Gomenyuk another All Star...sort of

Pavel Gomenyuk, who is having a career year after scoring ten goals and 17 assists, has agreed to ice in Newcastle player-coach Rob Wilson's testimonial game.

The match will pit a Rob Wilson's All Star Select against a North East All Star select and will feature a number of players from Wilson's 20 career in Britain.

Fixture Change

The Stingrays scheduled game in Manchester on March 8 has now been moved to Thursday March 19.

Stingrays go Pink for Valentine's Day

The Excel Hull Stingrays will, for the first time in their history, wear special Valentine's Day jerseys during their British Knockout Cup Second Leg against the Manchester Phoenix on Saturday.

After the game the new red jerseys (left), which also contain a new name and number font style on the reverse of the shirts, will be auctioned off on internet auction site eBay.

Other teams have previously exploited events such as Christmas, Valentine's day, Haloween and St Patrick's day for commercial reasons whilst a number of other clubs, such as EPL side Romford Raiders, have auctioned off the shirts for charity.

Stingrays co-owner had this to say about the one off shirts.

"We were approached by the shirt manufacturer to see if we were interested and we decided we were. We have not gone for Christmas or Halloween shirts in the past, but we were tempted this time."

EDIT: The shirts are now avaliable from HERE