Paul Moran, who went down during a scuffle between Andrew Sharp, Jason Hewitt and himself, has been officially ruled out for 2 to 3 weeks with a dislocated shoulder. He suffered a similar, abeit more serious, injury last season, which restricted him to 51 out of the Belfast Giants 61 games. Moran told the Hull Daily Mail:
"I was trying to stick up for a team-mate, but I think I got jumped. I felt my shoulder go so I went down on my knees and didn't attempt to fight back. Somehow the officials let Andrew keep punching me""I knew my shoulder wasn't in the joint, but didn't know if it was completely dislocated, all I knew is it didn't feel right. That's why I didn't fight back - because I didn't want to do any more damage.
"I've seen the people at the hospital. They say it was not too bad so hopefully with a couple of weeks rest I'll be back playing."
However he was still very positive about the Stingrays chances this season:
"It's very unfortunate. I had really enjoyed last week's training sessions and was really enjoying myself out there. We were playing really well for the first 10 minutes on Saturday. We were skating well, finishing our hits. I liked the look of our team. Hopefully with a couple of weeks rest I'll be back and we will get back on track."Meanwhile, Curtis Cruickshank, who went down after a shot to the body during the Yorkshire Cup on Sunday night, has received the OK to play the Stingrays opening EIHL fixture against the Manchester Phoenix at the Hull Arena on Saturday. The club sent Cruickshank for an X-ray to confirm whether or not he had cracked ribs, as feared. Stingray owner Sue Pack had this to say about Cruickshanks injury:
"We sent Curtis to hospital as a precaution, but I've received a message from him to say the x-rays have shown there are no breaks. I'm delighted Curtis will ice, as we didn't want to lose our number one keeper in the warm-up games. It was just a freak occurrence, it wasn't like anyone ran him or anything, it just happened."The Stingrays move on to a full weeks training with a full squad (minus Paul Moran) with Troy Neumeier and Steve Slonina in the country and ready to face the Manchester Phoenix at 5.30 on Saturday.
