One Love, One Glove

Earlier this week, elite hockey today discovered that Stephen Murphy was in the dark as to who would start for Team GB in the upcoming Olympic qualifiers - himself, or Stevie Lyle?

Murphy's apparently not the only one who doesn't know.

In an interview with skysports.com, head coach Paul Thompson said that he's not made up his mind yet and will be keeping an eye on the two netminders this weekend.

Lyle only has one game (home vs Hull on Saturday), but Murphy has a more difficult challenge ahead (away vs Nottingham on Saturday, home vs Cardiff on Sunday).

Will the tougher schedule hurt or harm Murphy's chances? Or is Thompson just keeping his cards close to his chest?

“We’ve got a weekend of games to go and anything can happen in that time,” Thompson said.

“I’m not a man who is afraid to make a decision and I’d rather have a hard decision to make than an easy one. They’re both playing well and by having that healthy competition it means we have a better national team.”

Murphy is the only Phoenix player in the squad, but Lyle is one of six Giants.

“I’m delighted with the form of both of them,” Thompson added.

“Goaltending is a crucial part of every team and it helps when you have two guys in competition for that number one spot.”

In the World Championships in April it was Murphy who played the majority of minutes, starting the team’s final three games. Lyle played in the shootout defeat against Poland and was pulled in the third period of the 10-5 loss to Austria.

Both goalies have experience of playing in Europe and Thompson has been impressed by Murphy’s development after he iced in Norway last year.

“When Murphy came back halfway through last year in France (at the Mont Blanc Euro Challenge Tournament), I saw a different netminder,” he said.

“He was playing in the Norwegian league on a poor team and doing really well. With him being back in the Elite League and Manchester and near the top of the table it’s great, just as it is for Lyle at Belfast.”

Thompson’s squad travel to Sanok, a town in south-eastern Poland, to play the host country (Nov 6), Japan (Nov 7) and Romania (Nov 9) in Group D of the pre-qualification tournament.

The group winners will advance to the final qualification round in February 2009.

Full Team GB squad here.