Dubai Camels ride home after seeing off AD Storms

It was third time lucky for The Dubai Mighty Camels on Sunday as they triumphed 3-2 over Abu Dhabi Storms to win the Emirates Hockey League title at Dubai Mall. The Camels had lost to Abu Dhabi Storms in the deciding match of the last two finals. “It feels amazing. It’s probably the best feeling I’ve had in 20 years,” admitted Camels captain Ron Murphy after lifting the trophy. “The atmosphere was amazing, the fans were behind us and that’s the advantage of getting home advantage. A lot of friends and family came out, and although it’s late and it’s a week night they still came.” The Camels were the first to score when defender Kareem Hamza took advantage of a penalty conceded by Storms’ Mohamed Rehan, and the home crowd roared as the Camels went 1-0 up with 7:47 minutes left of the first period. Abu Dhabi’s Ali Al Haddad equalised with just 23 seconds remaining to ensure the teams were tied heading into the second period. But Dubai again drew first blood four minutes into the second period when Tristan MacLaggan scored from close range, courtesy of a Jamie Nelson assist. The match got tense with several penalties awarded, including a five-minute suspension for Dubai’s Guy Arguin for misconduct, which led to an equaliser through Yannick Wong to make it 2-2 The third period was also plagued with many interruptions, but MacLaggan scored the winner for Dubai at 8:03 minutes and the Storms unraveled from then on, allowing the title to leave the capital. “Just really hard work,” said Murphy of their success. “We’ve had a lot of penalties tonight and we killed them all off, and that comes down to good goal-tending and a lot of hard work. We really came and played hard and we never took a shift off. I think we got the raw end of the deal with the referees, but we persevered.” Abu Dhabi Storms CEO Hamad Al Sheryani believes his team failed to hold their nerve in the third period, which he says cost them the match. He said: “I think maybe in the last few minutes our players lost their temper a bit. \"They could have kept their cool and taken advantage of the penalties the Mighty Camels conceded but it had a negative effect on us instead. We got a penalty ourselves, although we could have played with a full squad when they were missing a player.”