FLAK FALLING ON DEAF EARS SAYS ICEMAN
GERWYN PRICE tuned up for the new Cazoo Premier League season with a spot of axe-throwing after being forced to can his dustbin-lid ear defenders.
Tonight the Iceman returns to the scene of his twin nine-darters last year keen to leave behind the controversy surrounding his experiment with headphones at last month’s PDC World Championship.
Fear not: The axe-throwing was a light-hearted competition with his rivals at a sponsors’ event in Belfast.
And Price (above) faces Nathan Aspinall at the SSE Arena admitting he will face the music from hostile crowds with no noise-abatement accessories in future, saying: “I wore them once, I won’t be wearing them again and it’s best left at that.”
As Mirror Sport revealed on Monday, the option was taken out of the fiery Welshman’s hands by the Darts Regulation Authority, who updated their rulebook last week by outlawing headphones and defenders – although airline-style earplugs are still permitted.
Price stunned pundits and TV viewers alike when he resorted to wearing cans, to blot out the soundtrack of a hostile crowd, at 3-1 down against Gabriel Clemens (above) in the World Championship quarterfinals at Alexandra Palace in London.
He discarded them after a set, and went on to lose 5-1. Now, after the DRA axed them in the sport’s matchplay regulations, we won’t be seeing them again.
Price said: “I’m not a fan of earplugs so from now on I’m just going to take whatever comes my way, like I have for the last couple of years, and just focus on playing darts.
“There’s nothing else to say about it. Whatever’s happened in the past, I would appreciate it if people would stop talking about it because I tried something, it didn’t work for me, and now we move on.
“I’m here to play darts, to do the best I can – whatever is thrown at me – but I’m looking forward to Belfast.”
Price, 37, is arguably due some kind fortune in the Premier League after being ruled out of the tournament in 2021 by a positive Covid test on the morning of the condensed tournament.
The former world No.1 said: “I hit back-to-back nine-darters in Belfast last year but then I broke my hand after the UK Open and it went downhill from there. Fingers crossed I stay fully fit for this campaign and start with a bang.”