BASINGSTOKE UK: The Bison who have started their league campaign with a 4-0 record are still making changes to their line-up with Czech Republic import Roman Malinik replacing the released Jaroslav Cesky.
Also two British forwards Ashley Jackson and Daniel Lackey have also departed. Jackson signed in the summer from Invicta Dynamos has returned to the Kent side which he was their top Brit last term.
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Former Basingstoke junior and league championship winner Lackey is back playing for the Basingstoke Buffalo, where in his first game back he helped the Buffs to 5-4 victory from 4-0 down.
New boy Malinik, a 27-year-old from Ostrava, is a former Czech junior international playing all his hockey in his homeland, until he joined the Manchester Phoenix in 2016/17 collecting 30 points from 28 games.
After the Englsih team went bust, he moved to Poland to play for Polonia Bytom, where he started this campaign, before returning to Britain to suit up for the Herd
The new import made his debut last weekend scoring a shorthanded strike on his home debut in a 5-2 win over Streatham and then the following night scored the penalty shot which sent the shoot-out in Bracknell to sudden death, which the Bison won 5-4.
This game proved a great success for summer signing Josh Smith who bagged his first ever Bison goals against side who joined the Herd from. The British forward then scored twice in the sudden death shoot-out to secure the victory. It completed back to back four point weekend’s for the Bison.
“I felt we played a lot better in Bracknell, than against Streatham. Sutts (Ryan Sutton) came up with a big goal at the start of the game and then Smithy (Josh Smith) scored twice in the shoot-out.”
This weekend, the Bison have just the one game away at Streatham and Tomas Karpov, who made his 200th league appearance for the Bison against the London side last Saturday, goes in search of another landmark.
The Czech forward needs just one more league point to reach 250 points for the club and will become only the 10th player in the club’s history to reach this landmark.
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