The Solent Devils headed out in their black uniforms, to face Bracknell Hornets in their first away game this season. Despite this only being the third game of the 2015/16 season, this was the second meeting of these two teams and from the second the puck dropped both teams were obviously out to prove something. The Devils clearly didn’t want to leave anyone wondering about their 3-2 victory two weeks ago, and Bracknell wanted to make sure they performed well in front of their home crowd.
From the second the puck dropped, the action did not stop, with the first penalty sending Devils head coach, Alex Murray, to the sin bin before four minutes of action on a hooking call. This didn’t seem to put a dampener on the Devils, as Mitchell Murray and Steve Gosset went on the offensive and got very close to opening the scoring more than once before Alex Murray finally got back on the ice. 
Seconds after the Devils returned to full strength, Hornets captain, Greg Chambers, was sent for out two minutes – also on a hooking call – and despite the pressure the Devils maintained, the Hornets kept the puck from the goal.
Just as the clock was passing nine minutes, the puck was carried back to the Devils zone from an icing call, and as it dropped Jack Bavystock was in the perfect position to receive it and drive it past Christian Cole to put the Hornets a goal up.
Two minutes later, with Bracknell on the attack again, Richard Facey picked up the puck deep in the Devils zone and passed it off to George Norcliffe. Norcliffe went on to show his skill and took the puck the entire length of Bracknell’s Olympic sized ice pad where he found the support of Dominik Hegyi heading right down the middle of the ice, who, with a one timer, slapped the puck straight in to the back of the Hornets net to tie the game.
Coming in to the second, the trio of Facey, Hegyi and Norcliffe were out to make a difference, and the three of them spent run after run threading their way through the Hornets defence, but not managing to get a second past Daniel Milton in the Hornets goal. Unfortunately for the Devils, Greg Chambers found himself in space, so when the puck made its way to him he managed to tie up the Devils defence and while heading away from the Devils goal, slipped the puck back to Matt Jordan who got it in to the narrow gap between Cole and the post to once again put the Hornets ahead.
Being behind again, put the Devils up another gear and the pressure they put on the Hornets defence and net minder was almost without any kind of let-up. Even when Luke Tull jumped the barrier on to the ice for his shift and failed to land on his feet, Bracknell spent almost the entire time on the defensive.
During the third period, the attention the Hornets had been giving to Hegyi for the first two periods was increased, which obviously slowed down the efforts with Facey and Norcliffe, but 26 minutes after the Hornets second, and almost eight minutes in to the third period, Facey got the puck through to Hegyi who managed to put it over Milton’s head and bring the game back to level.
While on the man advantage, defence man Ben Lock was out at the Bracknell blue line, as the Devils were doing whatever they could to try and pull ahead for the first time in the game, and taking a huge slap shot, Lock’s shot was blocked by the lower leg of Brandon Miles at about five yards. Miles hit the ice, and had to be helped back to the Hornets bench where he remained for the rest of the game.
Finally, after almost fifty two minutes, Shaun Rudkin got a pass off to Alex Murray, who in turn passed to George Norcliffe who went on to find the back of the net and put the Devils in to the lead for the first time in the game.
With exactly 90 seconds left on the clock, after finding himself in space out on the wing, Danny Hughes fired a blast at the top corner of the Devils goal where Cole got his glove in front of it but the power of the shot helped the puck bounce over the webbing of the glove and slip in to the top corner of the goal, tying the game, with not enough time left on the clock for either team to get back ahead of the other.
The next Devils home game, is a cup game against the Wightlink Raiders, Sunday 27th September at 7pm.
Written by Steve Breen
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