Saturday night, Slough Jets hosted the Solent Devils at their temporary ice rink in Slough, and after the puck drop it looked like it was going to be a fairly well matched contest.
The puck went back and forth, the netminders stopping shots, the defence stopping runs at goal, and the forwards always looking for a gap to break in to.
The crowd made the appropriate noises, cheering their relevant teams on, until a little over twelve minutes in when Drew Campbell was taken down by Timo Lindgren. Lindgren was given 2+10 for a check to the head, despite Campbell’s insistence to the ref that he had drawn blood.
Slough weathered the storm, and got back to five skaters with the score still tied 0-0.
Eventually, the puck slipped past one of the keepers, and the home crowd cheered, Kurt Tyrrelll being the one to knock the puck in for the Jets, assists coming from Luke Dreelan and Lukas Smital, just six seconds before the first break.
The Devils came back from their respective porta-cabin, ready to go in the second, and after twenty nine seconds of play, Alex Trendall got some help from Ben Lock to level the score.
The Jets managed to survive another penalty unscathed, this time when Callum Farrell received a two minute penalty for charging. Shortly after returning to full strength again, the Jets put themselves in the lead for the second time of the game – Smital this time beating Christian Cole, with a cannon fired from the blue line.
It took five minutes for the Devils to even the score again, this goal coming from Richard Facey with assistance from head coach, Alex Murray.
When Simon Griffiths went to the penalty box for tripping, the Devils finally managed to convert a power play in to a goal, Murray and Facey with the assists on Drew Campbell’s goal, with less than a minute left in the second period.
Just because there is less than a minute left, didn’t mean there couldn’t be another goal before the buzzer, and Sam Rudkin proved that, putting the Devils well in the lead at 4-2 going in to the break.
The score line was giving the Devils a boost, and they came back in to the third period with real vigour, so it didn’t take long until Chris Douglas was beaten again, Rudkin getting his second goal of the game.
Half way through the third period, the two teams stopped and changed ends due to the failing conditions in the temporary rink, several of the lights having stopped working at one end of the rink.
Despite the interruption, the Devils pressed once more, Christopher Hocquigny getting his first assist as a Devil, with captain Alex Cole helping Mark Pitts make the score 6-2.
This coming Saturday, the Devils head to Oxford to face the Bristol Pitbulls, face off at 5pm.
You must be logged in to post a comment.