Wildcats have a quiet week

SWINDON, UK – Week 21 got underway with, well, nothing much happening, to be honest.
A look at the weekend’s Top Ten stats showed Joe Baird and Ryan Aldridge still figured in the Top Ten Penalty Receivers charts but certainly |Aldridge won’t be there much longer. The only other player figuring in the charts is Arron Nell, who is at the bottom of the overall chart, and second in the Brit chart.
In the club stats Jason Cassells, as a result of the Phantoms game, chalked up several notable achievements namely the best points scoring run over ten, eight and seven consecutive games, and equalled Nell’s run over nine. Cassells also replaced Jan Krajicek as the player with the best assists average. Another record was the Wildcats latest game winning goal which occurred against the Phantoms at 18.03.
Also in the stats, Aldridge iced, so clearly not quite retired from the roster just yet, but Baird topped him as leading penalty receiver with 99 PIMs.
Friday 5^th revealed the interesting titbit of news that ex-Wildcats Canadian forward Joel Petkoff, who was looking to return to British ice hockey, had agreed terms with Sheffield Scimitars only to pull out at the last minute having decided to pursue a career with a Canadian police force instead.
And then came Saturday’s game against the Lightning. Who would have thought the Wildcats could go into the lion’s den at Milton Keynes where the pickings are normally very sparse, unless you are a Jet, and come away with a point? And not only that, by all accounts they displayed enough grit to have come home with two, so it is a bit of a shame that in now their ninth game to go beyond regular time where it all becomes a bit of a lottery, they had to make do with just one creditable point. What makes this achievement more remarkable is the side contained four ENL/Academy draftees in the shape of Whitfield, Barrow and the Oliver brothers, plus Joe Baird was iceless for twelve minutes with his second big penalty of the season, albeit ‘only’ twelve minutes this time.
Plus, there’s more – Wildcats came from behind! Another shame as far as the Wildcats are concerned is the Bees won at Romford so they have dropped back to ninth in the league.
With no game on Sunday but shame upon shame the Bees won again and are pulling away in the race for the play-offs.
Contact the author Bill.Collins@Prohockeynews.com