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Phoenix confirm pre-season games

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Manchester Phoenix have lined up two mouth-watering pre-season challenge games in late August, both against bmibaby Elite League opposition.

Saturday August 30th will see the new-look Phoenix squad travel to South Wales for their first game of the new season against the Cardiff Devils before playing host the following evening, Sunday August 31st to the GMB Nottingham Panthers in a 5.30pm face-off at the Altrincham Ice Dome.

Phoenix GM Andy Costigan confirming the pre-season games remarked, "We wanted a change this year and games against Cardiff and Nottingham will give the new-look Phoenix squad an excellent workout ahead of the bmibaby league campaign starting the following weekend.”

A team spokesperson added, “Cardiff, like ourselves, still have some players to sign so the weeks leading up to the games will be interesting as both squads are finalised. Corey Neilson at the Panters is the rookie coach in the bmibaby Elite League this season, but as the first to complete his roster, that implies a high degree of self-confidence in his recruiting.”

“Naturally, we’ll want to do well in both games and hopefully get a couple of wins under our belts, but the games are the ideal opportunity to look at various line combinations, powerplay and penalty-kill formations and other key game systems ahead of the big face-off on September 6th.”

Phoenix are closing in a number of signing targets and more signing news is expected this week. Costigan added, “We held off on a player announcement last Friday as we had the Flexi-Ticket news to release. We’re looking into some other ticket initiatives too as developing and increasing the number of supporters coming to games is a fundamental part of the business we’re in.”

Phoenix officials will be attending both the monthly Elite League meeting on Wednesday and the all-important Fixtures meeting on Thursday. The club spokesperson noted, “the fixtures meeting is invariably the longest day of the year. We’re in a similar position to last season in that we know we’ll have largely Sundays for home fixtures, but will have some Saturdays and a smattering of midweek, probably Thursday evenings.”