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Bultje treble gives Phoenix flying playoff start

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A hat-trick from Mark Bultje gave Manchester Phoenix the perfect start to their post-season playoff campaign as they defeated the Belfast Giants in the MEN Arena on Sunday night.

Dutch international forward Bultje opened his account on a 5th minute powerplay and bagged his second powerplay goal in the 50th minute before adding an insurance empty-netter with just over a minute to play. Belfast were aggrieved that they had a second period goal ruled out by the referee, but Phoenix too had what they thought was a good goal – from Mark Lovell in the third period – washed out.

Phoenix coach Paul Heavey commented, “It was vital to get off to a good start with a home win in this four game series. We told the players before the game that we had twelve periods of hockey to play to get us to Nottingham, so after tonight, we’ve won two and drawn one and now have nine to play. If we can keep that level of play going, we can go through. But, this is only one game and we still have a lot of hard work to do to qualify for the finals weekend.”

He added, “There are some areas we still need to work on before we play Sheffield on Thursday and then we have a really tough weekend ahead away to Belfast and Sheffield. We’ll train Tuesday and Wednesday and we’ll do some video review as well so that the guys know exactly what needs addressing. Overall tonight though, I am very pleased with the application, we knew Belfast would come hard and they did and we had to soak up a lot of pressure. This time of the season is all about intensity and who wants it the most – I think we showed tonight that we can raise our level and that we do want it. Tonight was a good way to end our season in Manchester, I hope the fans travel with us to Sheffield for our ‘home’ game on Thursday because that is the next big hurdle we have to overcome.”