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A rare Saturday evening home game for the Phoenix, this time taking on the Telford Tigers at the Deeside Ice Rink.  Steve Fone in the nets for the Phoenix, Sam Gospel between the pipes for the visitors.

 

Before the game began there was a ceremonial puck drop, with Phoenix fundraiser Mike Newton dropping the puck for the two team captains,  Luke Boothroyd and Maxim Birbraer.  

 

Once the game got underway the Phoenix were quick to get off the mark, Martin Baranek netting from Robin Kovar and Luke Boothroyd at 1.52, giving the Phoenix an early lead.  The lead was shortlived, however, with the Tigers equalising at 3.26 through Maxim Birbraer, assisted by Peter Szabo and Sam Zajac.

 

The Phoenix restored the lead at 12.47 with Robin Kovar charging the net and blasting the puck over the glove hand of Sam Gospel.  Assists went to Ben Wood and Mark Thomas.

 

The first period was a tense end-to-end affair, with Referee Miller allowing the play to flow, with the first penalty being called in the fifteenth minute against Michal Satek, with Boarding the call.  Two minutes of powerplay time for the Tigers proved fruitless, and the Phoenix lead was kept intact through to the first intermission.

 

The second period saw the end-to-end action continue with neither Fone nor Gospel letting anything past them. Joe Miller's frustrations saw the better of him, and a stick-smack against the boards saw him sitting for ten minutes on a Misconduct penalty at 35.55.

 

The third period saw the Phoenix unable to capitalise on an early advantage as Blahoslav Novak sat out two minutes for Tripping, and before the powerplay was over Stan Gron picked up a call for Hooking, cancelling the man advantage and then handing the visitors a powerplay, which turned into a 5 on 3 advantage when Luke Boothroyd was sent to the box on a mysterious Hooking penalty, made all the more mysterious as the Phoenix captain appeared to be on the bench at the time the penalty was called.  Gron returned to the ice to make it 5 on 4, but the Phoenix defence was unable to keep the Tigers from equalising the score at 48.20, Daniel Davies awarded the goal with the assists going to Blahoslav Novak and Peter Szabo.

 

The Phoenix got their own 5 on 3 opportunity with less than ten minutes on the clock as Blahoslav Novak and then Daniel Mark Rose were both assessed separate High Sticking calls forty seconds apart, but the Tigers defence proved too tight and the opportunity was missed.

 

The clock ran out on regulation time with Peter Szabo sitting in the sin bin on a Tripping penalty, picked up with three seconds left.  The Phoenix went into Overtime with the man advantage, but were unable to capitalise.  At 62.51 the deadlock was broken as Sam Zajac scored the winner for the visitors, assists going to Andrei Makrov and Martin Ondrej.

 

The Phoenix are at 'home' this Wednesday, March 9th, taking on the Tigers again, but this time with the Telford Ice Rink as the home venue.  Face off at 19.30.   The Phoenix return to the home ice of Deeside this coming Sunday, March 13th as we welcome the Guildford Flames with the usual face off time of 18.30.