Despite an 8-6 victory on Saturday evening, British Ice Hockey was the winner this weekend as a combined nearly 3000 streams were purchased over the first weekend of the streaming series.
1690 fans tuned in on Saturday evening as the Cats iced in the first game in the UK since the first national lockdown. With debutants in the lineup like Matthew Myers, Josh Batch, and earlier arrivals Balint Pakozdi there was a brief element of normality as the Wildcats skated out for the opening period. The visitors for the contest were the MK Lightning.
At 08:51 the hosts scored the first goal in 8 months of no hockey when Matthew Myers found room above the shoulder of MK Lightning netminder Jordan Lawday. It wouldn’t take long before the visitors tied the game up through a Bobby Chamberlain shorthanded goal at 13:50.
Only 26 seconds later though, the Wildcats re-took the lead through a very well taken powerplay goal from Toms Rutkis, who fired home from the high slot to give the Cats a single goal advantage heading into the first-period break.
There were 3 goals in the opening five minutes to start the middle stanza. First Tomasz Malasinski scored his first of the night before Russ Cowley tied the game up again through a superb one-time slapshot from the blue-line. With MK taking a couple more penalties the Cats retook the lead again at 24:01 when Matthew Myers and Ben Davies combined to make a lovely pass to Head Coach Aaron Nell who fired in to convert the 5-on-3 chance.
Bobby Chamberlain would then score two goals in 45 seconds near the halfway stage of the game to ensure the middle period finished 4-4.
Four Wildcats goals in the final period would prove crucial as the Cats took the first win of the season. Firstly, at 41:27 Ben Davies ensured the Cats took the lead again before two goals from MK’s Hallden Barnes-Garner, and then Ross Venus saw the Wildcats fall behind for the first time in the game.
Once again though, it only lasted less than a minute when 31 seconds after going behind, Toms Rutkis scored his second of the evening with a sublime finish to tie the game up at 6-6. As we entered the last ten minutes of the game, and with the prospect of overtime looming, Tomasz Malasinski broke through on goal and restored the Wildcat’s single goal advantage. The final goal of the evening came through at 53:45 when Toms Rutkis completed his hat-trick thanks to a nice feed from Matthew Myers.
As the final whistle blew on the stream the Cats had ran out 8-6 winners for the first game since March. Sunday evening saw the Cats travel up to Sheffield to take on the Steeldogs.
Leaving Yorkshire after a 5-1 defeat, the single goal being scored by Matthew Myers, the Cats were unable to make it two wins from two. For Sheffield the goal scorers were; Alex Graham x2, Ben Lake, James Spurr, and Tim Smith.
This coming weekend sees the Cats travel to Milton Keynes to take on the Lightning on Saturday before completing our Streaming Series fixtures against Sheffield on Sunday at the Better Link Centre. You can get your streaming tickets for Sunday below:
