The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats hosted another ‘home away from home’ game with Planet Ice Bristol being the home venue for a return game with the Pitbulls.

After a defeat on Saturday, Aaron Nell and his team were desperate to bounce back against their local rivals.

The ‘home’ side got things underway in superb fashion with a brilliant solo goal from Colby Tower. A superb forecheck forced the turnover and the Canadian then finished the unassisted goal off to match. However, once more Bristol equalised on the powerplay through Ed Bradley as the game was tied up at 1-1. The Cats continued to push and scored a powerplay goal of their own when Balint Pakozdi found room at the far circle to hammer the puck home. Later in the opening period, Gael Lubwele added the Cats third goal with another well worked move and a lethal finish from the Canadian forward.

The middle period started with the Cats holding that 3-1 lead, which at 28:13 became a 4-1 lead when Chris Jones scored his first goal of the evening on the powerplay as well. However, once again Bristol wouldn’t back down and Nik Coric added his third goal of the weekend at 31:48 bringing it back to a 2 goal game, as the second period closed out with no further scoring action.

The next goal was always going to be crucial and thankfully for the Cats, Tomasz Malasinski was the man for the occasion with a powerplay goal of his own inside the first two minutes to increase the Cats lead to 3 goals. With just under 15 minutes to play the lead was extended to 4 goals, through an unlikely name, when Sam Godfrey finished a move down low and slid the puck past Norton.

Tanner Butler capitalised on some slack powerplay work for the Cats a couple of minutes after scoring Bristol’s third goal on the shorthand. However Chris Jones rounded off the goals for the evening with another powerplay goal at 52:26 ensuring the Cats held on to the 7-3 win.

In what was only our second ‘home’ game of the season a couple of hundred Cats fans made their voices heard all night and Chris Jones picked up the MOM award, thanks to his two goals on the night.

The next weekend sees Swindon travel to Peterborough again and Sheffield for another double-header road weekend!