One’s To Watch VS Leeds Knights 12th November

Swindon Wildcats One to Watch – Sam Godfrey

For our Wildcats this evening the player to keep an eye on is a British defenceman, born in Swindon but began his senior career in Slough. Sam Godfrey has been in Swindon for the past 4 years but did play a single season with the Wildcats in 2013-14 before moving elsewhere.

Godfrey played junior hockey in Swindon but at the age of 15 moved over to Canada to play with Okanagan and complete his junior hockey career. Godfrey’s first foray into senior ice hockey was with the Slough Jets in 2011, he split his time between the EPL and ENL teams that year. He spent one more year with the two Slough Jets teams before making his first trip to Wiltshire to play for the Wildcats.

While with Slough and Swindon Godfrey also represented his country at the junior level, he played one tournament with the GB U-18s and then a subsequent two tournaments with the U-20s. In total Godfrey has represented his country on 15 occasions.

After a single season with the Cats Godfrey made the move to Surrey to play in the EPL with the Guildford Flames and he represented them for 3 seasons in the EPL and then stayed with the Flames after they made the move to the Elite League. During Guildford’s first year in the Elite Godfrey played 6 games for them before leaving and very briefly joining the MK Lightning who were also in the Elite. At this point in his career Swindon came calling once more and offered Godfrey the chance of more responsibility in the league below and after this he has stayed in Wiltshire ever since.

In total Godfrey has played in 262 games for the Wildcats, he has scored 85 points in these games and also amassed an impressive 380 penalty minutes. Godfrey can always be depended on to be a solid presence on the blueline and I’m sure we’ll see another good defensive performance from him again this evening.

Leeds Knights One to Watch – Sam Zajac

The One to Watch for our opponents this evening is a tough defenceman, also capable of impressive points production, who hails from Whitley Bay up in the North-East of England. He is also a face that will be recognisable to Wildcats fans given he played for the Wiltshire based side during the 2017-18 NIHL season, Sam Zajac.

For Zajac his career started in the notoriously tough Whitley youth system and he quickly progressed through to playing for the senior team, he made his debut aged just 16 and went on to play for the Warriors in the next 4 years. After this he got his first move into the UK’s 2^nd tier league at the time, the old EPL, Zajac signed with the Telford Tigers and was instantly a hit, this caught the eye of Basingstoke and he was quickly snapped up for the following season.

As one of the best young defensive prospects in the country Zajac made the move up the Elite league the following year as he played with the Newcastle Vipers in their final season and after a good debut year in the Elite League he made the move to Braehead. The next 3 years were spent in Braehead during a very successful spell but after this he made the choice to step down a level and ply his trade in the EPL with Telford during the RED Hockey era of the Tigers.

After a trophy laden spell in Telford, Zajac was signed up to play for the Wildcats but the collapse of the EPL then put that move in doubt. He stayed with the Wildcats for the first half of the season, where he became a solid fan favourite due to his ability and toughness, unfortunately for the Wildcats a career opportunity beckoned back home, and he departed mid-way through the season.

When the opportunity to be head coach of the newly formed Leeds Chiefs presented itself to Zajac in 2019 he jumped at the chance and he did a very respectable job given the tough circumstances he inherited, playing without a home rink for much of the year. With the rebrand to the Knights and the installation of Dave Whistle as coach Zajac was quickly snapped up as a defenceman and despite Whistle leaving part way through the year, he had another good season.

This year Ryan Aldridge took up the coaching reigns full time and Zajac was one of the first names back on his roster and he has not disappointed so far.