Thunder faced a difficult road trip on the 2nd Jan, to take on the Wightlink Raiders on their small ice in Ryde. With our normal depleted (long distance) away team the task of getting off to a good start to the year looked daunting, but with the scores level at 1-1 at the end of the first, and 2-2 at the end of the second things were looking good! But 3 mad minutes at the start of the third gifted Raiders 3 goals and another late on gave them a 6-2 win.

Sunday we were back on home ice to face rivals Peterborough Islanders. With just one place separating the two teams, Islanders must have fancied their chances, but went away on the wrong end of a 10-4 drubbing. The only negative for Thunder were the four goals against, all of which came from errors or needless penalties. 

Haringey Greyhounds arrived on Sunday with a new lease of life and a new found determination following their re-launch last week under new ownership. Haringey were quick off the mark with an early goal but Thunder soon got back on level terms with a Jamie Holland goal. Thunder then took control of the opening period with further goals from Tom Roles and Harrison Goode.
So, 3-1 up going into the second and looking on top, but Thunder failed to capitalise and during the period let Greyhounds back into the game and consequently the visitors confidence and commitment grew to an extent that it was Greyhounds that controlled the period with two unanswered goals. 3-3 going into the final period and it was anybodies game. A shock early goal from Greyhounds  to take the lead knocked Thunder back and they conceded a fifth with five minutes to go.
Now 3-5 down Thunder had to dig deep to recover the situation and a time out was called to settle the nerves and plan the strategy. Ross Horsley made it 4-5 with three minutes to go, and with just under two to go Mike Knights pulled Thunder level. Thunder had the puck in the net for the winner shortly afterwards but the referee had already blown having lost sight of it thinking the goalie had it covered. So it ended 5-5, a result which will please Haringey more than Thunder.

Thunder now go into a two week layoff due to some bizzare fixture scheduling, with the next game at home on 20th Dec against Oxford City Stars.

Unfortunately Planet Ice has problems with the ice plant, and despite valiant efforts by the rink staff, the ice pad has turned into a duck pond so they had no alternative than to call the game off early on Sunday morning.

Apologies to our fans, the Redskins players and supporters, but there is nothing that can be done in time so the game will have to be re-arranged for a future date.

Thunder travelled to Streatham on Sunday to take on the Redskins for the second time in a week. Having been embarrassed in our own barn the previous week, the lads were looking to make amends on the road. However, "if you don't put in the effort, you'll never get the rewards" was never more true than in the first two periods of this game. Thunder were completely lacklustre and it was the Redskins who probably couldn't believe their luck as they cruised to a 6-2 lead.

Thunder then decided to put in probably their best period of hockey this season, winning the last period 2-0 and showing the physical side that they've been missed too often recently. So we lost 6-4 in the end but the last period proved what might have been. Once again we out shot the opponents and lost the game. A brace each for Dan Chaplen and Jamie Holland Thunder's only return.

Thunder's 'Saturday Team' faced the long road trip to the Isle of Wight on Saturday to take on Wightlink Raiders. The lack of available players for Saturday games is becoming a real problem especially in defence but the team that travelled put up a valiant effort against a powerful (and well funded) IOW team. We were only 3-1 down going into the last period but couldn't hold on and lost 6-1 in the end. Another superb game from Mark Woolf earned him MOM, but close behind was Nidal Phillips making his senior debut.

Sunday saw the lads go down 0-2 at home against Streatham Redskins. This was a game we needed to pick up points from, but the team looked lacklustre and lost out to the visitors who played with more passion and determination.

Thunder played a double header against Bracknell Hornets this weekend and came away with no points. Saturday's away game in Bracknell was particularly disappointing as the team failed to get going at all and allowed a fast skating and passing team to attack them non-stop. The resulting 13-2 loss was hard to take and the layers knew they had to raise their game for the home tie on Sunday.

Thunder played a lot better at home, but still showed the frailties in front of their own net from the night before. After going 0-3 down, they restored some pride in coming back to 2-3 after th4e first. A stronger display in the rest of the game could not overturn Hornets but 4-7 at the end was definitely a better performance.

Thunder faced the daunting task of a road trip to Invicta Dynamos on Sunday, but the game was very different from what a lot of the home supporters thought.

A hard working and determined Thunder side, backed by a superb Mark Woolf performance in goa,l gave Dynamos a big scare holding them 0-0 in the first period before taking the lead twice in the second to lead 2-1 going into the last. Eventually some re-shuffling of lines got Invicta going and they found a way past  tiring Thunder team to get a mighty relieved 5-2 win.