ENL Coventry Blaze 4 v 6 MK Thunder 

Period Scores: 0 - 2, 0 - 2, 4 - 2 

Penalty Mins:    Coventry Blaze 22      MK Thunder 46                       

Shots on Goal:  On Coventry’s Dan Shea 35                   

                        On MK Thunder’s Mark Woolf 41

Coventry Blaze: Ryan Selwood 2+0, Tom Hurley 1+2, Aram Todd 1+0, Josh Bruce 0+1, Tom Ledgard 0+1, Scott Murphy 0+1, Luke Curtis 0+1.

MK Thunder: Lee Featherstone 2+0, Mark Krater 1+2, Tom Roles 1+0, Paul Jamieson 1+0, Ben Williams 1+0, Aidan Mahmud 0+2, Paul Gore 0+1, Ivan Turan 0+1, Lewis Clifford 0+1, Josh White 0+1, Sam Fairhurst 0+1.

Man of the Match:          Bracknell Hornets – Ryan Selwood

Mk Thunder – Lee Featherstone 

MK Thunder made their first ever visit to the Skydome in Coventry last Sunday, to play their season opener against the newly formed ENL Coventry Blaze. Blaze are a young team bolstered by a few more experienced players. With a number of Thunder players moving to Coventry over the summer, this was an eagerly awaited game with plenty of support for both sides in the impressive 450 crowd.

Thunder controlled most of the first two periods, winning them both 0-2, as they took advantage of Coventry’s lack of game experience. Despite being a good skating team, the home side lacked confidence and were to easily taken off the puck by the bigger and stronger Thunder outfit who looked a vastly improved team in comparison to last season.

Tom Roles got the scoring underway with a seventh minute goal after being set up by Aidan Mahmud. Thunder then spent most of the remainder of the period playing short-handed as a combination of lapses in discipline and some very harsh calls from the officials saw a familiar scene in the penalty box! Coventry failed to make the most of the extra man advantages and were made to pay when Thunder eventually got a powerplay of their own in the final minute of the period, Lee Featherstone scoring the first goal of the evening assisted by Ivan Turan and Paul Gore.

Thunder were even more dominant in the second period as the home side appeared to get disheartened by their lack of success. A thunderous Paul Jamieson slap shot at 33:47made it 0-3, Lewis Clifford providing the assist and two minutes later Ben Williams scored his first goal for Thunder with a clever wrap around goal to make it 0-4, Sam Fairhurst and Josh White getting the assists.

The third period proved to be the most exciting of the evening as Thunder either relaxed or went to sleep for ten minutes. This gave Coventry the impetuous they needed. As soon as ex-Thunder player Aram Todd scored their first league goal you could see the spirit of the whole team lift and suddenly there was a belief throughout the side that they could compete at this level. Two goals from Blaze’s man of the match Ryan Selwood pulled the score back to 3-4 by the fiftieth minute and Thunder began to look nervous. A quick time out called by Thunder settled the team and man of the match Lee Featherstone then took full advantage of another powerplay at 52:23 to score his second of the evening and restore a two goal cushion, assists to Mark Krater and Aidan Mahmud.

Tom Hurley pulled a goal back for Blaze against his former team to make it 4-5 at 57:48, but encouraged forward by their very vocal support from the stands, Thunder restored their two goal lead less than a minute later through Mark Krater to finish the game 4-6 winners.