On Saturday 28th April, Knights travelled to Basingstoke in daylight, for a game against Basingstoke Hyenas with a sensible 7pm face off! The last time these two teams met in Gillingham, it was a 5-5 draw.

The Knights started strong, and played some good hockey, and Joel Gouin set the standard for the game, netting an unassisted goal after only 32 seconds. Matej 'Bojangles' Bojnansky scored on the powerplay with a pass from Jonny 'Number 26 ref' Arnold at 6:02. Rider then wrapped up the scoring for the period at 13:46 with a unassisted goal. The Knights played the majority of the period in the Hyenas zone, and the score could and should have been higher, but the Hyenas goaltender was up for the challenge. 

The second period was a completely different affair. The Knights lost all momentum, and the Hyenas made no mistake in clawing their way back into the game by scoring 3 unanswered goals to level the game up. Bojangles netted a second on the powerplay at 27 minutes with good work from Jonny and Steve 'USA' Russell getting the assists. The Hyenas pulled the game level again before getting a chance on net, and their players reeled away thinking they had scored, but there was no light from the goal judge.....  A lot of people thought that the puck had gone in, but not Jonny. Like a hero he made a long pass to Captain Spence who was then on the breakaway. Without doubt, Spence has the worst record on a breakaway, but Joel skated with him, holding his hand to make sure he scored! (in fact, he was screaming "Pass to me Spence, you'll miss") With the score at 5-4 Bojangles is alleged to have been taken down on a breakaway and the ref gives a penalty shot. Bojangles calmly took the honours, rounding the netminder and slotting home for his hat trick. The Hyenas ended the scoring for the period with the game very close at 6-5 in the second intermission.

The Hyenas lost their discipline in the third period, and took a lot of penalties, and the Knights did not take advantage of the sustained pressure. There was only one goal in the third, which was a cheeky over the net pass from Captain Spence to Joel, who caught the puck, dropped and shot in to finish the scoring for the game. Craig Duck got hit by one of the Hyenas towards the end of the game, which left him quacking, as it was meant to be a non checking game!

MOM was awarded to Joel

Bojangles 3+0, Jonny 0+3, Joel 2+0, Spence and Rider 1+1, Steve USA 0+1

The Knights played back to back games this weekend, and posted back to back wins for their first wins of the season.

On Friday night (24th February) the boys travelled to Milton Keynes to take on the Jesters. Numbers for the game were good, with fifteen players making the trip. The first period started with the Knights controlling the puck well, and spend a lot of the period in the offensive zone, but couldn't capitalize on the pressure, and two goals late in the period for the Jesters saw the period end 2-0 to the home team.

In the second period the Knights turned the scoring around, and at 31:47 Chris Spencer played in D Man Matt Parkinson who lifted the puck above the goalie and into the roof of the net. Fellow D Man Martin Rider evened up the scoring at 38:02 with an unassisted goal.

The third period started as the second finished with goals from forwards Joel Gouin and Chris Gruber, but then the sticky, slashing part of a non contact game took it's toll and the referees failed to positively deal with this. The Knights had a number of powerplays, and controlled the puck well, but couldn't finish the Jesters off. MK pulled one back to make the score line 4-3 with just over 6 minutes to play, in what led to be an interesting time. At 54:14 Knights were crashing the Jesters net, and the goalie then sticked Joel in the face, who clearly didn't appreciate this and a melee ensued, as usual the players with cages giving it all the mouth from their safe haven! Captain Spence made it perfectly clear to the referee that he wasn't happy about what had happened and told the referee to get a grip and start calling some penalties, and the ref kindly started by giving Spence a 10 minute misconduct for abuse of official! Joel and the goalie were both given match penalties, Gruubs took a roughing penalty, so this completely depleted the first forward line to the penalty box. The boys dug deep for the last few minutes, and Dan Wales skated out on a breakaway, and the stand in goalie did well to get a leg to the puck, but Jonny Arnold had skated hard and crashed the net to slot away the rebound. Gruubs returned to the ice following his penalty to score from a pass from Rider, and then Steve 'USA' Russell finished off the scoring with an anassisted goal.

Mom for this game was Martin Rider

Gruub 2+0, Rider/Joel 1+1, Spence 0+2, Jonny/Matt P/Steve USA 1+0, Wales 0+1

Picture by Casey Woods

The resulting match penalty to Joel meant that he would be required to serve a whopping three match ban, which was not good the day before the return leg to the New Year Cup against Solent Scorpions.

The following day, the Knighs hosted the Scorpions in what played out to be a very physical, but exciting game.

The Knights had a full bench to play against the eleven skaters of the Scorpions. The first period was not the way we wanted to start the game, having a 5 goal deficit from the previous leg, the Knights had a lot of work to do. The first period saw the Knights go down 3-0.

In the second period, the Knights started throwing the body about, and forechecking harder, and this paid off at 32:52 as Steve USA opened the scoring for the Knights assisted by Matej Bojnansky who got his first point for the Knights. At 39:52 Dan Hosking skated past a couple of D men and roofed the puck into the net after receiving a pass from Kaspars Purvlicis who also posted his first point for the Knights. The second period finished with just one goal in it, and the third continued in the same way, at 48:03 Rider skated from his own zone to score a deke on the Scorps goalie unassisted to tie the game.

At 48:57 Scorps took a penalty for high sticks, and the Knights went on the powerplay. This was well worked in the Scorps zone and at 50:01 Tim 'Chav' Bill scored the game winning goal assisted by Gruubs and Rider to win the Knights the game. But the Knights still had to hold on for the last 10 minutes for the W.

Man of the Match Sponsored by Time Electrical Wholesale and Next Phase Electrical went to Dan Hosking.

However, although the Knights won the game on the night, they lost the New Year Cup to the Scorps with an aggregate scored of 12-8. 

Rider 1+1, Hosking/ Steve USA/ Chav 1+0, Gruub/ Kaspars/ Bojangles 0+1