Big Puck reports: one win, two defeats over the weekend

Thanks to Pete Lewis and the guys from the Chieftains for supplying the information.

It was disappointment and frustration in the main for the Chelmsford ice hockey teams this past weekend as the South East Cup was won by the Romford Raiders at the Riverside on Saturday, despite the Chieftains only playing 2 games of their allocated 6 in the competition. The Chieftains will be kicking themselves after going 5-2 ahead and allowing 3 goals in less than a minute during the second period. Tom Long got the Chieftains off and running early on but Danny Marshall and Grant Taylor both beat netminder David Wride to make it 2-1 before the end of the period. In the second the Chelmsford side scored twice in the first 2 minutes to go 3-2 up through Danny Hammond and Jakub Klima. Then they went 5-2 ahead with the goals coming from Long and Gary Clarke. Then disaster struck 35:27 when Matt Turner scored, followed up 29 seconds later through Jason Buckman and then seconds later Billy Phillips tied the game up. Two late goals in the third from Juraj Huska and JJ McGrath sealed the win and the first piece of silverware on offer this season.

Onto Sunday and Player-Coach Clarke knew he'd have to re-group the troops and get a good result against an improving Milton Keynes side. An early scare saw Joe Edwards fire past Ben Clements and many of the Chieftains faithful had their heads in their hands. However Clarke once again led by example and tied the game up from a neat pass from Long who'd go on to get a richly deserved man of the match award. Long was provider once again for Klima before Michael Ranby stepped up with a brace in fairly quick succession. Klima scored again, followed by Harrison Goode getting a consolation for the Thunder and then Ross Brears netted to cap a fine display from the youngster. Then the gloves came off as Danny Cox took apart Vladimir Hubka in retribution after Hubka had put Klima head-first into the boards. Long scored twice more and also provided Clarke with his second of the night to round out a convincing 9-2 win.

Meanwhile on the Isle of Wight a feisty game between the Tigers and Warriors was overshadowed by some questionable officiating. Reports from the rink suggest that a number of the misconduct penalties given out were unnecessary and uncalled for and this made a mockery of the game. The Warriors fell to a tight 8-7 defeat after seeing 4 misconduct penalties given against them, including a bizarre game misconduct for captain Will Polston who left the bench to query the officials after a fight between Connor Swainsbury and Tigers veteran Chris Randall. Scorers for Warriors were Ben Osborne and Richard Whiting with two a piece, Ricky Mills, Grant Bartlett and Swainsbury.