Big Puck reports on Chelmsford Chieftains, Essex premier Ice Hockey' team, successful weekend. With thanks to Pete Lewis and all at the Chieftains.It had to happen sooner or later and on Sunday night at the Riverside it did! Romford Raiders were on an amazing run of 14 wins, including the only defeat of the Chieftains this season, but that all came crashing down at the hands of Gary Clarke and his men. Chelmsford put themselves 2 up inside 7 minutes through Danny Hammond and Clarke. Hammond's goal was the end product of a great display of puck control from Ross Brears who ended up feeding Hammond to slot home past Michael Gray. Clarke then took advantage of a defensive lapse to double the Chieftains advantage. Romford showed why they are the Chieftains's biggest challengers moments later when former Chelmsford star Matt Turner scored past Chelmsford man of the match David Wride. That was it for scoring until 33:31 when Romford player/coach Danny Marshall netted to tie the game up and put the 1000+ crowd on the edge of their seats. Less than 4 minutes later though Clarke had made it 3-2 after goalmouth scramble that saw Andrius Kaminskas of Romford leave the ice injured.
Into the third and things began to heat up quickly as Romford seemed to be more intent on playing a physical game rather than trying to win the encounter and the Chieftains took advantage as Clarke completed his hat-trick with a blast from the blue-line when the home side were on the powerplay. With just under 10minutes to play Romford bad boy Billy Phillips was called for a 2 minute cross-checking minor penalty, but ended up talking himself into a 10 minute misconduct and a further game misconduct that would see him take no further part in the game.
While this was going on in Essex, the Chelmsford second side Warriors were in Kent taking on Invicta Mustangs and they narrowly lost 4-3 with the Warriors goals coming from Richard Whiting, Ricky Mills and Paul Merchant.
Saturday night saw the Chieftains complete a routine win in Bristol as they tamed the Pitbulls with a convincing 8-2 result. Tom Long set the ball rolling, quickly followed up by Alan Green netting and Dwayne Newman scored late on in the period to put the visitors 3-2 up after one period. 3 goals in the second period from Jakub Klima times 2 and Clarke had the Essex side 6-2 ahead and looking convincing. With the game over as a contest it was left to Hammond and Long to round out the scoring and for Long to pick up the man of the match award.
Bench coach Sean Easton said of the results "They speak for themselves really. We're sitting top of the table and all the talk back from Bristol was about the Romford game and how we would be able to beat them. We knew we couldn't rise to the intimidation games they were playing and we did that well and kept our heads and won the game. We're top of the league and points clear and it's up to us to maintain our place".
Next Games
Chieftains
AWAY: Sunday 6th November @ Invicta Dynamos 17:30 (South East Cup)
HOME: Sunday 13th November V Wightlink Raiders 18:30
WARRIORS
HOME: Sunday 6th November V Swindon ENL Wildcats 18:30
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