With the Ice Hockey Summer Classic season now in full swing, the games are coming thick and fast for the Buccaneers. 25th May and 1st June saw home games against the Sheffield Blazers and Leeds Warriors respectively and two wins for the Buccs have maintained our 100% start to the campaign before we headed down to Deeside to take on Connahs Quay Cobras on 7th June.
The game against the Blazers was a fiesty affair with almost an hours worth of penalty minutes racked up between the two teams. The Blazers took an early lead with their first shot of the game with just a minute on the clock. Both teams exchanged chances throughout the period but the scorelined remained at 1-0 for the visitors going into the second.
The second period was a stop-start affair with both teams taking multiple penalties but it was the Buccs who did the damage on the scoreboard in a devastating 3 and a half minute spell. Firstly it was Thomson on the mark then just 34 seconds later, Hudson Nuttall picked up the puck in his own zone before going end-to-end and firing into the top corner. Three minutes later, Walsh exited the penalty box and quickly received a pass from Burns and his one-time shot crept through the body of Blazers netminder Evan Coles.
Whilst the third period didn’t bring any more in the way of goals, the crowd, who turned out in decent numbers, were not short on entertainment as the penalties continued to flow, culminating in a scuffle that saw roughing penalties for Hudson Nuttall and Walsh for the Buccs and Shaun Osborne of the Blazers ejected for fighting.
Final score Buccs 3-1 Blazers. MVP for the Buccaneers was our netminder James Harrison who turned away 35 of the 36 shots faced. The Swashbuckler Award went to Luke Jiggins.
The following week, we welcomed Leeds Warriors to Blackburn for our return fixture. After a 9-0 victory in the first game, we knew that Leeds were coming with a point to prove and weren’t expecting an easy ride.
That’s exactly how things played out in a relatively low scoring game. Burns was on the board in the first period to give the Buccs the lead going into the break. The Warriors found an equaliser in the second period but the lead was restored less than 30 seconds later by Hudson Nuttall.
Leeds drew themselves level again just before the break with a goal from Marsh 36 seconds before the buzzer so it was all to play for in the final 20.
Despite the scores being level, the Buccs were outshooting the Warriors and the message from Higson in the break was just to stick with it. That proved fruitful in the end and the pressure paid off, goals from Rose and Fogarty wrapping up a 4-2 win for the home side.
MVP went to Burns with Dan Watson picking up the Swashbuckler.
We took a break from Summer Classic action on 7th June and travelled down to Deeside to take on Connahs Quay Cobras. With some familiar faces in the their line-up, we knew we were in for a tough game as always.
And end-to-end game saw the Cobras run out 7-5 winners with the Buccs goals coming from a Hudson Nuttall hat-trick, taking this seasons tally to 7 from 4 games, Burns and Thomson.
MVP went to Tom Helm on his club debut with the Swashbuckler going to Dan Frewin who made his debut between the pipes for the team.
Our next game will be on 29th June when we travel to Leeds to take on the currently unbeaten Leeds Lightning.