The last two weekends have brought back-to-back defeats for the Buccaneers in this year’s Ice Hockey Summer Classic campaign.
Firstly, the Buccs took on the Sheffield Ice Tigers on 14th May. After defeating the Yorkshire side 6-4 away from home, the Buccs were hoping to get more points on the board in this one. That’s not how it panned out though as a very close game resulted in Sheffield reversing that home defeat, leaving Blackburn with a 6-4 win of their own.
Sheffield came out of the blocks firing and Martin Bell put the visitors in front after just 3.12, sniping a shot into the top corner. The home team hit back 4 minutes later with Michael Walsh firing a slapshot past Nick Bell in the away goal.
There wouldn’t be any more action on the scoreboard until midway through the second period and it was the Ice Tigers who took the lead. Joe Hawnt took his first goal of the night on the powerplay with an assist from Henshaw. The Buccaneers hit back instantly and it was Walsh again with another solo effort to tie the game at 2-2. This seemed to kick the home side into action. With Mark Howard sat in the penalty box, Paddy Thomson broke out of the defensive zone and rounded Bell to give the Buccaneers the lead for the first time in the game. Less than one minute later, Jade Bolton set husband Adam off on a breakaway which he duly despatched to give the Buccs a two goal cushion with a minute to play in the period. However, the Ice Tigers in typical fashion did not sit back and cut that lead to one with 15 seconds left in the period, James Hague firing past Jimmy Tse with Joe Hawnt picking up the extra point.
The third period started where the second left off, neither team wanting to give an inch. 7 minutes in, Joe Hawnt tied the game with his second of the night. Despite the additional point on offer for a draw, neither team were satisfied and gave it everything to force a win. Then with 37 seconds left on the clock came heartbreak for the Buccs. Foulstone was deep in corner of the Buccs zone and fired a speculative pass across the crease that deflected off the stick of Scott Anthony-Jones and high over Jimmy Tse into the goal. The Buccs pulled Tse from the opening face-off but weren’t able to prevent Danny Glue firing into the empty net to round off the scoring and the match.
MVP for the Buccaneers was Jade Conway and for the Ice Tigers, Joe Hawnt.
Scoring Summary:
Buccaneers
- Michael Walsh 2+0
- Adam Bolton 1+0
- Patrick Thomson 1+0
- Jade Conway 0+1
Ice Tigers
- Joe Hawnt 2+1
- James Hague 1+0
- Danny Glue 1+0
- Dave Foulstone 1+0
- Martin Bell 1+0
- Rick Henshaw 0+1
Penalty Summary:
Buccaneers
- Simon Pickering 4mins
- Mark Howard 4mins
- Michael Walsh 2mins
- Scott Anthony-Jones 2mins
- Ryan Spencer 2mins
Ice Tigers
- James Hague 2mins
- Joe Hawnt 2mins
- Danny Glue 2mins
- Reece Quanbrough 2mins
- Rory Ross-Docherty 2mins