With the Irish Ice Hockey League up and running, hockey is being played in both the Dundalk Ice Dome and Dundonald International Ice Centre Belfast, every weekend from now until Christmas and beyond.
In one of the best contests of this season, and for that matter, as good as the Hawks win over Dundee Stars the Latvian team once again prove successful . Playing this time against the very strong Rams squad from Dublin, the Hawks scored first.
Sergejs Selenkovs opened the Hawks account on 7.43 assisted by Alex Fjodorovs in a fast a furious opening period with both teams having their chances.
It took thirty-six minutes for either team to find the back of the net again. Both goalies were playing with extreme confidence.
This time it was the provider turn scorer with Alex Fjodorovs netting what turned out to be the winner for the Hawks assisted by brother Dimitrijs on 44.16. Victor Serdjukovs netted Latvia’s insurance goal on 45.30, which made the Hawks comfortable,but confounded Rams’s excellent goaltender Eric Tobia who had produced two periods of almost flawless net minding in conjunction with sterling work from his defensemen .
The Hawk’s comfort zone shrunk slightly when the Rams Matt Hearn scored their first goal assisted by Ross O’Driscoll and they looked up for more. It gave the Dubliners the confidence they needed and they piled on the pressure.
Try as they might they couldn’t find their way through the Hawks defence or goal line with the score ending 3-1 to the Hawks at the end of an excellent game.
In the Dundalk Bulls vs. Belfast Tesco Junior Giants contest Marek Bailey, Adam Larrabee scored hat tricks plus a five goal output from Milosz Lubudda put that a hole in the Giants ship. Mark Reynolds scored for the Belfast Junior Giants in a 20-1 victory for the Bulls.
In other games from the Irish League The Ice Breakers beat the Blackhawks 9-1. Milan Nandrazdi scored a hat trick with Slanislav Lascek netting twice.
Kilkenny Storm surprisingly were defeated by Dundalk Bulls B squad 3-2. Niall McEvoy opened the Bulls scoring but the Storm equalized.
Andrew Milium and Robert Grochowicz who of course played with the Bulls A team last year, put the Dundalk outfit two up in the second period. However Gary Knox came storming back for Kilkenny late in the period.
Although the Bulls took far too many penalties in the final period the Storm couldn’t find a way through the Bulls defence with the Bulls skating out 3-2 winners.
That’s it for this weeks I.I.H.L. round up from Wayne Hardman.