Chelmsford Sport

New line-up leads to Chieftains win

1:22pm Thursday 11th March 2010

ICE HOCKEY: Chelmsford Chieftains 6 Cardiff ENL Devils 3 COMING to the game on the back of Andy Moffat leaving the team and Ross Brears being injured, it meant the Chieftains would have to mix their lines.

Early on it seemed to have worked as the Cardiff side looked shocked at the new style of hockey the Chieftains played.

The Devils are known for their hard-hitting and rough style, but they were not expecting to have the Chieftains outmuscle them.

Referee Ian Hayden seemed intent on calling players for most things early in the game and the Chieftains took advantage of that at 11:02, when Jerry Pavlus played the puck behind the net for Danny Hammond to sneak in at the back post and tap it into the unguarded net while on a powerplay.

Into the second period and things continued in much the same vein.

Chieftains struck again on the powerplay when Blaho Novak redirected a blast of a shot from Sean Easton past the helpless Mike Brabon in the Devils net.

Just 32 seconds later it was 2-1 when the Devils hit back through the impressive Luke Piggott.

The fans were really getting into the game now and this seemed to lift the Chieftains and, in particular, Pavlus who fired past Brabon.

The Chieftains defence was ripped open at times with some neat moves by the Devils and just a few minutes after Pavlus’s goal it was back to 3-2, when Tim Burrows found space in front of Ben Clements and rifled it home.

This reawakened the Chieftains and Aaron Connolly was the next to get on the scoresheet with a sweet backhanded shot that beat Brabon. Veteran Alan Armour had been incensed by something Novak had done and used the time in the celebrations to chase after the youngster and remonstrate with him. Things were calmed down before they got out of hand, but Hayden sent both Novak and Armour for 10 minute penalties.

Returning to the side was Darren Brown and he was on tip-top form as he battled for every puck and when most in the rink thought he had lost the puck on a breakaway, he was able to regain possession and slide it across for Connolly to notch his second of the night. The third was a quiet affair early on, but came alive as the hits started to go in and tempers were rising.

The comedy moment of the night came when a shot from Novak seemed to bounce off Brabon, hit the post, come back off the post and hit the back of Brabon’s leg and end up in the back of the net.

Brabon just sat there looking forlorn. The game played out without much further incident, other than a few more big hits going in, to delight the home fans.

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