Wakeup call for Southern Stampede
THE secondlastplaced Botony Swarm has given competition frontrunner the Southern Stampede a wakeup call before the National Ice Hockey League playoffs.
After handing the Auckland side a 61 thrashing on its home ice on Saturday, the Stampede was then downed 63 by the Swarm on Sunday.
The big turnaround came via a mixture of the Stampede’s poor discipline in game two and its failure to capitalise on scoring opportunities, assistant coach Ryan Strayer said.
‘‘We were definitely less disciplined in the second game and had a lot of penalties — that was our fault and we gave them a lot more chances than we should have.
‘‘We came out with the right start but, I guess you could say we stopped finishing our chances.’’
While the loss was only the Stampede’s’s third from 14 games, Strayer hopes the lateseason loss will provide a warning for the team.
‘‘It seems like we have one of these weekends every year before the finals. Hopefully, we rebound from this.’’
The Stampede can rest easy with a bye this weekend, but heads to Christchurch to play the cellardwelling Canterbury Devils in a twogame series on August 56.
‘‘We definitely need to win the next two games in Christchurch to guarantee home advantage for the playoffs.’’
While the table topper’s trip to Botany did not go exactly to plan, Strayer was pleased with his side’s clinical performance in game one.
The Swarm came out firing to take a 10 lead, but it was all oneway traffic after that as the Stampede ran away to a 61 win.
‘‘We were very pleased with our game one performance. Everybody on the roster played well — it was a good team effort.
‘‘The scored a quick one early then we got back to our game plan.’’
The South Island’s wild weekend weather and subsequent road closures meant the Canterbury Devils will effectively be coming off a bye round when they meet the Stampede.
The team was to travel to Dunedin for two matches over the weekend, but the games were cancelled.
The two matches are likely to be tacked on to the end of the regular season on August 1213, Thunder officials said.
The Thunder is scheduled to play a twogame away series against the West Auckland Admirals this weekend.