A feast of ice hockey for action-starved city fans

Peterborough Phantoms and MK Lightning treated excited fans to a feast of ice hockey in the first match at Planet Ice for 546 days last Sunday, writes

Tom Lea.

The city side staged a fantastic fightback in the second of two challenge matches from 3-0 and 4-2 down to draw 5-5 and take the game into overtime.

Unfortunately a penalty for Morgan Clarke-Pizzo helped the visitors to find the sudden death winning goal and complete a quickfire double over their local rivals.

MK had won rather more convincingly 6-1 on their own ice the night before.

Glenn Billing, who claimed man-of-the-match honours in both matches, scored twice in the home game with Ales Padelek, Duncan Speirs and Luc Johnson also on target.

The latter pair were claiming their first goals for the club and Speirs won’t forget his golden strike in a hurry.

The forward gained the zone on the right wing and lasered his shot right into the top corner to tie the game at 4-4.

MK were straight back in front before Johnson struck late on to force overtime.

Billings bagged two assists to go with his goal. Other assists came from Padelek (2), Johnson and Ross Clarke.

Phantoms suffered a difficult night in MK. Bobby Chamberlain gave the home side the lead before Sam Talbot doubled their advantage with just over 15 minutes played.

Tom Norton answered straight back with a power play bullet to send the Phantoms into the first intermission down by one.

But that was as good as it got on the night, with Sean Norris and two Russell Cowley efforts putting the game out of reach with 20 minutes still to play.

Cowley scored the lone goal of the third period to seal his hat-trick and a big win for MK.

Padelek and Billing assisted on Norton’s goal.

Ice hockey was the real winner though and actionstarved fans appeared to love every minute.

Nathan Pollard on the ice again for Peterborough Phantoms. Photo: Matt Sludds.