Bees keep the sheets clean
NETMINDERS Danny Milton and
Dean Skinns both picked up a man-ofthe-match award as Bracknell Bees kept two clean sheets at the weekend.
Bees went into Saturday’s trip to Streatham on the back of two straight losses, but edged to a 1-0 win thanks to Roman Malinik’s goal and Milton’s saves.
And it was a similar story on Sunday as head coach Doug Sheppard took on his former side Basingstoke Bison at The Hive.
Malinik was again on the scoresheet, as was Brendan Baird, while goalie Skinns was named man-ofthe-match in the 2-0 win having joined from Basingstoke in the summer.
“Any time you get a shut-out, your goalie plays well and you play good team defence, which we did for the entire weekend,” Sheppard told The Wokingham Paper.
“Very happy with the way we competed all weekend. I thought we won a lot more battles than the opposition.
“Defence is going to win you a lot of hockey games. Slight concern with only three goals but if we’re playing good defence, it’s going to give us a chance to win most games.”
He added: “Two clean sheets with two different goalies, not easy games so both guys are playing well at the minute.
“That’s exactly what you need, some good friendly competition within team-mates. You want to be the guy on the ice whether you’re a player or a netminder.”
Bees travelled to Streatham Arena having already lost 4-2 there this season.
But it was a much tighter affair on Saturday with the only goal arriving in the 21st minute when Malinik fired in after being set up by Vanya Antonov.
Bracknell killed four late penalties while Milton was also on form to preserve the 1-0 win to provide a boost ahead of the big clash with Basingstoke.
Ryan Watt and Edward Knaggs went close to putting Bees ahead early on at The Hive before Skinns was called into action at the other end.
Former Bracknell netminder Alex Mettam was impressing between the sticks himself on his return to Berkshire as the first period passed scoreless.
The deadlock was finally broken in the 27th minute with Malinik winning a face-off and finding Baird to fire in.
Basingstoke responded well with Skinns in top form to retain the clean sheet.
And with time running out the win was sealed as Bracknell soaked up the pressure and scored in the final minute with Malinik sliding into the empty net after Bison had pulled their netminder for an extra skater.
“Coming off a couple of tough losses it was great to get back to winning hockey and when you don’t give up a goal over the weekend, there’s a lot of positives there,” said Sheppard.
“It certainly wasn’t an easy weekend, going to Streatham and then having Basingstoke at home. Two tough opponents and not to concede a goal and come away with four points, obviously very happy with the way the weekend went.”