One at the Hive as Wildcats prepare to visit

IT’S A single game this weekend for the Berkshire Cycles Bracknell Bees with Sunday at the Hive being their only outing.

This weekend’s visitors to Bracknell are the Swindon

Wildcats.

The Wildcats are enjoying a good start to 18/19 under Aaron Nell having snuck into top spot in the NIHL 1 South.

Over the summer head coach

Nell retained most of his team except Oliver Stone, Phil Hill and Matthew Smital. Elliot Randal, Loris Taylor and Michael Crisp all gained promotion from other Swindon teams as well as Tyler Perre from Okanagan Under 18s.

New additions from outside Wiltshire are Tyler Plews from Edinburgh Capitals and Adam Harding’s return from Dundee

Stars.

Regular non EIHA trained players Maxim Birbraer and Jan Kostal again make their impacts felt on the ice with seasoned performers Sam Godfrey, Ben Nethersall, Neil Liddiard and Stephen Whitfield on defence and Luke Johnson, Chris Jones, Edgars Bebris and Floyd Taylor up front.

The coach himself is one of the best British forwards in the league meaning the Wildcats are a strong contender for this season.

The Bees are still awaiting the outcome of the discipline panel on Roman Malinik’s ongoing suspension. Roman received a match penalty in the game against Streatham and missed both of last week’s games. Frustratingly under league rules Roman cannot ice again until we hear from the discipline investigation.

Both games last weekend saw the Bees ice short benched returning three out of the four points available. Last Sunday saw scoring spread well across the team and head coach Doug Sheppard will be looking for the same disciplined performance this weekend that the team put in last Sunday.

Doug explained; “It’s been a tough period for us of late with injuries and Roman missing from the lineup too but we’re hopeful our injured players will be back soon and we can get back to our full depth.

This weekend, despite just having a single game, there will be no hiding place. We’ve met Swindon already this season so we know the challenge ahead.

“I wasn’t impressed with the way we started last Sunday. We showed good character to recover but we know we can’t afford a period like that this weekend. I’m looking to our senior players to step up and lead by example in what’s going to be a very tough single game weekend.”

The Bees only game this weekend is Sunday night at the Hive, face off is set for 6pm.