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Flames open 2010 with three wins
Photograph of Guildford Flames player-coach Paul Dixon celebrating with Martin Masa courtsey of Alan Bone.
The Guildford Flames Ice Hockey club were back on home ice Sunday night for game 3 in a 3 day stretch and 5th in 9 nights. With dwindling numbers that saw Nathan Rempel on the sidelines after the opening weekend game, and Lubomir Hurtaj later joining a casualty list that already included Vinny Zavoral, Rick Skene and Rick Plant, the task of the night was going to be a tall order. The short bench, however, was up to the task, shrugging off a shot disadvantage to collect a 4-1 win over Basingstoke Bison who are not entirely beyond their own medical epidemic that has hampered them in recent weeks. The home team opened the scoring at 7:15 with a Milos Melicherik strike to take a 1-0 lead in a first half period advantage. The visitors turned the tables and created extended pressure for the second half of the stanza and were rewarded with an Andrew Hemmings goal inside the final 5 minutes of the session to take a 1-1 draw to the first interval. There was no scoring in the middle frame until a David Savage blast eluded Dave Lawrence with just 20 seconds left on the clock to offer the Flames a single goal lead with a period to play. Lukas Smital created some breathing room when he was successful on a wrap around effort midway through the frame before Melicherik iced the result with his second of the night just over a minute from time. The win marked the club’s 7th straight win.
48 hours earlier, they opened 2010 with a 3-1 success over Swindon Wildcats who visited Spectrum for the holiday clash. The home team kicked off the scoring at 11:46 when Tom Duggan found a way past Geoff Woolhouse. The Wildcats evened the match in the middle frame with an Aaron Nell goal at 32:50, but a shorthanded marker by Martin Masa in the 38th minute put up a 2-1 Flames advantage with a period to play. A few early 3rd period chances went unrewarded for the host team before Duggan was hauled down on a breakaway; the infraction was charged with a penalty shot which the British forward promptly tucked behind the Swindon netminder for a 3-1 lead that completed the night’s scoresheet.
To follow up the New Year’s day victory, the Surrey outfit travelled to Swindon to take on the same Wildcat opponents from 24 hours earlier. Though the score was different, one sunset did not change the ultimate result as Surrey’s outfit scored a pair of goals in each of the first two periods to set the stage for a 5-2 win. Lubomir Hurtaj scored first for the Surrey side at 10:42 and Martin Masa added another less than a minute after that. Gary Clarke picked up his first goal since returning from injury in the 27th minute before Milos Melicherik netted at 30:56 to stake Spectrum’s tenants to a 4 goal margin. The Wildcats got on the board at 34:39 when Raimond Danilics beat Dean Skinns to pull the score back to a 3 goal deficit ahead of the final break. As time ticked inside the final 10 minutes Rob Lamey re-stored the 4 goal lead before Jason Cassells added the final goal of the evening.
Flames Head Coach marvelled at the character of his team under the roster circumstances:
“We knew way back in the summer that the schedule that we drew over the holiday period was not an easy trek. However, we obviously could not have predicted the serious rash of injuries, or the unsettling circumstances involved in some of them, that have plagued us over that period. With such a short bench, and on game 3 of a 3 day weekend, you really start to feel the legs give way as fatigue begins to play a larger role. It becomes very challenging to be mentally focused and to deliver results. To be able to still come away with such success is a real credit to the way each and every guy picked up their game and put aside serious fatigue and a fair bit of adversity that surrounded the entire weekend. It is definitely one of the largest character tests of this team since my involvement with the organisation. It is hard to be anything but proud of the entire team for going for it when it would have been quite easy to use the situation as an excuse to be content with our efforts to that point rather than continue to push hard through the finish. Not insignificantly, in addition to a great influx of confidence, the run has moved us back into a much better table position to keep our hopes alive as one of the league contenders.”
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5-3 |
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4-5 |
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1-4 |
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4-4 |
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2-4 |
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5-8 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
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4-1 |
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5-2 |
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3-7 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
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- Campbell and Flames agree terms
- Flames re-sign David Savage
- Longstaff stays with Flames
- Flames re-sign Curtis Huppe
- Towe departs Flames
