Phoenix Trounce Telford

Monday, 6th November 2006

The Manchester Phoenix U-16 squad racked up the second victory of their pre-season challenge match campaign with a 6 – 3 win over Telford on Saturday.

The match began disastrously for Phoenix as with just 46 seconds on the clock, defensive confusion in front of the Manchester net allowed Ryan Twardun to convert a Daniel Schutte pass, putting the home team into the lead. Seconds later, Telford’s Luke Hayward fell badly against the boards after an apparently clean hit by Mike Hoskins. Hayward was subsequently stretchered from the ice, with the hapless Phoenix number 15 taking an early bath with the compulsory 5 + match boarding call.

Telford’s Ross Smith picked up two minutes for Hooking in the third minute and Phoenix immediately took the initiative with Ben Brown converting an Alex Pugh pass to open the visitor’s account and put the teams back on level terms. Nevertheless, Manchester continued to look frail in defence and in the eighth minute, with Phoenix’ Josh Healey sitting two minutes for Roughing, Telford’s Doug Notman slid the puck through to Ross Smith to put the home side back ahead. Telford pressed home their advantage two minutes later with a third goal, this time from Callum Taylor.

Phoenix responded positively to this wake-up call with a more organised shape and some fluid passing. Telford’s Ryan Twardun took a 2 + 10 in the latter stages of the period for Checking to the Head. Manchester’s Oli Bayne made no mistake on the resulting powerplay, to reduce the deficit to a single goal.

The second period opened with Phoenix swapping Adam Grisdale for Bob Browne in net, giving the U-14 minder his first taste of U-16 hockey. Manchester began brightly, taking control of the game with much improved passing. Good work by Conner Dakin, working the boards in the neutral zone, kept the puck in the Telford end, and a series of attacking moves down the right wing by D-man Jack Sweet brought their reward at 26.47. Jack was fed by Harry Sims from Jordan Bannon, and hammered the puck home from just inside the blue line.

With the teams back on level terms Manchester’s offence changed up a gear, pushing forward relentlessly to score three goals in a frantic three-minute spell. Two by Oli Bayne completed the number 3’s hat-trick and in the 32nd minute good powerplay passing by Tom Browne and Peter Uldall set up Steven McHugh to convert his first goal of the season. Despite continued pressure, with a close effort by Chris Wells and good rushes out of defence by Alfie Olinski, Phoenix couldn’t add further to their tally in a game that was already out of Telford’s reach.

The club’s thanks go out to the Telford organisation for arranging the fixture and we look forward to a return challenge in the spring.

Manchester Phoenix Match Stats

O.Bayne 3+0
B.Brown 1+3
J.Sweet 1+2
S.McHugh 1+0
A.Pugh 0+2
J.Bannon 0+1
T.Browne 0+1
H.Sims 0+1
P.Uldall 0+1

Phoenix Trounce Telford

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