Saturday 4th January 2019, Face off 7pm, Doors Open 6pm
Tickets available here
Supporters club have a great range of activity including 50/50, Shirt of His Back, Ollie’s Grid, Chuck a Duck and merchandise.
Match preview
Hull Pirates make a return to Planet Ice on Saturday with Smith Recycling Milton Keynes Lightning eager to make up ground on the National Ice Hockey League’s fifth placed team.
MKL are on a sparkling run of form having taken 19 points from a possible 22, and convincingly turned over Peterborough on New Year’s Day following a strong win at league leaders Telford a few days earlier. Confidence and momentum is strong in the MK camp right now which is great to see. Confirmed as missing for the game is Sam Russell who is away on international duty with Great Britain. Any other injuries are short term so could return for this weekend.
Lightning are three points behind Pirates and so cannot overtake them on Saturday but another two points for in form MK will put them within touching distance of the Humberside based club. Hull have had an indifferent run of form with only four wins in their last ten games which has seen their title challenge slip away.
That spell began when they lost to MKL on penalties – a 56th minute Leigh Jamieson goal from the blue line sending the game into a fruitless overtime before Tomas Kana scored the only successful penalty shot in a game marked by a Liam Stewart hat-trick.
Since then Pirates have re-signed the much travelled James Archer after he was one of three Leeds Chiefs players released by the club in early December. Unfortunately for Pirates he has not been able to do much to uplift their fortunes after joining in mid-November.
Pirates’ losses in December included a surprise 6-3 reverse to Raiders and a 3-1 defeat at Sheffield Steeldogs – although they did overcome their local rivals by a 5-3 margin on Sunday.
Top scorer is player coach Jason Hewitt – he also leads the league standings with 25 goals and 40 assists for 65 points while former MK man Bobby Chamberlain is fourth in the league stats with 47 points, including 27 goals and 20 assists. Another ex-Lightning player David Norris who joined the team in October to replace Latvian Olegs Sislannikovs has already overtaken Pirates’ other import Peter Fabus in the scoring chart. Norris has 34 points from 19 outings while Fabus is on 31 points.
There were plenty of thrills on that night at the back end of November when Lightning ran out narrow winners – will it be repeated this Saturday or can MK put the game to bed before overtime is necessary? Find out by contacting Planet Ice to book your tickets on 01908 540020 or online here. On Sunday MKL make the trip to Berkshire to face Bracknell Bees with Robin Kovar almost certainly keen to make a point (or more) to the club who released him before Lightning snapped him up.
