11:43pm Sunday 3rd January 2010
By Nigel McFarlane
EPL ICE HOCKEY:
Saturday: Basingstoke Bison 2 Phoenix 1
Sunday: Phoenix 6 Slough Jets 7 (after OT)
Manchester Phoenix Head Coach Tony Hand remained upbeat after their title hopes suffered a blow at the weekend following back to back defeats against Basingstoke and Slough.
Phoenix went into the weekend still missing leading goalscorer Ed Courtenay, but welcomed back netminder Steve Fone after his recovery from a shoulder injury.
Despite dominating Saturday's visit to the Bison, Phoenix left without the points, and a five-goal and seven-point showing from Slough captain Blaz Emersic saw the Jets take the extra point on Sunday night after the Phoenix had staged a late, late fightback to send the game into sudden death overtime.
In their first home game since before Christmas, Phoenix exploded from the blocks, racing into a two-goal lead inside two minutes courtesy of Adam Walker and Iain Bowie. When Emersic reduced the arrears with the first of his five-goal haul in the fifth minute, the stage was set for another pulsating, nail-biter of a game in the Altrincham Ice Dome.
The first period continued to be played at a breakneck pace, and tempers simmered throughout as both teams tried to impose themselves physically.
Slough thought they had equalised, but saw a goal washed out and then Phoenix spurned a glorious opportunity as Walker failed to convert on a 14th minute penalty shot. A 2+10 penalty on Jaakko Hagelberg didnt help the Phoenix cause, but they took the one goal lead to the first interval.
Phoenix again started the second period brightly and player coach Tony Hand edged them into a second two-goal advantage in the 22nd minute. Phoenix were enjoying the better of the possession, but the Jets always looked dangerous on the break and it was Emersic who made it a one goal gap in the 29th minute and levelled, completing his hat-trick, in the 34th.
Hand responded in kind just over a minute later to edge the Phoenix back in front, only for Slough to pounce with two-goals in 27 seconds from Davies and Emersic to give them a 5-4 lead at the second break.
The third period saw Slough take a two-goal lead as Davies bagged his second of the game two minutes after the restart, and the Jets appeared to have wrenched control of the outcome as their defence began to look capable of stonewalling the Phoenix offensive rushes.
With time running out, a penalty on the Jets gave the Phoenix a lifeline and they grabbed it in emphatic style. Adam Walker grabbed his second goal of the game with just over two minutes to play on the resulting powerplay and Phoenix immediately used their Timeout to plot the equaliser. The plotting worked perfectly as with just over a minute to play, Walker found Robert Lachowicz and he beat Rockman in the Jets goal to tie the score at 6-6 and force sudden death overtime.
Phoenix had the better of the overtime as Slough seemed happy to slow the game and take it to a penalty shootout, but a quick break in the 64th minute saw Emersic bag his fifth goal of the game and snatch the extra point for the visitors.
Phoenix player coach Tony Hand said: "We worked so hard tonight, but a couple of individual mistakes cost us a couple of goals and missing our leading goalscorer (Ed Courtenay) meant we had to change things around a little to try to compensate.
"Once again, weve had a thrilling game in a crackling atmosphere and the entertainment level, even for me on the ice, is quite remarkable. Overall, we've taken just one point from a weekend where I think we could well have had all four, so we'll go back to work this week to get ready for Peterborough and Romford next weekend.
"Nobody should count us out of this title race just yet, there's a lot of hockey to be played and we will bounce back when weve got our full line-up available."
Manchester Phoenix are back in action next Saturday, January 9th, when they take on Peterborough Phantoms at the Altrincham Ice Dome, face off at 7pm.
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