Frustrated Phantoms ice hockey team out to make amends

The city side were aggrieved to come out of games against Swindon Wildcats and Leeds Knights last weekend with no points, especially the latter contest at Planet Ice which Phantoms dominated for long periods before tumbling to a 3-1 defeat.

Phantoms are now sixth in a nine-team National League, level on points with seventh placed Basingstoke, but six points behind Leeds in fifth place.

Phantoms travel to Slough to take on the struggling Bees on Saturday (February 19) before returning to Planet Ice to host a strengthened Sheffield side on Sunday (5.30pm).

Phantoms head coach Slava Koulikov said: “It was frustrating to come out of last weekend with zero points, especially as for 50 minutes against Leeds we were definitely the better team.

“We created chances, but I don’t think we made it hard enough for their goalie to make saves.

“We didn’t go to the net enough and, when we did, we didn’t go hard enough to make it difficult for him to see the puck and make the saves. It was frustrating.

“We lost to the Bees last time so we want to put that right this weekend and get ourselves back onto a winning run because we had been in pretty decent form before last weekend.

“On Sunday, it’ll be another battle against Sheffield. We haven’t played them for a while, but we know how they like to play. They’ve had (GB international) Alex Graham playing for them recently and they’ve signed an import, so we know they’ll be strong.

“But as always we just need to set out and stick to our gameplan and that will give us a chance at getting points from both games this weekend.”