Ruthless Bison demolish Swindon (From Swindon Advertiser)

SWINDON WILDCATS: Ruthless Bison demolish Swindon

6:00am Wednesday 28th December 2011 in Ice Hockey By Ned Payne

CHRISTMAS cheer was in short supply on the part of Basingstoke when they arrived at the Link Centre yesterday.

For many, the festive period is a time of generosity, but the Bison were in no such mood as they gave away practically nothing against their hosts.

Swindon had won three of their last four English Premier League games, albeit against the bottom three clubs in the division, but had form nonetheless and could afford to be confident heading into the fixture, their last league and cup tie of the season.

Basingstoke had experienced a similar first few months of the campaign to Wildcats, but far from being intimidated on away ice, stormed to success as they thrashed their hosts 6-1.

Surprisingly the first period ended 0-0 as both sides were unable to break the deadlock, but Viktor Kubenko put the visitors in front in the second, firing home on the backhand (30.01).

Marcel Petran doubled the advantage almost exactly two minutes later (33.03) and there was still time for another from Joe Miller by the end of the second period.

Some 55 seconds into the final 20 minutes, Kubenko deked the Bison into a 4-0 lead, before Michal Pinc grabbed Swindon’s only goal of the night in the 42nd minute after a shot rebounded off the post.

A pass across the crease was tapped into the net by Miller at 51.27 as Basingstoke capitalised on a powerplay, before Petran converted a one-on-one at 56.56 to rub salt in the wound.

“We played OK in the first and kept in it, but in the second they got a couple of goals on us and then we lost momentum,” said Swindon head coach Ryan Aldridge.

“We came out hard in the third after a bit of a telling off, but our netminder Tom Murdy had to come off because he didn’t want to push an injury any further.

“His replacement Graham Bird played well but they were able to score a couple more.

“The boys need to show up for every minute of every game, I told them before Christmas that when they came back I wanted consistency, and tonight we didn’t have that.”

Wildcats’ next game is against high-flying Slough Jets at the Link Centre on Friday.