THE Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats concluded the opening weekend of the League season with a mammoth penalty shootout victory against the Telford Tigers on Sunday evening.

Following a narrow, yet exciting defeat to Sheffield Steeldogs on Saturday night, Swindon triumphed in an extraordinary climax on away ice the next evening.

At the end of the first period in Shropshire, the Cats found themselves a goal down thanks to a Corey Goodison shot from the point making its way past Dean Skinns.

Tomasz Malasinski was the only man on the ice to see room past Brad Day to make it 1-1 at 28:12. But with the Wildcats pressuring the Telford net, it was the hosts to scored next through Jack Hopkins on the powerplay and went into the break 2-1 up.

Swindon turned the game round in the final period as Sam Godfrey flicked a shot home before Malasinski nudged the visitors in front.

With the final buzzer looming, the hosts were beginning to run out of time until Nick Oliver scored at 58:42 to force overtime.

No-one in the rink expected the shootout to go eight rounds, but goals from Aaron Nell and Reed Sayers cancelled out an Austin Mitchell-King strike to ensure the two points went back on the coach to Wiltshire.

Prior to the elation of a shoot-out victory, Swindon rued missed chances on the powerplay as they lost 4-3 to Sheffield Steeldogs at the Link Centre on Saturday.

The Wildcats took the lead through Eddie Bebris before Jason Hewitt equalised less than a minute later.

Heading into the middle period, Alex Graham scored Sheffield’s second, Nathan Ripley bagged their third, and Hewitt netted the game-winning goal at 34:47.

With the Cats appearing to have run out of time, Sheffield picked up a couple of penalties inside the final two minutes of the game which gave Swindon an opportunity to fight back.

Aaron Nell’s team pulled netminder Renny Marr in a bid to maximise their advantage, and it seemed to have paid off when Nell struck with 90 seconds left and Emil Svec scored with a minute to go.

Unfortunately for Swindon, the final buzzer sounded and the visitors took the points back to Sheffield with them.