FOR an ice rink, the Link Centre has a pretty warm feel to it at present.

With victory at Bracknell Bees on Thursday night, the Swindon Wildcats extended their points streak to five games and head coach Ryan Aldridge is confident of furthering that record still when Basingstoke Bison come to town tonight (face-off 5.45pm).

The Bison are certainly bullish. Swindon legend Steve Moria has guided the Hampshire side to third in the English Premier League, and his devastating first wave offence - including imports Viktor Kubenko and Ondrej Lauko - have been clocking up big numbers so far this term.

But Cats are on a confidence high as they prepare to entertain Moria & Co, and Aldridge is determined to strike early at the Bison’s perceived frailties - netminders Dean Skinns and Tom Annetts.

“We’re very happy with the way we’re playing and we’re full of confidence,” he said.

“Basingstoke at home will be a tough one to get points out of but we know we can.

“On Thursday we set at Bracknell right from the start and we’ll have to do that again against Basingstoke.

“If we get on their goalie early on then that is their one big chance of weakness.

“They have a very strong defence, a number of Brits putting points on the board and an import putting huge numbers up.

“But their weak spot is their goalie and if we can get to him early then we will have a good chance. If we let him get into the game then that’s no good.”

Aldridge revealed Cats fell just shy of an ambitious target of 14 points from their last nine outings prior to this weekend’s double bill.

And whilst a maximum haul this time around may be a little too much to ask, the Link Centre boss was adamant that his players would step up to the task - with a trip to Peterborough Phantoms quickly following on Sunday evening - as they bid to keep the supporters smiling in Wiltshire.

“It was be awesome to have a four-point weekend, it would be great to have a three-point weekend but we just want to keep this run going,” he said.

“We’ve got to take the pleasures out of this run.

“We don’t get to see much of the fans but they seem to be happy with the way we’ve been playing in the last four or five games.

“We had set a target for ourselves to get 14 point out of the last nine games, and we ended up with 13 so we’re pretty pleased with that.

“This weekend we must get going early on, the first line will contribute more in the bigger games no doubt and we’ll make an impact.”

The Phantoms pose a different threat entirely to their Basingstoke peers, according tO Aldridge.

The Cats chief believes the departure of Joe Miller - the club’s top British goalscorer of the past two seasons - has seriously weakened their front line.

And whilst Peterborough have recruited in an effort to fill his void, Aldridge thinks Sunday will be the perfect time to extract revenge for overtime home defeat to the Cambridgeshire outfit at the end of January.

“We should have beaten them a few weeks ago and it would be good to get our own back there,” he said.

“Peterborough have lost some punch in the forwards with the loss of Miller, but they’ve brought in Matty Davies who will put up big numbers in our league.

“He just have to keep working hard for each other. Our talent is better than their talent, it’s just whether or not our talent works harder than their talent.”