North Stars tame Ice Dogs

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The Newcastle North Stars defeated the Sydney Ice Dogs 5-1 at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Saturday night.
 
For the North Stars, it was a must win game with North Stars Coach Andrew Petrie suggesting they “hadn’t been on a very good run the last five or six games.”
 
There was no love lost between these traditional rivals as only 15 seconds into the first period, the North Stars’ John Kennedy Jr. and Ice Dogs’ Paul Swindlehurst had a scuffle, resulting in double minors and setting the tone for the rest of the night.
 
Shortly after, another penalty against the Ice Dogs gave the North Stars’ Josh Harris the opportunity to net the opening goal of the game after 90 seconds, his first in a hat-trick performance from the import.
 
Despite the goal, the rival teams continued with fast-paced, aggressive hockey filled with bodies, sticks, gloves, hands and blood flying across the ice as the game went on.
 
The closeness of the game gave the Ice Dogs a scrambled tying goal from Ellesse Carini in their offensive zone.
 
The goal was also a big moment for the Ice Dogs’ Dave Dunwoodie, tallying a point in his 300^th game although suffered an injury later in the game. Dunwoodie is just the second player in AIHL history to reach 300 games.
 
Unfortunately for the Ice Dogs, this was to be their only goal of the night with Newcastle dominating the second and third periods, scoring a further two power play goals.
 
Ice Dogs Coach Vladimir Rubes said the Ice Dogs said the turning point was a string of penalties early in the second period.
 
“I don’t think we had a very bad game, but when we had three men in the box and they scored at the end of the power play, we lost the momentum of the game,” Rubes said.
 
This was certainly the case with the North Stars scoring three goals in the second period with Harris completing his hat-trick and AIHL leading point scorer Connor McLaughlin claiming the first of his double.
 
The final period was just as wild and aggressive as John Kennedy Jr. and Tomas Manco dropped the gloves with both players sent for early showers with just over 14 minutes remaining in the third period.
 
McLaughlin scored the fifth and, what turned out to be, final goal for Newcastle just 19 seconds later.
 
North Stars Coach Andrew Petrie was very happy with the game and the result.
 
“We sat down as a group at the start of the week and decided that we needed to make some changes and implement them and that this game was a really good reflection of those changes,” Petrie said.
 
Next week the North Stars travel to Canberra to take on the CBR Brave on Saturday before hosting the Sydney Bears on Sunday, while the Ice Dogs play in the final Battle of Sydney against the Bears at Penrith on Saturday, before hosting the Brave on Sunday.