After struggling to find early season form, Perth Thunder soon found themselves on the bottom of the AIHL leader board and thirteen points behind league leaders Melbourne Mustangs.

After getting their first regular time win last weekend in Melbourne against the Mustangs, Perth Thunder were eager to build on the momentum heading into the weekend’s home double header match up against fourth place Adelaide Adrenaline.

The weekend kicked off with an extra special guest on hand, local boy Tyler Buckle who recently had been released from hospital dropping the ceremonial puck. With the emotion and energy levels high in the Perth Ice Arena, the Thunder took control of the game early in the first period. After a trip to the penalty box for a misconduct call, forward Andrew Cox scored the opening goal of the night just over a minute after he had served penalty.  Jordan Kyros and captain, Sam Wilson, assisted.

The second period saw the Thunder pick up where they left off in the first period- with the Thunder having twice as many shots on goal than the Adrenaline (18:9). And, they made them count. Canadian import Justin Fox scored the first goal of the period and followed up with a second just over a minute later on the power play. David Kudla finished off the period with another power play goal. The Thunder struggled with their power play in previous weeks and it’s something the team has been working on during training.

“A couple of key things we’ve been working on in training include our power play which is working really well,” said Andrew Cox. “And, fine polishing the line-up. It’s different to what we’re accustomed to and everyone's starting to believe a bit more and work a little harder and thinks are starting to click.”

Sam Wilson believes hard training has paid off.

“We’ve been working on the special teams a lot during training in the last two weeks and the guys are just playing solid.” said Wilson.

During the third period things heated up between the two teams and it showed with both teams taking multiple penalties. Adelaide got their lone goal for the game when Graham Charbonneau scored on their power play at the 16 minute mark, while the Thunder continued to find the back of the net with Andrew Cox, Robert Haselhurst and Jonathon Bremner adding to their teams’ tally and helping secure their first home win for the season. The final score was 7:1.

After a big showing the evening before, the Thunder headed into Sunday's game hoping to take away another three points.

Sunday’s game saw Thunder’s imports come out firing with Justin Fox picking up where he left off the evening before by scoring the opening goal of the game less than five minutes into the first period. The period passed mostly event free with neither team taking a trip to the penalty box and both registered similar amounts of shots on goal. But it was Perth who were able to convert their shots on net with Stuart Stefan scoring the home side’s second goal for the period with just two minutes to go.

The second period saw both make up for the penalty free first period. Both teams made three trips each to penalty box. Once again, the Thunder’s focus on special teams training paid off with the team killing all three of Adelaide’s power plays and converting on two of their three power play opportunities.  Honours went to Corey Toy and Brad Young.

The third period saw the Adrenaline get off to a quick start with their Captain, Greg Oddy, scoring within the opening minute of the period and saw -for the first time over weekend- the Adrenaline register more shots on goal than the Thunder. Josef Rezek added to his team’s tally late in the third period, but it was Perth’s star import, Justin Fox, who stole the show with two shorthanded goals within less than a minute of each other. In the process he earned a hattrick and helped his team to a 6-2 victory over the Adelaide side.

After the game, Sam Wilson was extremely happy with his team’s weekend efforts.

“I think we just needed to get the monkey off the back and once we started to get a few goals in they just keep coming,” said the captain.

“The boys played well everyone came together as a team, obviously. The imports were firing on all cylinders,” continued Wilson. “We had a good game last night from the locals, and we stayed out of the penalty box which was a big play on our team. We buried our chances.”

The Perth Thunder have a bye next weekend but will be heading to Sydney the following weekend and Andrew Cox believes that only good things are to come for the team.

“If we just keep working on the things we are doing, we’ll be successful. We are doing things well,” said the forward. “At least we’ve got a couple of good weeks ahead of us. We had three wins off the bat so it looks good heading to Sydney.”