After two horror games in Sydney the previous weekend, the Newcastle Northstars claimed back a win at home on Saturday.

The Northstars defeated Adelaide Adrenaline in a shootout, 5-4.

Following a fiery start to the game with lots of checks, big hits and a few boil overs that resulted with at one point having three Adelaide players in the penalty box, the third period finished all tied up at 4-4.

Northstars goaltender Charlie Smart blocked all three of the shots from Adelaide to win the shootout and finish the game 5-4.

“From a team perspective it was excellent tonight and I’m not talking about the result,” Northstars coach Andrew Petrie said.

“Obviously I would have rather won in regulation time, that’s always the goal.

“We’ve had a bit of a gut check from me down this week. We had a team meeting and I made a bit of a speech about what I thought it would take for us to turn our season around and took some ownership for the position we’re in, which I think is fair.

“They played as a team, they were in a good frame of mind and confident regardless of the score, regardless of how to the bounces were going, regardless how the calls were going.”

After Saturday’s win, the Northstars are now in seventh position on the Australian Ice Hockey League ladder.

From 16 games played, the 2015 and 2016 AIHL champions have won three games and had three shootout wins.

The Northstars will face Perth Thunder at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Sunday, July 3.

Goal Scorers

First Period

·        Bert Malloy (Newcastle)

·        Steve Kuhn – Import (Newcastle)

·        Josef Rezek (Adelaide)

Second Period

·        Ales Kratoska (Adelaide)

·        Casey Babineau (Adelaide)

·        Felix Poulin – Import (Newcastle)

Third Period

·        Joe Harcharik – Import (Newcastle)

·        Josef Rezek (Adelaide)