The Newcastle Northstars were victorious in Melbourne over the weekend, continuing their successful start to the 2022 Australian Ice Hockey League season.

On Saturday night, the Newcastle side faced the Melbourne Mustangs in the first of two games played in Melbourne. After an evenly fought first period ended with a 0-0 scoreline, the Mustangs came out firing in the second with Vadim Viassov scoring the first goal of the night. Shortly after, the Northstars’ Beau Taylor and Tomas Landa each capitalised on mistakes by the Mustangs, scoring their goals on separate power plays to gain a 2-1 lead. The third period saw another power play goal, this time from Northstars veteran Bert Malloy, securing the 3-1 victory.

Game two of the weekend saw the Northstars face off against the Melbourne Ice on Sunday afternoon. Bert Malloy picked up where he left off the previous night, driving hard to the net to score the opening goal. Melbourne Ice responded shortly with a goal of their own, but the game wasn’t tied for long. With two goals in the blink of an eye, Newcastle’s Francis Drolet and Daniel Berno lead the Northstars to a 3-1 lead. Newcastle controlled the game from then, with Drolet scoring two more goals to complete his hattrick halfway through the second. In the final minutes of the second period, Novocastrians Manwarring, Schultz and Nadin netted a goal each to end the second with an 8-1 lead. Melbourne continued to push, and Andrew Erzen scored straight off the face off at the start of the third period, but the final goal of the night would come from Northstars Daniel Berno securing the Northstars 9-2 victory.

Head coach John Kennedy spoke about the undefeated streak and the confidence it has instilled in the team.

“After this weekend (it) feels great. The team played well and we did great on the road. Going into Melbourne and playing back to back we got the absolute best from both squads, so to come out of the weekend with 6 points this early in the season is huge for the team and morale.”

“It is exciting to see the players are buying into our systems and what we are teaching them, and doing it consistently. We want our systems to become habits and what I liked most about Sunday, we were tired but we stuck to our game plan.”

Kennedy continued saying, “As a player it feels good to get back on the ice, to have those two game weekends, for a hockey player once the body gets moving we want to keep it moving. The double header weekends are exciting.”

“Road trips are a great way for team bonding. A huge population of our team having families and partners and it allows us to get to know each other more and have conversations with each other. Players get more time to connect with each other”, smiled Kennedy.

“One of the biggest highlights for this weekend was seeing the diversity of scoring opportunities from all of our lines. It shows the depth of our team and it shows that we aren’t relying on one line, but that we have a lot of players that can put up points.”

The Newcastle Northstars continue their 2022 AIHL campaign at home this weekend, when they take on the defending Goodall Cup Champions, the Sydney Bears, at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Saturday, May 14^th at 5:30pm. Tickets are available online via northstars.thundertix.com