Ice hockey: Thunder crashes to Admirals in double header

The West Auckland Admirals stole the thunder in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League double header at the Dunedin Ice Stadium at the weekend.

They thumped Dunedin Thunder 8-2 on Saturday night and backed it up with a second win, 4-2, yesterday afternoon.

Dunedin Thunder had won the double header against the Admirals 5-2 and 4-3 (in overtime) in Auckland earlier in the league and were expecting two more wins.

It was a lacklustre display by the Thunder in front of a home crowd of 500 on Saturday.

Dunedin Thunder was outmaneuvered by an Auckland team that had done its homework.

On the narrow Auckland ice rink the Thunder had attacked up the middle to get the better of the Admirals.

But, on the full-size rink at Dunedin the Admirals used their speed and exploited the width of the arena with crisp and accurate passing.

Dunedin Thunder had no answer to their counter-attacking moves up the flanks.

The Admirals played with aggression and put pressure on the Thunder and forced them into mistakes.

The two key players in the game were Admirals goal tender Michael Hopkinson and forward Jouni Kivela, of Finland.

Hopkinson is a New Zealand under-20 representative and on present form is expected to move up to the Ice Blacks.

In the first spell he saved 12 shots at goal, 14 in the second spell and 13 in the final spell.

When Ice Blacks goal tender Rick Parry let in two goals from seven shots in the second spell he was replaced by Aaron Bryant.

The Admirals recognised that the new goalie was coming in cold and could be exploited, and in an all out attack added four more goals in the third spell.

Kivela had an explosive game and scored five of the Admirals' eight goals.

Another key attacker for Admirals was Canadian Travis McMaster who scored with eight minutes left to give Admirals a decisive 4-2 lead after the second spell.

Key defenders were New Zealand representative Michael Dobbs who scored the games first goal and Finn Aleksi Rantalainen, who was a good decision maker at the back.

It was a rejuvenated Dunedin Thunder that came out firing yesterday and took the game to the Admirals.

Frenchman Martin Millerioux was the inspiration with two goals in a six-minute period that took the Thunder to a 2-0 lead early in the second spell.

Millerioux and fellow Frenchman Quentin Pepy were solid defenders and goal tender Rick Parry was back to his best.

He made 36 saves in the game and conceded only three goals.

The fourth Admiral goal came when Parry was subbed for an attacker near the end of the match when Thunder was desperate for the equalising goal.

Kivela took advantage of the empty net to score his sixth goal of the weekend.

Paris Heyd and Damian Watson were strong attackers, but the Thunder forwards worked more as individuals and lacked the team co-ordination in the attack zone that the Admirals displayed.