Their growing support in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League was reflected in them pre-selling 500 tickets before playing the Canterbury Red Devils in front of a sold-out crowd of 900 at the Dunedin Ice Stadium on Saturday night.
Just a shame about the result.
The Red Devils had only two wins from 10 games before Saturday but they left the passionate crowd deflated after a 6-5 win over the Thunder.
It followed the home side’s 6-4 win on Friday night.
The first leg of the doubleheader was scoreless for over 16 minutes until the Red Devils grabbed the opening goal.
In-form import Cole Beckstead brought the Thunder back on level terms with a power-play goal with 1min 37sec left in the first period.
Beckstead made it 2-1 with a rare short-handed goal, and after Luke Stegmann scored twice, either side of a goal to veteran Chris Eaden, the Thunder were sitting pretty at 5-1 with just over six minutes to play.
Things got a bit chaotic as the Red Devils scored two unassisted goals, Joe Orr got a sixth for the Thunder, and the Cantabrians scored their fourth to put a flicker of concern into the home camp.
Stegmann added two assists for the Thunder, but fellow import Sam Loiselle copped 27 penalty minutes for two high-sticking incidents and an early roughing call.
The Thunder out-shot the Red Devils 43-31 in game one.
On Saturday night, most of the action was in the first period, which ended 3-3 with all six goals coming in the final 12 minutes of the period.
Stegmann, Beckstead and Eaden found the net to give the Thunder a 3-1 lead, but the visitors equalised with two goals on the power play.
Joe Orr put the Thunder back in front, the Red Devils scored twice to nudge ahead, Orr scored again to make it 5-5, and Harry Louw got the winner for the Cantabrians.
The split doubleheader creates a logjam in the middle of the NZIHL table.
While the Stampede are seven points clear at the top on 19 points, there is set to be a royal tussle between the Thunder (12), the Admirals (12) and the Red Devils (10), though the latter have played two more games.
The Thunder’s next date is the intimidating Queenstown doubleheader against the Stampede this weekend.
