PREVIEW: MATCH WEEK 34
A GLITTERING season comes to an end tomorrow as Billingham Stars take on Slough Jets in the National Ice Hockey League Division 1 Championship game at Coventry Skydome, a repeat of last weekend’s National Playoff final that saw Billingham take the inaugural title in dramatic fashion.
Slough will be looking to avenge last Sunday’s defeat in overtime as Rolands Gritāns solo effort denied them their own treble of League and Playoff trophies. The Jets have had a fantastic campaign in the Britton Division, beating last season’s champions Streatham Redhawks to the league title by a single point as well as taking the playoff crown last Saturday with a win over the same team by a convincing 6-0 margin. As the Stars found out last Sunday, Slough are packed with talent and boast the Britton Young Player of the Year in 18-year-old Sebastian Mohr, the side’s joint top points scorer in the regular season despite playing fewer games than Jack Goodchild. At the other end of the scale, tomorrow’s game should feature 46-year-old Neil Liddiard who played 39 games for the Bombers during season 1995-1996 – a senior head in an otherwise very young Jets outfit and a blast from the past for long-time Billingham fans!
🔗 Slough Jets on Elite Prospects: https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/1113/slough-jets
The Stars will be going for an unprecedented fifth trophy tomorrow, a feat that would be unparalleled at this level of the sport. Having achieved the clean sweep of the Moralee Division, the new National Playoff crown was secured with that Gritāns strike deep into overtime last Sunday to make this Billingham’s most successful season ever regardless of what happens this weekend. After such a long season, it is perhaps inevitable that injuries are starting to take their toll so the Stars will be missing key players, but as they showed last Sunday and all season long, no matter who pulls on the jersey there will be no effort spared and the fans making the long trek down for the early face off will see the team lay it all on the line for the last time of this remarkable campaign.
The Stars will play Slough Jets in the National Ice Hockey League Division 1 Championship game tomorrow at Coventry Skydome, face off 12pm.
Weekend Fixtures:
National Championship Sunday:
✈️ Slough Jets 🆚 Billingham Stars 💫