Weekend Teaser: Bees first battles with the Knights and Steeldogs this season

 

 What does weekend four have in store for the Bees?

Season weekend three review 

Bees started with a home fixture against the MK Lightning on Saturday evening, having played them pre-season the Bees knew what to expect to a degree. The Lightning came away 6-3 winners with the Bees goals coming from Liam Morris, Vanya Antonov and Adam Rosbottom. This was always going to be a hard game for the Bees who were short-benched as the majority of the two-way signings were unavailable due to fixture clashes. The officiating was disappointingly poor and, although it may not have directly influenced the final result, it didn't do the Bees any favours. 

Bees travelled up to Shropshire on the Sunday to meet the Telford team for the first time this season. Tigers have had an unusually poor start to the season failing to get a win on the board. Bees, although again short of skaters, knew they needed to take advantage of this lull and this they did coming out 6-3 victors. The star of the show was Marcel Balaz with 4 goals and Adam Rosbottom and Dominik Gabaj scored a goal apiece.
   
My opinion - Bees are going to have tough weekends when the two-way players are unavailable and this was one of them. Every player gave 100% and can be proud of the results over both days. The Lightning's defence were solid and any team would have found breaking through it almost impossible. On Sunday the Bees knew they had to get the job done, making the most of the Tigers poor form, and they did just that.
Officiating has been a big point of discussion over the last two weeks. Having had two perfectly good goals denied in two successive home games has not gone down well. On Saturday it felt like there were times when the officials were calling minor penalties when a major should have been called, the only reason why could possibly be that they don't want the penalties going to review. Moving forward we can only hope that over time the bad calls will even out and perhaps the fans and players have to accept this is just the way it is. It's not right but there's no game without the officials whatever you think about their calls. 

Player of the Weekend Result

Congratulations to Marcel Balaz who is the player of the weekend, he wins thanks to your votes on Twitter with 71% of the vote. Don't think it was ever in doubt this time round.

Next: Home to the Knights and away at the Steeldogs 

Bees welcome the Knights to Slough on Saturday evening when the teams meet for the first time this season. Not surprisingly last year's league winners are sitting at the top of the table at the moment and Bees face the biggest challenge of the season so far. Leeds have only lost one game so far this season, an away game in Swindon last weekend where the Wildcats came out 6-3 winners. There have been minimal changes in the Leeds line up, Krisjanis Fugalis (import) and Matt Bissonette have come in and Jake Witkowski (import) has left to join the Deeside Dragons in NIHL1 and James Archer has retired. Streatham have a game on the same night so Bees two-way player opportunities are going to be limited. This is going to be a tough one!

On Sunday the Bees travel to Sheffield to take on the Steeldogs who currently sit 7th in the league after two wins, a loss and an overtime loss. All their games have been close but surprisingly their loss came from a home fixture against the Bristol Pitbulls. A lot of the talk in the off season focuses on how the Steeldogs are building a roster to challenge for the league title and the biggest name they have added is import Sam Tremblay who has dropped down from the Manchester Storm in the Elite League. He heads their scoring with 7 goals and 2 assists from their four games to date. Bees have managed to pick up points in Sheffield previously but will have to see how they fare against this rejuvenated Steeldogs side this time.  

All that is left to say is safe travels to the Knights and their travelling fans heading to Slough on Saturday and to the Bees players and travelling fans heading to Sheffield on Sunday.

Come on you Bees!

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