“We’ve never had pre-season games, so it’s a good indicator of where the team is at, what we need to work on and how the fitness is going for the boys, so it’s an excellent opportunity for us as a team” Thunder coach Dave Kenway said.

It wasn’t only the Thunder getting valuable match practice though; Ice Blacks coach Janos Kaszala was pleased to get some competitive game time into his team before heading off to the Division 2 Group B World Championships in South Africa.

“The whole idea to come over was about trying to find the right lines and find the right penalty kill and power play units for us for the world championships,” Kaszala said.

Kaszala was pleased to get a win in game three after hefty losses in games one and two before flying out for South Africa yesterday.

“I think those three games, even if the score line was a bit big, I believe all of those games were actually a lot closer than the final score,” Kaszala said.

“Before going to the World Championships we really wanted to win tonight. The boys were really working hard to get that win to have a bit more confidence going into the World Championships for us”.

Thunder defenceman Jamie Woodman relished the chance to play some competitive hockey in the pre-season for the first time in his career.

“Pre-season is awesome,” Woodman said. “You work out all the kinks, work out who’s playing with who and where”.

Woodman also heaped praise on the Ice Blacks.

“It’s awesome playing against teams who are competitive enough to make us have to work hard and get all the little things going”.
Thunder captain Sam Wilson saw the immediate effect competitive hockey had on the Thunder playing group.

“You could see smiles on all the player’s faces, and it’s great for the camaraderie within the room,” Wilson said.

“Obviously it’s fantastic to have pre-season games, we’ve never had anything like this before in the club’s history. It’s good to see the young guys step up and get a bit of ice time, when they were out there they showed the deserved a spot on the team, and for the veterans it was great to get the legs going and great to get a bunch of goals behind us.”

The Thunder begin their season away to the Sydney Bears on May 2, while New Zealand kick off their Division 2 IIHF World Championships series against Israel on Monday, April 13.