Jets lose away at Nottingham

After Saturday’s good performance but no points, Jets first away trip was at league champions Nottingham Lions.

Nottingham had suffered a surprising defeat on the previous night at Sheffield losing 4-1, so both sides were looking for their first victories of the season.

The Jets started the better of the two sides with Ben Lowe converting a well worked move between himself and Jamie Cobley after seven minutes. This appeared to wake the Lions bench up, who capitalised on two power play chances on the 12 and 16 minute mark through Ben Bliss and Simon Harrison respectively. Nine seconds after the go ahead goal Lions added another to further stretch the lead, this time through Stuart Bliss. The Jets appeared on the rack, however managed to see the end of the period out without any further damage caused to the score line.

The second period started with the Jets taking advantage of a power play with Ben Milhench scoring a slapshot from the top of the circle on twenty three minutes. The period also saw a Ben Lowe strike controversially ruled out despite clearly crossing the line and hitting the roof of the net, after the goal judge and the referee hadn’t seen it go in.

Jets misery was further compounded when Lions fourth goal was added on forty eight minutes despite protestations about a missed too many men on the ice call prior to the goal being scored. Craig Elliott added a third for Kingston after Mark Florence had slid the puck through Richard Griffiths legs. Jets continued to push for the elusive forth, pulling netminder Karl Holmes for the last minute, however the Lions continually iced the puck and saw the game out.

Coach Andy Daintith on the game, “From our point of view the lads once again played very well. However some of the calls were very dubious on both sides and once again the referee spoiled a good game. The missed call on the disallowed goal cost of the chance of taking anything out of the game.”