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Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Top teams gear up for ice war
SkyCity Stampede's Connor Harrison helps Mako's Markus MacDonald get some air time during the teams' game in Queenstown last Saturday. PHOTO: SUPPLIED There was a risk Friday night's game between the SkyCity Stampede and Auckland Mako development ice hockey teams was going to end up with a cricket score. At the final whistle it was 11-2, to the home side, the Stampede having piled on 6 goals in the first 20 minutes, courtesy of Jack Robbie, Jett McCullum, Taylor Clark and two apiece from Axel Ruski-Jones and Colin McIntosh. Ruski-Jones found the net twice more in the second period while Max Macharg restarted the scoring in the third, McIntosh got his trifecta and Connor Harrison slotted one in, too, with the Mako's second goal coming in the last minute. Additionally, McIntosh led the assists with four, followed by Dylan Devlin (3), Connor Harrison, Callum Burns and Jordan Challis (2 each), and Ben Harford, Taylor Clark, Jessie Hutchins, Blake Campbell and Jack Robbie (1 each). While Stampede still enjoyed a comfortable 6-1 win on Saturday (Harrison, 2, Nolan Ross, 2, Ollie Ruski-Jones and Axel Ruski-Jones, 1 each), Mako, primarily comprising emerging players from the Stampede, Phoenix Thunder and Canterbury Red Devils, managed to save 57 of the shots on goal. Points from that round don't count in the NZ Ice Hockey League, in which the Stampede and West Auckland Admirals are in joint first place — the titans will play each other, in Auckland, next weekend. In the New Zealand Women's Ice Hockey League, the Wakatipu Wild had a hard-fought 4-2 win over the Phoenix Thunder in Dunedin last Saturday, and a reverse of fortunes last Sunday. In the first game, Caitlin 'Judy' Heale got the Wild on the board, assisted by Kelli Burstein and Kellye Nelson, before the Thunder answered back. Nelson put the Wild back in front in the second period, assisted by Heale and Caitlyn Hollyer, but the Thunder equalised again at the beginning of the third. But two unanswered goals from the Wild — from Inge Kemp and Burstein, assisted by Nelson and Heale — got the job done. On Sunday the Wild lost 3-1 — their only goal coming from Kemp, assisted by Bobbie Weeks and Gabby Mills, in the second period. The Wild, in second on the table behind Auckland, have two weekends off before playing Canterbury, in Queenstown, on June 13 and 14.
Otago Daily Times
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Stampede ready to charge
PHOTO: ODT FILES From friends to foes in less than a week. For the past couple of weeks, nine SkyCity Stampede ice hockey players were team-mates with four West Auckland Admirals players, representing the New Zealand Ice Blacks — under the guidance of Stampede coach Cam Frear — in the IIHF Division 2, Group B world champs in Dunedin. Come tomorrow night in Queenstown, they'll be arch rivals again, with Frear back on the yellow and blue bench in a rematch of last year's NZ Ice Hockey League final series, which Stampede won. While the Admirals have been able to train throughout the world champs, Stampede took a little break due to the number of players and support staff in Dunedin. That said, "I think we're pretty confident any time we play at home [and] the goal is always to win two games". Frear's looking forward to an almost full-strength team coming in to this weekend — Connor Harrison's still out following an injury during the Trans-Tasman Challenge in March, but will hopefully be back in the next month, "which will be huge for us going in to the crunch part of the season". As to progress on imports this season, Frear's coy. "You'll have to wait and see ... there might be some surprises this weekend."
