The fourth set of games in the 2018-19 Siam Hockey League (SHL) took place on Thursday November 8th. Action in the first match saw the Novotel Spitfires trounce TRUE 7-2, while AWARE maintained their unbeaten streak topping Hertz 3-1 in the evening’s second contest, 6-3.

In the first game, TRUE jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after Jordan Ashton scored the first of his two goals on the night. Novotel stormed back with goals by Corry Day and Ernesto Bauer to take a 2-1 lead going into the second period. Four unanswered goals by Ken Kindborn (on a nice give and go with Scott Murray), David Boere (rooftop finish on a nice feed from Carly Hill), Corry Day again and Michael White made it 6-1 at the end of the second period. Early in the third stanza, Jordan Ashton scored his second goal of the night on a superb coast-to-coast rush to make it 6-2, but Brandon Vick added another goal for a Novotel late in the game to make it a 7-2 final.

Frustration is starting to show on the TRUE side as it was the team’s fourth straight loss. A very good team on paper, some key injuries and absences have hindered this team from reaching its potential. But in this particular game it came down to Novotel’s snipers taking full advantage of their opportunities as they were able to score seven times on the 25 shots they fired at Lance Parker while Gabor Toth, in the Novotel net, stopped 28 of the 30 shots fired his way.

Novotel’s Carly Hill, with two assists and some stellar defensive play, was named the Rolling Stone Pizza player of the game. Carly’s McGill Martlets were recently named to McGill University’s Sports Hall of Fame for their incredible 37-4-1 run during the 2007-08 season. McGill is one of Canada’s finest universities, so it truly was a great honor for Carly’s squad.

Game two started out evenly, with good defense on both sides. Harrison Oztemel staked AWARE to a 1-0 lead early in the second period, and AWARE captain Patrick Lundback increased the lead to 2-0 early in the third when he walked in and fired a wrist shot past Hertz keeper Dream Ungkulpattanasuk. But Hertz captain Justin St Denis brought his team back to within one with six minutes left to play in the game. Phu Suwachirat, however, took advantage of a late interference call to Sebastien Ranger to score a nice power play goal with 54 seconds left on the clock ensuring AWARE’s victory. Juhani Ijas set up both AWARE’s first and third goals, earning “star of the match” for his squad. Midway through the second period, AWARE goalie Patrick Leduc took a shot high in the throat area from Mangkorn Sukwiboon, but he was able to play on, eventually stopping 21 of the 22 pucks he faced.

Dream had a really solid game, stopping 31 of 34 shots in a losing cause winning Rolling Stone Pizza player of the game honors. Hertz must be given a lot of credit for hanging tough in this match: Andy Brine, La Chamnanrattanakul and Mangkorn all had chances to score but couldn’t bury the biscuit and Yean Thanakroekkiat rang one off the post.

After four games, Novotel’s Corry Day is the SHL’s scoring leader with 10 points (6G, 4A); linemate Michael White is in second spot with 9 points (3G, 6A); AWARE’s Harrison Oztemel is in third spot with 8 points (5G, 3A); and TRUE’s Jordan Ashton (4 G,1 A) and AWARE’s Roman Larin (3 G, 2A) are tied for fourth spot with 5 points each.

The next SHL action takes place on Thursday November 15th with TRUE playing Hertz at 8:30pm and undefeated AWARE playing Novotel at 9:30pm. Admission is free and the games take place at the Rink, 7th floor, Central Grand Rama IX.

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