The third and final game of the 2016 Ultimate Ice Hockey Championship was held on Saturday 29th October in front of a capacity crowd at Cockburn Ice Arena. With the series locked at one game apiece, the decider was set to be a fast and furious affair, with the Northern Stars looking for their second championship in a row and the Suns looking to nab their first title.
The pace was set early with both teams looking to establish the tempo of the game early on. However, the Suns seemed to settle into their groove early with Chris Roach opening the scoring for the South. Clearly with the upper hand in the first, the floodgates soon opened for the Suns with a scoring frenzy taking place. Jamie Woodman split the North defence before Liam Jeffries and Captain Andrew Cox added to their own tallies, putting the Suns 4-0 up at the first break after a stunning period.
Things settled down a little for the North in the second, as they found their rhythm. However, the Suns picked up from where they left off with Liam Jeffries scoring his second for the night, bringing the score to 5-0 in favour of the Southerners. Not content with accepting defeat, the Northern Stars soon found the spark they needed, with Bryan Maybee finding the back of the net. After some neat passages of play, Jono Bremner soon found an opening and the North had two on the board at the final break.
After some end to end hockey for the first half of the third period, Liam Jeffries got the Suns rolling once again, completing his hat trick for the night and giving the Suns a four goal lead with 10 minutes remaining. A late timeout by the Stars was not enough to claw back the deficit and the Suns celebrated at the siren, taking the game 6-2 and sealing a 2-1 series win!
The 2016 Ultimate Ice Hockey series was a huge success and special thanks to John Caputo for making it all possible as well as all the sponsors, volunteers, officials, players and fans for supporting this fantastic initiative for Telethon. Until next year!