Manchester Phoenix 5-3 Bracknell Bees

4-1 down early in the second period at the home of the defending champions, scene of a number of heavy Bees defeats over the last couple of seasons, and some would have feared the worst. But this season's spirited Bees are made of more resilient stuff.

Manchester took the lead on their first shot of the game, when the impressive Juraj Faith fired home low past Carl Ambler. But only two minutes later, Shaun Thompson found room in the slot to shoot the puck into the roof of Stephen Fone's net, assists going to Ben Johnson and Martin Masa. But after that, the home team enjoyed the better of the rest of the period, with Stephen Wallace and Slava Koulikov giving Manchester a comfortable lead, although the Bees were somewhat unlucky with the second of those as the puck wickedly deflected off Sam Waller's leg past a wrong-footed Ambler.

Faith put the Phoenix 4-1 up at 21:43, but this sparked a Bees fight back. With the Bees on a rare powerplay opportunity at 31:06, Peter Jasik shot low past Fone after good work by Lukas Smital and Carl Graham. Then three minutes later, Smital broke free on a Johnson outlet pass and squeezed the puck home from a tight angle. The Bees then dominated the rest of the period, but Fone denied some excellent opportunities to equalise.

The break came at the right time for the Phoenix, who re-grouped in the third. At 50:44 Tom Duggan broke away and deked Ambler to restore a two-goal advantage. The Bees pressed hard again, but at 54:09 Bradley Watchorn was assessed with a 5+Match penalty after fighting Ladislav Harabin, who seemed to get away somewhat lightly with only a two-minute penalty after kneeing Masa in mid-ice.

With the Bees short-handed for virtually the remainder of the game, opportunities to pull off another comeback were effectively killed.

Lukas Smital picked up the Bracknell man of the match award, but special mentions should go to Ben Johnson for two assists and another faultless defensive performance, and to Lewis Turner who made his Bees debut alongside Andy Munroe and impressively stepped up to EPIHL level.