DEESIDE DRAGONS could not have hoped for a better start to their competitive season.
Mike Clancy’s outfit opened their Moralee Division season with a 12-2 home triumph against Sheffield Scimitars.
The Scimitars D1 team have been the whipping boys in the Moralee Division for the past few seasons and, with Deeside tipped to be challenging for honours again this time around, this game was always likely to be a bit one-sided.
It took just 59 seconds of the first period for last season’s record breaking scorer Jake Witkowski to find the back of the net and a goal from Theo Malone 25 seconds later and then a second for Witkowski on 11 minutes saw the Dragons comfortably ahead.
Sheffield pulled a goal back but two more within 10 seconds of each other on 17 minutes – from Matty Barlow and Witkowski for his hat-trick - saw the Dragons leading 5-1 at the first period break.
The second period went pretty much the same way, with two more goals from Witkowski edging Deeside further ahead before Sheffield pulled another goal back.
With just five seconds left in the period, summer signing Kane Morin scored his first goal for the Dragons and they led 8-2 at the second interval.
Jace Gledhill took over in goal from Curtis Warburton and the Dragons went on to out-shoot the Scimitars by a massive 22-to-seven in the final 20 minutes.
Gledhill turned away all seven shots that he faced and the goal-rush continued with strikes from Ross Kennedy, Witkowski’s sixth of the game, Colin Cromie and then a second for Malone with five seconds left on the clock.
Other results: Billingham 1 Blackburn 8; Hull 3 Leeds 2; Nottingham 3 Solihull 8; Widnes 8 Telford 3; Blackburn 2 Billingham 1; Sheffield 5 Leeds 6; Telford 7 Widnes 4.
Dragons Seconds narrowly lost their first home game of the new season with a frustrating 6-5 overtime loss to Sheffield Scimitars.
The game saw a senior NIHL debut for youngster Lucas Betts - who is also playing for the Dragons U19s team this season - and a D2 Dragons debut for long-standing Deeside legend Marc Lovell, who has been tempted out of retirement to add some extra experience to this youthful development side.
Deeside had the better of the first period and led 4-2 at the first break thanks to goals from James Parsons, Cameron Kushnirenko, Shannon Lingwood and a debut strike from another summer signing, Oli Howells.
Sheffield drew level during a penalty-rich second period and the score stood at 4-4 heading into the final 20 minutes.
Deeside edged ahead again with Parsons’ second goal of the game on 45 minutes but, despite having a couple of powerplay opportunities, they were not able to press on and finish the game off.
Sheffield drew level again with just 82 seconds left on the clock and they then went on to win the game 2.51 into sudden death overtime.
Sheffield receive two league points for the overtime win, while Deeside get one point for having been level at the end of regulation time.
Other results: Coventry 4 Bradford 2; Sutton 5 N’ham 0; Kingston 1 Sutton 5.
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