Telford Tigers went close to springing a surprise against Basingstoke Bison, before losing heavily at home to Slough Jets. Watch action from both games here.

Thanks to Bison TV.

Although Telford Tigers might prefer to forget the scorelines, the weekend was one to remember for young Andy McKinney

The forward followed up Saturday’s man of the match award with a ‘Gordie Howe hat trick’ — a goal, an assist and a fight — at Telford Ice Rink on Sunday night.

With captain Tomas Janak suspended, fixtures against Basingstoke Bison and Slough Jets were always going to be tough.

However, Tigers demonstrated their improvement by pushing Bison all the way before going down 5-6, much better than the 6-0 score from three weeks ago when Basingstoke dominated at Telford.

This time, Tigers went 2-1 up by the end of the first period, thanks to Josh Bruce and Chris Allen, with goalie Martin Clarkson outstanding against the Bison attack.

Marek Hornak and Joe Henry took it to 4-3 in the middle session, before Bison started their fightback, equalising then overhauling the Tigers.

Daniel MacKriel scored a consolation in the final period but hopes of pulling Clarkson to force the game into overtime were dashed when Tigers took one penalty too many.

Player-coach Tom Watkins said: “After losing to them 6-0 here, we went down there cautiously concerned but we came out firing and ready to play.

“We dominated in sections and, although they had a lot of scoring opportunities, Martin Clarkson stood on his head in our goal.

“We had 30-odd shots on them and played really well. We were an import down, but we came together and guys stepped up and did a job. I was very pleased with the performance.”

Man of the match in the away game was McKinney – and the feisty 19-year-old made an impact on Sunday at home against Slough Jets, dropping the gloves with Adam Greener and following that up with a superb goal before assisting on another.

The match started scrappily, with a number of minor penalties called before Chris Allen and Joe Greener clashed inside five minutes.

Boomed

Tigers stayed with their visitors but were unable to finish and Slough took the first period 2-0.

They extended their lead before man of the match Andrejs Maslovkis boomed one in for Tigers, assisted by Daniel Croft at 35:32. McKinney’s fight saw Adam Greener ejected from the game but Telford unable to find the back of the net in the five minute powerplay.

Slough took it to 4-1 early in the third. However, McKinney faked and shot a great goal at 45:56, supported by Tom Watkins, to keep Telford in the game.

Two more goals for the Jets dampened spirits, but Telford battled on, with Josh Bruce adding Tigers’ final goal at 56:06, and Slough taking the game 7-3 just before Croft and Joe Greener wrapped up the action with a short bout.

McKinney said: “Greener asked if I wanted to go in the first period and then later the game needed a bit of kick so I decided to go with him. Then I scored a nice goal and got a bit lucky with the assist.

By CAROLINE GARBETT