Sheffield Steelers hammered Hull Stingrays 7-3 tonight - and had no fewer than six different scorers on the board.
They took the East Yorkshire visitors to the cleaners in a middle session they banged home six goals.
And the home side finished with plenty in the tank for tomorrow's revenge-mission at Manchester Phoenix.
Steelers had gone into tonight's Arena ma
tch knowing they had to make up for a lousy iceSheffield performance last Sunday against Manchester.
Then, they had been poor in terms of attitude, work-ethic and goal power.
That had been knocked into them in a series of tough training sessions and the odd harsh word or two from coach Dave Matsos.
In tonight's programme notes, Matsos said he'd given his side a "day from hell" in preparation for the Hull match.
He demanded they hit the ground running.
Sheffield took a lead with Doug Sheppard's wrist shot high into the net at 9;39, although an expected flurry of more goals failed to materialise.
The first interval team-talk by Matsos must have been some speech because Steelers smashed six past Stingrays in the middle session.
Such was the level of superiority that Andrew Sharp, the rarely-used enforcer, was on for two goals, assisting on one of them for his first point of the season and was used on the Power Play.
Jeff Legue scored two consecutive goals, the excellent Robert Dowd notched another and assisted on Ashley Tait's and Joe Talbot added another.
Steve Slonina had scored a mid-period consolation when the match was 5-0.
With the game won at 7-1 at 39;38, Sheffield had no need to do anything other than to conserve energy and maintain a steady hand on the tiller.
Matsos brought on second-string netminder Dan Green and allowed Sharp plenty of ice time.
Green will be disappointed with goals from Matt Reynolds and Lee Mitchell in the 50th and 53rd minute, but the experience will stand him in good stead.
Sataurday's other scores
Belfast Giants 4-3 Edinburgh Capitals
Coventry Blaze 5-2 Basingstoke Bison
Newcastle Vipers 2-1 Manchester Phoenix (After Penalty Shootout)
Nottingham Panthers 5-1 Cardiff Devils
What do you think? Post your comments below. READ MORE Blades Watch 08-09 - The Season So FarOwls Watch 08-09 - The Season So FarWatch Premiership highlights, international football, golf, tennis, darts and much moreFootball headlinesMore BladesMore OwlsMore SpireitesMore RoversMore RedsMore MillersMore Ice HockeyMore rugby leagueMore rugby unionMore boxingSports columnistsAll sport categoriesThe full article contains 436 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
