“On this day in 1990, Rocky Saganiuk made his debut as Pirates coach in an 11-7 challenge game road win at Invicta against what were then known as the Medway Bears”
“On this day in 1990, Rocky Saganiuk made his debut as Pirates coach in an 11-7 challenge game road win at Invicta against what were then known as the Medway Bears”
20th August
A pre-season challenge game in 1988 saw a Garry Unger coached and Todd Bidner and Wayne Crawford fronted Pirates lose 5-8 at Bretton to the Cardiff Devils in a game badged as the Sports Nationwide Challenge Cup.
21st August
Having failed on the Saturday, Pirates faced the Chelmsford Chieftains at Bretton the following night in the same challenge tournament and this time they ran out 7-6 winners.
22nd August
In 1992, Pirates opened their new campaign with a trip across the road and around a few roundabouts to face the Milton Keynes Kings who promptly sent them packing with a 9-3 mauling …… but it was only a challenge game and we’d probably beat them in the return the next night !
23rd August
Yep we did ….. the first home challenge game of the season and Pirates exacted revenge on the MK Kings to the tune of 9-4. Five years earlier, a reverse scoreline at Bretton as the Pirates went down 4-9 to arch rivals the Solihull Barons.
24th August
In 1996, a traditional pre-season dust up with Solihull ….. or was it Coventry ….. or a hybrid of the two as Solihull Blaze thumped Pirates 8-2 in Bretton.
25th August
The hybrid Blaze went on to thrash Pirates 9-0 in the return fixture in 1996 and five years later to the day, Pirates lost 0-6 at home to the Blaze, now Coventry Blaze, in a challenge fixture. We did occasionally, albeit not very often, beat them !
On this day in 1990, Rocky Saganiuk made his debut as Pirates coach in an 11-7 challenge game road win at Invicta against what were then known as the Medway Bears.
26th August
A day of some significance in 1989 as the Cleveland Bombers came to Bretton and lost 9-4 to Pirates who were sporting their Silver Spoon sponsored shirts for the first time after the major sponsorship deal had been signed a week earlier. The sizeable financial backing was to play a huge part in creating the team that eventually made it all the way to the British Championship Finals at Wembley …… albeit, ironically, it was blamed by many for the boom/bust years that followed which regularly threatened the mere existence of ice hockey in the city !
In 1995, there was no time for pre-season challenge games as players and fans stumbled off the beaches to host the Nottingham Panthers in the first Norwich Union Cup fixture of the season. Panthers took the game 7-2 with Pirates going on to lose all but one of their early season group games.
Two other pre-season fixtures have been played on this date and both in the “ignore the result – it’s fitness that matters” category with a 6-10 defeat at home to Medway in 1990 and a 1-18 defeat at Cardiff in 2000 ….. we’ll blame “bus legs” for the latter result !