Newcastle Northstars were defeated 6-5 in overtime by the defending champions, the Melbourne Mustangs, on Saturday night and 9-2 on Sunday night by the Sydney Bears in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL).

On Saturday night, goals from rookie Maliq West and import Aiden Wagner set the Northstars ahead, but late in the period, Mustangs Dean Clomp would close the gap going into the break.

Northstars Daniel Berno started the second-period scoring, giving the home team a 3-1 lead. However, Melbourne’s Scott Timmins and Vladislav Rachinsky combined to give the Mustangs a 3-5 lead over the home team going into the second break.

Mustangs captain Todd Cutter shared, “It’s great to get back in the win column. When you come into Newcastle there is a great crowd here, great atmosphere and they’re a strong team.”

On his 150^th AIHL game, veteran Beau Taylor scored the Northstars 4^th goal, and import Aiden Wagner equalised the game with two unanswered goals. Moving into overtime, Melbourne’s Vladislav Rachinsky would seal the game-winning goal for the visitors.

On the victory, Cutter shared, “We know how they play and we know they’ll come out swinging, so we played simple and played hard.”

We had to go “back to basics to sharpen some of the losses we’ve come off.” Cutter continued, “We’re just going back to basics and getting our rhythm again. We’re still coming off that amazing season last year and we’re still finding our feet again. So just keeping it simple, keeping it positive and enjoying it having fun, it’s nice to be out there.”

Reflecting on the hard-fought game, Northstars captain Liam Manwarring shared, “I think we can be so much better at playing a little smarter and reserving our energy when we are up on teams and we’re holding the lead.”

“Having teams chase us,” Manwarring continued, “and holding onto the lead and not having lapses in the middle of a game is something we have to work on. It’s killing us right now.”

Head coach Kevin Noble shared his thoughts on the game, “We made individual errors and I think there’s a lot of guys that know individually and personally that they have to be better. We all have to do a better job, not just one guy, but every guy.”

“We lost the game because our second period again was horrific,” Noble continued, “we have to take accountability for that. We put ourselves in a position that we shouldn’t be in.”

Mustangs import defender Ty Wishart shared, “It’s nice to win on the road, I think tonight we felt a little bit more like ourselves. It was a little bit of the Mustangs of last year where we had to grind for everything, but we stuck to the game plan and it paid off.”

Reflecting on the game plan, Wishart shared their approach of, “keep it simple, play hard and then the rest will take care of itself. We’re motivating each other and tonight we really came together as a team.”

On Sunday night, the visiting Sydney Bears opened the scoring with goals from Tomas Landa and Lucas Herrmann. It was a quiet and sombre crowd early in this game. Before the break, Northstars import Matthieu Desautels scored his first AIHL goal to take the home team to the break with the score 1-2.

In period two, the Bears opened the scoring with Brody Lindal extending their lead, and captain Liam Manwarring scored the lone goal for the Northstars. The Bears would then go on to score six unanswered goals from Adam Kadlec (4), Lucas Herrmann, and Kenshin Hayashi to win 2-9.

Bears captain Ryan Annesley spoke with a smile as he shared, “To start the whole season in general, James Downie has been an unsung hero for us, he’s been unreal. He made some saves to keep us in the game when it was tight.”

“Getting [Brian Funes] Funsey back always helps.” Annesley continued, “Leadership, big body, lots of minutes are all positives for us. Newcastle had a really good power play and that’s something we need to shore up, while also trying to stay out of the box as much as we can and be more disciplined.”

“Everybody contributed tonight, and I just love to see that,” Annesley finished.

After a tough night, Northstars Manwarring shared, “We started off the season so well, and I think the biggest thing is when nothing is happening in the game, we need to get comfortable in those situations and buy into the long process. We can’t let any team score nine against us. It’s embarrassing.”

Sydney Bears Head Coach Tyler Huberty shared, “I was really happy with how our team stuck to the game plan tonight. We went over it in the locker room before the game and they executed on every single thing.”

“We were very successful offensively,” Huberty continued, “I don’t think the score of this game reflected how competitive the game was. I’m just really proud of our boys, how they battled and how they took care of business on the score board.”

Noble continued the sentiment sharing, “you’ve got to coach better, you’ve got to play better, individuals have to be better. A lot of individuals got bested by their better players. Your best guys have to be your best guys and find ways to score goals. We all have to be, collectively from the top down, better.”

The Northstars are on the road next weekend. On Saturday, May 11th, they will head down the M1 to Macquarie Ice Arena to face the Sydney Ice Dogs.