Ice-hockey: Streatham don’t ease off as Dynamos defeated

Jeremy Cornish was a happy man as his Streatham side made it five victories in six games with a convincing 6-2 win over Invicta Dynamos in the NIHL Cup weekend, writes David Carr.

A brace from Adam Carr and goals from Ryan Webb, Aidan Doughty, Brendan Baird and Alex Sampford completed a clean sweep of four consecutive wins over the Kent side for the Redhawks in the competition. With some keen to write off the encounter as a dead rubber due to Streatham’s qualification as group winners the week prior, head coach Cornish was adamant that was irrelevant in his eyes.

“We don’t have a team that can take any night off – so we use these types of games to find form and play the way we will need to when our league games pick back up.

“Next week we play London Raiders in the same competition and it’s the same scenario. We need to win that game – and the boys know it too. We lost to them a few weeks back and we don’t want to let that happen again. We want to climb the league table and can’t afford to take any nights off. Every game counts towards building form.”

Streatham fans had a surprise before the Invicta game as Alec Goldstone, 17, was called up for a start.

The youngster comes from one of South London’s best-known hockey families with father Adam a long-time player and coach for the senior side. Goldstones inclusion came after Ryan Watt was ruled out midweek through injury.

Thanks to the RedHawks’ dominant display, Goldstone got a shot to show what he could do with a regular shift.

“He played a lot more then I would have predicted before,” admitted Cornish. “He’s been skating with us all season so far and his attitude is fantastic. We will be looking to have more kids like Alec out in the future.”

Streatham are at home to London Raiders – their only game this weekend – on Sunday (6.45pm).