PREVIEW: Adrenaline Travel East to Face the Melbourne Ice

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The Adelaide Adrenaline once again take to the road this weekend as they travel east to Melbourne to face the Melbourne Ice in a double-header at the Medibank Icehouse.

After sharing the points with the Sydney Bears last weekend in their first home stand of the season, the Adrenaline have now recorded three consecutive weekends of play, in which they have split a win and a loss.

The team is not ready to panic about consistency however, having faced tough NSW and ACT road trips in their opening two weekends of the season and last Sunday losing to a Sydney Bears team desperate to notch their first win of the season.
Their hosts, the Melbourne Ice, have started the season strongly and are coming off the back of consecutive road victories last weekend, including an overtime triumph against the league pace-setters, the Newcastle North Stars.

Adelaide Coach, Ryan O’Handley anticipates it will be a difficult encounter for the visitors who are licking their wounds after a physical home stand last weekend.

“We’ve got a few injuries but guys are going to have to step up and we’re just going to have to play two good hockey games,” O’Handley said.

The Adrenaline however will be bolstered by the return of gun forward Wehebe Darge who will add significant firepower to the team’s offence on the larger Melbourne ice surface.

The different ice surface will be a significant adjustment according to Coach O’Handley but it should provide for exciting, flowing hockey from a spectator point of view.

“They [our forwards] will be able to use their speed but Melbourne’s got some guys that can skate as well, so that’s sort of the trick is to make sure we’re bench-marking properly, playing our game between the dots and not get to wide, that’s our problem when we go over there a lot of times,” O’Handley said.

Discipline also looms as a crucial factor during this weekend’s encounters and whilst the Adrenaline have not been taking a particularly large number of penalties, they have often taken them at bad times and for unnecessary reasons.

“What we can’t do [this weekend] is start taking penalties and get ourselves behind, we need to come out and play a smart hockey game, just good discipline and play our game and stay out of the box,” O’Handley said.

There is no doubt it will be an intriguing weekend of play and will give the Adrenaline a better gauge as to where they are at as a team considering four of their opening five games were against the same team in the Sydney Bears.

It looms as a real against a Melborune Ice side that has dominated the competition in recent years, winning three Goodall Cups since 2010, however the visitors remain confident in their ability to match it with the best and it should be an exciting, high-tempo affair.