Favourite son returns for home weekend against North Stars

The Adelaide Adrenaline, proudly presented by Hards Transport welcome back one of Australia's all-time great defenseman and a favourite son, Josh Harding for this weekend’s home games against the Newcastle North Stars.

Harding, who was an inaugural member of the Adelaide Adrenaline and previous member of the Adelaide Avalanche is set to play his 250^th Australian Ice Hockey League game on Sunday making him only the ninth player to do so.

The 30 year-old defenseman, who has also represented Australia on the international stage since 2005, retired from the AIHL at the end of the 2015 season after an injury-riddled year but says he is eager to return and help fill some minutes to take the load off Adelaide’s hard-working defensive unit.

“The guys that have been playing have been doing a stellar job and to be honest I am just there when they need a breather,” Harding said.

“When you have as many back to back weekends as they are, it starts to take its toll.”

Whilst Harding feels it would be special to reach the milestone of 250 AIHL games, he believes that some younger players are beginning to really step up to fill the void left by his experience.

“It would be pretty special to finally (play 250 games) but when you are as injury prone as I am, we will just have to see how Saturday pans out,” Harding said.

“Like I said, the other guys have been doing a great job all year and have been really solid. I’ve really enjoyed seeing Ted (Fabijan) take his game to the next level and play consistent hockey.”

Whilst the emergence of young players like Fabijan has been a real highlight for the Adrenaline, consistent team play has been sporadic at best throughout the year.

Adrenaline head coach Eric Lien stressed the importance of backing up a strong road weekend in Sydney - that resulted in two wins - and bringing the same effort this weekend at home.

“It was nice to have a weekend with two wins but the trick is to not get ahead of ourselves,” Lien said.

“The guys trained hard to get ready for last weekend and it paid off but now we need to hit the reset button and learn that the same effort must be given week in and week out.”

Results have not been going Adelaide’s way at the Ice ArenA, with only two wins in nine home games this season but Lien said focused training will enable the Adrenaline to better defend home ice.

“Every training has a focus on quick reads and fast puck movement,” Lien said.

"Once we learn how to work hard off the puck and defend in confined spaces, we will make it very difficult on opposition teams travelling to Adelaide.”

Adelaide’s vocal crowd also has the power to derail visiting sides, with packed crowds at every home weekend so far this season giving the team a lift at vital phases of the game.

“We are the only rink in the AIHL that has seating on both sides of the ice surface, so the atmosphere our fans can create is unique and can get quite intimidating,” Lien said.

“Our fans in Adelaide are very knowledgeable, so every hit, save and shot on net gets loud roars our guys feed off that energy.”

The players and fans will need to be in top gear this weekend against a North Stars outfit that currently sit second in the AIHL standings.

Despite losing last year’s AIHL scoring champion, Geordie Wudrick to the CBR Brave at the end of last season, the North Stars have barely missed a beat.

The Adrenaline have fared well against the top echelon of sides this season, but have found wins hard to come by.

Bolstered by the return of the experienced Harding and coming off the back of two confidence building road wins last weekend, the Adrenaline will expect a strong showing at home against Newcastle.

Puck drop is 4.30pm Saturday and 4.30pm Sunday and tickets for both games are available NOW via TryBooking: http://www.trybooking.com/LCOZ