Romford Buccaneers coach praises side for winning returns

Buccs returned to the ice after a three-week break to ease to a 12-3 victory over Cardiff Fire at Romford's Sapphire Ice & Leisure Centre on Saturday.

And they followed that with a 5-2 triumph over Oxford City Stars in the university city the following evening.

That left them in fifth place with a home match against Streatham up next on January 25.

Buckman said: "It was great to start off the new year with a six-point weekend.

"Neither performance was perfect and the guys know that, we have a lot of little details to work on, which will need to be near perfect with the fixtures coming up.

"It’s a good start to 2025 and nice to see a lot of the guys on the scoresheet and some guys log some minutes after coming back from injury."

Buccs had a wake-up call as Cardiff struck while shorthanded inside two minutes, but Juraj Huska levelled soon after on the same powerplay and then put the hosts in front.

The visitors were back on terms before the first break, but Nils Maskalans, Huska, Shay Woolmore and Kobe Grinell-Parke struck in the middle period to make it 6-2.

Huska, Grinell-Parke and Elliot Dervish widened the gap further before Cardiff grabbed their third.

And Woolmore struck either side of Luca Pascale's effort to complete his hat-trick and make it a dozen.

Oxford also took an early lead the next day, but Huska levelled again on a powerplay.

Pascale's shorthanded effort put Buccs ahead just 15 seconds into the middle period, only for the hosts to square matters soon after.

Maskalans made his mark again, though, with Romford's third and Pascale made it 4-2 then combined with Huska to set up Dervish to complete the tally at the start of the final period.

Buckman added: "We took a period to get going against Cardiff which was expected after three weeks off and only one training session.

"Sunday's game was similar, we took a period to find our game and start to make plays and dominate possession, but once we did we were in control."