The West Auckland Admirals have scored their first wins of the New Zealand Ice Hockey League (NZIHL) season.
The Admirals used home-ice at ParadIce Avondale to their advantage, defeating the Canterbury Red Devils 8-3 on Saturday and 7-0 on Sunday, in the only full NZIHL games of the weekend.
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West Auckland had eight different goalscorers in their opening victory, with Alex Regan also providing two assists in a three-point game, while import forward Chris Hunt scored two goals for the Red Devils.
The Admirals went up 2-0 midway through the first period and 5-1 after two periods, before banging in two more goals early in the third period.
The home side again shared the scoring load on Sunday, with seven different scorers, as they blew the game open with four goals in the second period and Ice Blacks netminder Csaba Kersco-Magos stopped all 21 shots he faced.
Import forward Pim van der Meulen had a goal and three assists, and Taylor Rooney six assists. Regan and Guy Kunst both finished with a goal and two assists.
In two non-NZIHL games, the Southern Stampede defeated the developmental Auckland Mako 10-0 on Friday and 11-3 on Saturday in Queenstown.
Recent addition Dylan Devlin scored five goals, Jett McCullum three goals and four assists, Colin McIntosh three goals and three assists across two games, while new signing Jordan Challis had seven assists in one game.
The league takes a break this weekend for the inaugural NZIHL 3v3 Super Showdown tournament at the Queenstown Ice Arena on Friday and Saturday.
All six NZIHL teams will compete in a five-game round-robin format on Friday night and Saturday morning, before the final round and finals on Saturday night. Teams will play two nine-minute halves, with normal rules applying, with the exception of all penalties resulting in a penalty shot instead of a power play, and no icing calls.
The following weekend, the Red Devils (0-0-1-3) visit Queenstown to face the unbeaten Stampede (3-1-0-0) in a two-games series, while the Dunedin Thunder (0-0-0-4) host the league-leading Botany Swarm (3-1-0-0).
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