Saturday 15th December 2012

Good evening and welcome to tonight’s match against Shep and the Bison. It’s always good to see so many familiar faces as well welcome back all the former Jets who now line up for the Bison!

Last weekend was a good weekend! The Jets collected four points in the league and very importantly two in the cup competition which ousted Milton Keynes from 4th spot making it ours. That’s justice in my opinion as there has been controversy over the scheduling. The MK game played in MK on 7/11/12 was originally scheduled for February. The MK General Manager asked to have the fixture moved to earlier in the season which I agreed to and the league fixture secretary moved the fixture and issued the final version of the fixtures with the 7/11/12 game being a league game and 16/12/12 game being the league & cup fixture. After the game was played the status of that fixture was then changed to being the league & cup fixture after an admission that errors had been made in the scheduling by the league. We questioned this decision to find out that an email had been sent correcting this which it seems was only ever received by (coincidentally) MK. Changing the fixture status after it was played was in my personal opinion a little unfair so you can see why winning on Sunday and moving MK down to 5th place leaves a sweet smile on my face.

We will face either Basingstoke or Manchester in the semi-final and I would probably hazard a guess that with Manchester finished and Basingstoke being 2 points behind with games against Sheffield and Swindon left to play that they’d edge ahead making them our opponents although nothing can be taken for granted in this league.

Tonight is a big local derby match up and one that usually draws a decent attendance. The Bison usually travel well and Bison games draw out a lot of Jets fans who maybe don’t come to every game so hopefully the rink will be loud and alive tonight.

Don’t forget we’ve also got the jersey auction after the game as well where you can win the special Christmas jerseys that the Jets will wear for tonight’s game.

Next weekend is our final home game before Christmas and our final home game of 2012 and it’s the Manchester Phoenix who are the opponents. Let’s hopefully see out 2012 at the Hangar with a win next week in front of a great festive crowd.

Enjoy tonight’s game.

My team, your team, OUR TEAM

Mark