HONG KONG—It is still nip and tuck at the top of the standings in the CIHL Hockey League as Macau Aces slaughtered the Hong Kong Tycoons 13-4 at Mega Ice on Saturday Jan 17 to move two points ahead of the Tycoons in the standings with just 3-rounds to go in the regular season. Tycoons were short of Cory Falite, star striker partner to free scoring Brad Smith, leaving a lot of individual work Smith. Aces on the other hand were purring along mounting attack after attack against the Tycoons goal.
Tycoons goalie King Ho saved many of the shots but lacked effective defence support to keep the well oiled Aces at bay, while at the other end Aces Emerson Keung had little work to do until the 3rd session.
The Aces racked up 4-goals in Period one through Ryan Wong, Jeff Ceccacci, Darren Winia and Whitney Olsen against one successful strike by Brad Smith for the Tycoons.
In the second session Olsen scored twice to complete his hat-trick and Ceccacci scored his second to take the Aces into a 7-1 lead at the ice cleaning break.
On fresh ice Aces piled on the agony knocking in 5-goals Ceccacci converted two more times; Keith Tsang, Bentley Tse and Benjamin Hockley got on the score sheet and Olsen scored his fourth of the night to take Aces to 13 goals for the evening. For Tycoons, Smith picked up two more goals and Dennis Lo also added one strike making the final score 13-4 to the Aces.
Sharks vs Warriors
The South China Sharks needed a win last Saturday to keep them in touch with Tycoons and Aces at the top of the table, but this was not to be. Sharks, also without their star striker Jordan So struggled to dominate a determined Kowloon Warriors team pushing to stay in touch in the league title race.
Sharks that got off to a good start finishing 2-1 up after the 1st Period. But Warriors scored the only goal in Session-2 (Leo Kan) to make the score 2-2 at the ice cleaning break leaving all to play for in the 3rd Stanza. It was still all square 2/3 through the final period, but it was Warriors’ Greg Smyth that broke the deadlock forcing Sharks to throw more into attack. The match was settled when Smyth broke away with just 15 seconds left on the clock to score into an open net giving Warriors the 2-points with a 4-2 win.
Standings
Aces lead the standings on 14-points, Tycoons are on 12-points, Sharks remain at 10-points and Warriors are on 9-points. This coming Saturday Jan 24, Tycoons play Sharks and Warriors take on the Aces.
