BRAEHEAD CLAN sealed a place in the Elite Ice Hockey League play-off finals weekend for the first time in their history with a 5-1 over Nottingham Panthers last night.
Taking a 4-0 lead into the game from Thursday's first leg, the Glasgow club ensured safe passage to the next weekend's end of season showpiece, ironically in Nottingham, with a 9-1 aggregate win.
Despite losing the first goal of the night after just three minutes to Pat Francis, it wasn't long before Braehead's four-goal aggregate lead was restored; Ash Goldie slotting in after Ed McGrane's slapshot from range had been spilled.
The second period burst was a surreal experience with Clan hitting the upright twice, with Goldie being denied a second of the night from the latter strike with referee Tom Darnell overruling the goal line judge who buzzed for a goal.
Play was also halted for over five minutes when the girth of Clan goaltender Kyle Jones' stick was called into question by Panthers, only for the offending piece of equipment to eventually be replaced.
By this point, though, the visitors were clutching at straws as it became clear the tie was beyond them. And their fate was sealed with just 15 minutes left to play in the final period by Kevin Bergin, the Clan player/assistant coach, who led a breakaway charge down the left before slamming the puck passed Craig Kowalski in the Panthers net.
It all became too much for Matt Francis, who received a game penalty for pole axing an opponent. He wasn't the only one to let his emotions get the better of him for the visitors, who racked up an astonishing 13 penalties as their petulance came to the fore.
There was still time for it to get worse though, as Clan forward Matt Towe notched a goal on a double power play before Goldie and Joel Champagne added late scores.
Braehead will be joined by three other teams next weekend.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article