In the same good spirit as Telford, Flintshire loaned us a second coach for the match, which allowed this weekend's game to take place. Vipers players and supporters travelled to Wales on Sunday to take on the Flintshire side we were meeting for the second time this season. Some of us travelled further into Wales than others - but all made it to the rink in time for face-off!

Following some good early pressure, Vipers took the lead with less than 3 minutes on the clock through Julia Coughill. Julia doubled this lead on 6 minutes from a 2-on-1 break-away. The fans in the stadium went wild - I think the lady knitting dropped some stitches! These two early goals should have settled the nerves; however, the Vipers seemed to tense up, and subsequently made some poor hockey decisions, as we failed to build on this lead in the first period.

It wasn't all bad - Vipers did start to pass the puck better, and had some good plays during the second period. In addition, Laura Porter, playing her first game for the Vipers, found herself thrown into the action. She was given an introduction to the game I'm sure she won't forget, as she found herself coming off second best against the boards. The lead was increased to 3 when Julia wrapped-up her hat-trick on the power play.

The third period saw some end-to-end hockey, as Flintshire pushed more players forward to try and get into the game. They succeeded, and scored less than 2 minutes into the last period. However, this didn't seem to worry the Vipers players, as we retained our composure and the 3-goal lead, scoring in the 45th minute, through Anna Cooper. An assist wasn't, but should have been, awarded to Bernie Bailey; not just for the pass that lead to the goal, but for the jumping and waving of the arms with such disbelief as the referee pondered whether the puck actually went in the net. He, not surprisingly, agreed with her!

The Vipers tried to give more ice time to the less experienced players during the last 10 minutes of the game. However, we seemed to be unable to stay out the penalty box. A variety of offenders, leading to 18 minutes in total of penalties, meant that we were too often short-handed, and therefore unable to give the ice time we wanted to these players. None of these penalties were to Frenchy (as she was practicing on leaving her wild teenage ways behind her), or to Becky Cooke, who was awarded with the man-of-the-match for her much-improved positional and determined play.

A big thank you for our additional coach for the day, and to all the supporting friends and family who made the trip to Wales, in fairly miserable driving conditions. In summary: some good and some not so good periods of play saw Vipers gritting out the needed win that takes them to the top of the league table. How exciting!