Last Saturday the Vikings unfortunately came out on the wrong side of an exceptionally tight southern playoff semi final. The Vikings, making their first appearance in the playoffs, took the lead early in the second period after a frantic first had ended goaless, with only a tripping penalty to Bradbury intruding on the gamesheet. Both teams had excellent chances to break the deadlock with both Peterson in the home net and Estella for the visitors making several outstanding saves, before Taylor was able to shoot home past the Nottingham goalie, after good work along the halfboards by Birmingham. Falling behind seemed to galvanize the visitors but it took another twelve minutes to breach the home defences with a deflection taking the puck past Peterson, after Oxford were sloppy in attempts to clear the zone. The equalizer caused Oxford to momentarily switch off and, as so often happens, one goal brought two with another poor defensive breakdown gifting the Nottingham forward an open net at the backdoor.  The Vikings pressed for the tying goal for the remainder of the period with Bradbury being denied twice by the blocker of Estella on slap shots that seemed destined for the top corner. Twice more the Nottingham goalie was beaten, the post coming to his rescue on both occasions. The second period intermission caused a reorganization of the lines for Oxford with an early goal the priority. Unfortunately fortune seemed destined to stay with the visitors in green as Estella denied both Taylor and Bradbury on multiple occasions with the post / crossbar coming to the rescue on a Bradbury one-timer. Oxford continued to press as time began to run out, with Lewis laying a couple of crunching checks to break up Nottingham's attempts to skate through the neutral zone. With ninety seconds remaining Oxford pulled Peterson for an extra forward and with a series of offensive zone face offs tried in vain to force overtime. With twenty seconds remaining the puck popped up the halfboards in the Nottingham zone, the defenceman pinched in to try and hold the zone but was beaten to it by the a Nottingham forward who knocked it around him and skated the length of the ice to slot into the empty net.

In the end the Vikings, who outshot Nottingham 38 to 29, were denied by the excellent Estella and a well organized team who defended a one goal lead for half the game. We hope to meet again at the Championships, though with a different result!