THE BASINGSTOKE Bison got their season off to the perfect start, winning the Oliveira four-on-four Challenge Cup.

The tournament saw hosts the Bison go up against English Premier League rivals the Bracknell Bees, as well as English National League sides Wightlink Raiders and the Bristol Pitbulls.

All matches were played on a running clock over one 20 minute period, with the teams, reduced to four outfield skaters, playing each other once in a round-robin format, leading to a final and a play-off for third and fourth.

The Herd opened proceedings against Wightlink and while the visitors took an early lead, Basingstoke hit back with a double from Tony Redmond and further strikes from Jacob Heron and Oli Bronnimann to win 4-2.

Bracknell and Bristol shared a 2-2 draw in the second game but the Bison maintained their perfect record in the third encounter beating Bracknell 2-0 thanks to goals from Sam Oakford and Joe Miller.

Game four saw the two ENL teams draw 0-0 and there was another draw in the fifth match between Basingstoke and Bristol. It was the Pitbulls who opened the scoring and while strikes from Bronnimann and player/coach Steve Moria put the Bison ahead, Bristol equalised past young netminder Connor Standing with two minutes to go.

The final match in the round-robin stage saw Bracknell beat Wightlink 3-1 to claim a place in the final, where they came up against the Bison.

Before that, Bristol and Wightlink battled it out for third place, with the islanders coming out on top by three goals to one.

In the final, Basingstoke took an early lead through Liam Chong and while Matt Foord levelled for the Bees, Chong’s second restored the Bison advantage at 8:36. Joe Miller made it 3-1 before Moria completed the scoring on the powerplay at 16:54.

Moria said: “All of the guys played really, really well. It is hard to single anyone out because they all worked hard, played hard and I was happy with all of them.

“It sharpened us up because the format leant itself to fast games, with a lot of skating and puck control. Winning was a bonus because you never know what is going to happen in these sorts of tournaments.

“We were missing five guys from the team but that allowed us to give some ice time to a couple of our youngsters, Cameron Wynn and Connor Standing. They were not expecting it but they both did very well.

“The whole event worked out really well, everyone seemed to really enjoy the format and hopefully we can make it a regular thing.”