TOMORROW night starts a busy six days for the Basingstoke Bison as they play four games.

First up is a visit from the Swindon Wildcats tomorrow (7.30pm), then on Saturday (6pm) they are away at the Guildford Flames. A triple-header weekend is completed with a trip to Swindon on Sunday night (6pm).

The Herd are then on the road again for a top-of-the-table clash with the Milton Keynes Lightning on Wednesday evening (7.45pm).

The Bison had their lead at the top of the English Premier League cut to four points last weekend, after a 3-2 loss to Peterborough, but the leaders bounced back with a 6-3 win in Sheffield.

The victory at Sheffield came at a price, as Bison import Miroslav Vantroba was dismissed for butt-ending and as a result picked up a one-game suspension.

This means the Bison can only ice three imports against Swindon tomorrow evening.

However, the Herd are hoping injured British forward Ryan Watt will be back and the Bison head coach Doug Sheppard also now has two import goalies to pick from in Tomas Hiadlovsky and Jon Baston.

The Herd’s first opponents, Swindon, will been minus netminder Stevie Lyle and import forward Tomasz Malasinki, away in Olympic qualifying tournaments.

Swindon have an excellent stand-in for Lyle in Jordan Hedley and also have a spare import in Kenton Smith.

Sheppard is keen to dismiss any thoughts that missing players will make the game easier and said: “Swindon have a strong team with a lot of firepower. Aaron Nell is one of the top scorers in this league and Jonas Hoog is averaging two points a game. We have to play a disciplined game for the whole sixty minutes in both games against them this weekend.”

Sandwiched between the two Wildcats games is a trip to Guildford, scene of their cup exit last month. In that game the Flames scored on their first shift of the game and again in the sixth minute.

Sheppard is keen for this not to happen on Saturday and said: “Guildford always come out strong from the opening face-off especially in their own building.

"We have to make sure we are ready for this.”