Tonight: Panthers and Storm look for cup advantage

Both teams chasing automatic Quarter-Final place

This weekend’s clashes between the Panthers and Storm will wrap up Challenge Cup Group C, and also decide who’ll face Coventry on a one-game ‘Play-In’ to make the Quarter-Finals.

If the sides split this weekend’s series with the same amount of points each, then Manchester will go through to the next round automatically as they have more wins than the Panthers. Nottingham need to get one more point than Manchester across the two games to finish second.

After much documented poor form, the Panthers have two straight home wins under their belts. They ended their home drought last weekend, but now go in search of their first win against an English team since 21 September.

Following a decent run, Manchester now find themselves winless in three games. Their record in Nottingham however is good – three of the last four meetings have gone the Storm’s way.

“Saturday night at home - this is what you live for as a hockey player. We want to come in, have a good start, and then see where we are going in to tomorrow.” – Tim Wallace (Head Coach, Nottingham Panthers)

“Wednesday was a bad performance, but we want to put that behind us. It’s important to move on from that, and we know what’s at stake now against Nottingham. We have a good chance to move on automatically to the next round, and that’s what we’re going out to do.” - Ryan Finnerty (Head Coach, Manchester Storm)