Sheffield Steelers 7 - 3 Cardiff Devils

Faceoff: 15:00 - 27/08/11

The Festival of Hockey began as anticipated, with no love lost between the teams of Cardiff and Sheffield.

Early in the day the Junior Devils suffered defeats at the hands of their Sheffield counterparts which sadly set the tone for first-leg defeats of the Devils Legends and EIHL teams.

Devils Legends were delayed by traffic and, minus Ian Cooper and Steve Moria who will be icing in Cardiff on Sunday 28th Aug, were behind 4-1 at one point with the final result ending Sheffield 7 - 3 Cardiff. Both sides were keen to play hard and compete, and another exciting meeting is anticipated for the second encounter. Goals from Merv Priest and Vezio Sacratini (2) made up the Devils Legends tally.

In the Main Event of the night both sides debuted several new players (For Devils Dobben, Frank, Batch and Pierce) and Bench coach Neil Francis said, "we got exactly what we knew we could bank on from our returning Devils and the three new imports, and Batchy were awesome. Looking forward to tomorrow night."

Devils new sharp-shooter Jeff Pierce was their man of the match with a goal and an assist, and his offensive counterpart Mike Ramsay was MoM for the Steelers. New Alternate Captain Max Birbraer (pictured) was in the thick of things too, at one point dealing out a trademark crunching hit to former Devil and new Steelers player-coach Ryan Finnerty. Returning Scott Matzka was a threat all night and other Alternate Kenton Smith scored the second goal, from Birbraer and Pierce.

Testimonial season Goalie Stevie Lyle put in a solid performance with a few great saves and the Devils will look to build on this as they bring their rugged style back to the small ice of the Big Blue tent tomorrow night.

Tickets are still available for the second day of the festival, in Cardiff, from the Box office on 02920 382001 or the tickets section of the Devils website HERE

Tomorrow in the Bar there will be an auction of the Legends jerseys so you can get your hands on a unique piece of memorabilia, and the Legends will be on hand to sign your jersey too!