THE atmosphere in the Bracknell Bees camp is similar to the good old days, team captain Matt Foord has revealed, writes Dave Wright.

Bees made a number of changes going into this season and results on the ice so far have been mixed.

They lost 4-2 at Peterborough Phantoms and 2-1 at home to Basingstoke last weekend, but played well in both games and were unlucky not to have won Sunday’s cup match with Bison.

“Everybody here is fairly encouraged by our performances so far,” said Foord. “We have a good team and the new boys are settling in well.

“There is a good atmosphere – it reminds me of when we won the league and cup some years ago.”

For Bees to replicate those heady days of a decade ago, they will need to raise their game, particularly when it comes to scoring and not gifting goals to their opponents as they did against Basingstoke.

After the match, Foord told the News: “We can take encouragement out of both games. We made a few errors and were made to pay for them, so we need to start eliminating those.

“There were chances that nine times out of 10 we would have put in the back of the net, but it was just one of those nights when it didn’t quite happen for us.

“If a couple of bounces (of the puck) had gone our way, it would have been a different game. Once we start taking chances, hopefully, we will go on a roll and we will be up and running.”

Bees were also denied goals on many occasions by Basingstoke net-minder Dean Skinns, who was beaten only once from 27 goal attempts.