The Southern Stampede has gone to the top of the National Ice Hockey League following back-to-back wins over the West Auckland Admiral at the weekend.
The Otago side handed the competition front-runner coming into their two-match series a 6-4 defeat on Friday night and a 5-3 loss on Saturday night at the Queenstown Ice Stadium.
The two wins took the Stampede's record to 12 wins and two losses this season for 30 competition points this season, while the Admirals drop to nine wins and three losses to remain on 27 points.
The victories also give the Stampede the opportunity to control its own finals destiny and guarantee home finals if it can hold the top spot through the competition's last four regular-season matches, coach Adam Blanchette said.
``We are in the driver's seat for the first place, which is what we like, and the fate to have our home finals is in our hands now.''
``It is definitely a team that is learning how to win and learning how to get those points out of any game.''
On this season's form and if there are no major post-season surprises, the Stampede looks set to meet the West Aucklanders next in the competition's grand final.
It will go into that match with a 3-1 season record over the Admirals and with the confidence the weekend's two wins has built.
``There is obviously a bit of a mental edge there and we know we can beat them, so we will have a bit of confidence coming in,'' Blanchette said.
The coach described Friday night's 6-4 win as a complete team effort.
``It was just a good team effort the whole way through.''
``The veteran guys showed a bit of poise and stuck to the game plan.''
``It was just 60 minutes of trusting the plan and letting the game and the result take care of itself.''
The Stampede came out firing in game two on Saturday, with four early goals in their 5-3 win.
``We knew that travelling teams will have a bit of a shorter roster and that has always been one of our strengths at home is that we run four lines.''
``I think in game two, they might have been a bit tired and we still had a lot of legs in us and we took that into our attack and let them know they were in for a big night right of the gates.''
The Admirals finished as their opponents started, scoring all three late goals, although that late flurry was not a big defensive concern for coach Blanchette.
``I think all three of those goals were penalty kills at the end of the game - we were put in some pretty tough spots.''
The Stampede heads to Auckland for a double-header with the second-last-placed Botany Swarm on Saturday and Sunday to try to further cement its table-topping position.
The Queenstown team will be hoping to go one better than provincial counterpart, the Dunedin Thunder, achieved in Auckland over the weekend.
The Thunder defeated the Swarm 5-4 there on Saturday but then lost to the northern side 5-3 on Sunday.
