Head Coach Kevin Parrish has lead the tributes to Invicta Dynamos netminder Andy Moffat who hung up his gloves at the weekend.

The 30 year old Scot decided the time had come to retire after struggling to juggle work commitments, ice hockey and family life.

Having spent the past two seasons with the Dynamos, Moffat ended his ice hockey career with a win as the Dynamos breezed past the Peterborough Islanders 8-1 in the NIHL Southern Cup, earning the praise of Parrish who was sorry to see the netminder leave the club:

“Moffs has decided he is going to call it a day and I respect his decision. He has just had a little boy a few weeks ago and it’s a brave decision to make and I totally respect everything he has done for me over the past few years.”

“He was our number one goalie here and he played so many minutes last year and he suffered towards the end of last season as he was aching left, right and centre.”

“He couldn’t train because of all of his aches and we needed him fresh for the weekend. It’s a shame he is going and we will all miss him. I have known Moffs a long time and we always chat and get on well.”

“He’s a character and sometimes being Scottish we don’t understand him too well! He is a good all round guy and I wish him and his family all the best.”

With Moffat having left the club, Parrish now switches his attention to bringing in another netminder to compliment David Wride and he told KSN how he will have a new face at the club by the weekend:

“I had an inkling last week Moffs would be leaving, so I have been looking and it won’t take me long to get a guy in.”

“There has to be someone coming in this week as I need to push Wride for the number one spot. Goalies need pressure on them and the new guy will come in and will hopefully bring his A game with him.”

Despite winning 8-1 at the weekend, Parrish told KSN how he thought it was a one sided game, but one that gave him an opportunity to look at his entire roster:

“It was never going to be a classic and that’s no disrespect to Peterborough, but you can see the gap between ENL2 and ENL2. Our league is getting better and better each year and unfortunately, their league is probably like our league was about six years ago.”

“Fair play to them, they came here and worked hard. They probably had more shots on our net than I wanted and I guess Moffs probably more shots than he would have wanted for his last game, but it’s another result and makes it six in a row now.”

“It was good that I got to change things up a bit and everyone got some good ice time and at the end of the day, a win’s a win.”

Sunday’s win made it six on the trot for the Dynamos and Parrish is keen that the side maintain that run of form now:

“It’s like when you lose, it’s a bad habit to break, but winning is a great habit and we’re winning at the moment. It’s going to be a strong test next week against Chelmsford. They’ve messed up a few times like we did at the start of the season, so they will be tough to beat, but we have just got to go into it looking to make it seven in a row.”

The Dynamos have been going well in the cup and look like favourites at this early stage to take the silverware and despite starting the season with the intention of winning the league, Parrish would be more than happy to take the cup as well:

“We’re in it to win it and we’re not in it to make the numbers up. We owe that to our fans who come to watch us and pay their money. We weren’t so good in the trophy, but we’re in form in the cup, so hopefully we can take that into the league as well.”

“We never even look at it being the league or cup, we look at it being sixty minutes with two points up for grabs.”

A run of eleven games in the league is what awaits the Invicta Dynamos now starting with the game against the Chelmsford Chieftains at the Silver Blades Ice Bowl in Gillingham on Sunday.

With that in mind, Parrish told KSN how he is happy that they will be playing a lot of games between now and the New Year:

“We know when we sign up for the season that it’s going to be a hectic schedule and we know that we have to play two games a weekend every now and then.”

“I’d prefer to play two games a weekend every weekend as you can get a roll going. When we was in that bad run and we lost on a Sunday, you have to wait another seven days to play a game and the guys were chomping at the bit to get out there.”

Face off on Sunday is 5:15pm. To book your tickets visit www.invictadynamos.com

Picture supplied by David Trevallion