IT was nowhere near as exciting, but spectators for Bracknell Bees’ match against Peterborough Phantoms at the Hive on Sunday might have been left with some idea of how cold it is out in Pyeongchang for the Olympics, by Dave Wright.

There was an issue with the rink heating, making it a lot colder than usual, forcing spectators to wear hats and scarves, with some bringing blankets to wrap around themselves. It was freezing!

Sadly, they were not warmed up by Bees’ performance with the team being caught cold, conceding three goals inside the opening 16 minutes before going on to lose 6-2. This defeat came 24 hours after they had crashed 5-2 at Basingstoke.

A week earlier they had secured comfortable wins over the bottom two sides, Cardiff Fire and Invicta Dynamo, but it was a vastly different story against the two sides locked together at the top of Division 1 South.

Yet Bees made the better start in front of a packed arena at Basingstoke, with Josh Martin opening the scoring in the fourth minute and Frankie Bakrlik doubling their lead on 11:52.

Ryan Sutton quickly halved his side’s deficit, but Bees produced some superb defending with Alex Mettam pulling off save after save as Bison fired in 23 shots in the opening 40 minutes.

However, their hopes of hanging on to the lead disappeared after the second break when they conceded three goals between the 41st and 43rd minutes with Sutton scoring again, followed by Tomas Karpov and Roman Malinik.

In all, the busy Mettam faced a further 17 shots in the final period before being withdrawn, enabling Bison’s Grant Rounding to slot the puck into an empty net to complete the scoring with 62 seconds remaining on the clock.

Despite his heroics, Mettam was pipped for his side’s player-of-the-match award by Martin.

Bees conceded 32 penalty minutes with Scott Spearing (12) and Danny Ingoldsby (10) the main offenders.

It got a lot worse for the player-coach on Sunday as he received a match ban for a check to the head on Nathan Pollard in the 38th minute.

Earlier, Bakrlik had been sin-binned twice in the opening eight minutes with further visits coming in the second and third periods.

So Bees were on power-play more times than they would have wished, although managing to kill off the first three.

They were chasing the game from an early stage with Will Weldon giving Phantoms a fifth minute lead and Owen Griffiths and Leigh Jamieson quickly making it 3-0.

Tom Norton, with a power-play goal from the blue line, extended his side’s lead after 34 minutes and, following Spearing’s dismissal, Nathan Salem shot the puck off Mettam’s back for the visitors’ second power-play goal.

Glenn Billing made it 6-0, but Bees had the last word with defenders Jan Bendik and Matt Foord, from the blue line, pulling two goals back late in the final three minutes.

Carl Thompson was Bracknell’s player of the match.

Overall, it was a disappointing weekend and Bees will be looking to bounce back when they visit third-bottom Milton Keynes Thunder in a re-arranged fixture on Saturday (7pm), followed by Basingstoke at home on Sunday (6pm).

The fans will be hoping the Hive’s heating problems will be resolved by then.