Whitley Warriors and Durham Wasps players were there, as in the old days – Iredale, Smithy, Mathews, Ruggles and Chabot to name a few for Whitley.

For Durham there was the Johnson boys plus dad Peter on the bench, Belanger, Anthony Payne and Ivor Bennett , both sides being made up of players who had turned out in past local derbies between the two sides.

With an almost capacity crowd the atmosphere was electric and the match itself was a great display of ice hockey between two sides both determined to come out on top as in the great days gone by.

The only thing that spoilt the night for the Whitley fans was the final score, 4-8 in favour of the Wasps.

The main difference between the sides was the brilliant performance in the visitors goal of Stephen Foster who time and time again denied the Whitley forwards access to his goal to earn the man of the match for his side.

The man of the match for Whitley was Hilton Ruggles.

The Whitley scorers were, Ruggles 2, Steve Smith and John Iredale had 1 each with 2 assists each to Paul Mathews and Simon Leach.

Now the squad will rest and prepare for next season and, having won the English championship and narrowly missed out on the Northern title, maybe scoop the two next season.