FIXTURE LIST WITH LINKS TO MEMORABLE GAMES

Mike Blaisdell signs on for his first season as coach, following a distinguished playing career which included an eight year spell in the NHL, split between Detroit, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh and Toronto. He also played for Team Canada before signing for Durham Wasps in January 91. He was surprisingly axed by the Wasps midway through 92/93 season.
Chris Kelland had followed Alex Dampier to Sheffield, as did Selmar Odelein (Panthers gazzumped?). Long serving (6 Yrs) defenceman Terry Kurtenbach had been released and gone to Romford Raiders. The seasons opening contingent of imports of varying categories were returnee Paul Adey and newcomers Andre Malo, Kord Cernich and Tyler Larter.
After early injury and failure to impress, Larter had gone by mid September, to be replaced by Ross Lambert. Eight weeks later and Ian Young had also gone to be replaced by promising Solihul youngster Steve Butler.
While making the Autumn Cup semis, Cardiff proved to be too strong. Although the 9-11 loss on aggregate wasn't a bad effort. As November waxed an injury crisis began to rock the boat, Perkins, Hunt, Doyle and Weber all out for lengthy spells. "Things are tough for us right now. I've now lost three of our top British kids to injury, while Andre Malo has been virtually climbing out of his sick bed to play. We've had so many heart rending losses lately it's starting to take it's toll. We're losing games by one or two goals, its so frustrating cos we're making chances but not putting them away. The fact is we're not scoring enough goals. We're very good defensively, but we need our injured guys back and a little more offensive punch." (Blaisdell, Nov 93).
In an effort to solve the scoring shortage popular American defenceman Kord Cernich was released. (The highlight of his stay being a hat-trick against Racers, the last goal coming on the backhand in the dying moments of the game to ice the win.) "I don't think the way I've played warrants being let go, but if they think other guys can provide more offensively, and that's what they want, then that's what they've got to go with." His replacement was Garth Premak who had been playing for Team Canada.
After a shaky spell around Christmas, which earned a public blasting from chairman Trevor Gaunt, Panthers began to climb the table, but in February the team suffered a severe blow when Paul Adey was "submarined", allegedly, by Whitley's Terry Ord. The resultant cruciate ligament damage was to rule Adey out for the remainder of the season. Although he did make a brief appearance at Wembley, for the Championship semi against Sheffield (0-8), but he clearly was not fit. "All credit to Sheffield, they played extremely well, they bottled us up in our own end, they played a tough disciplined game. We've had some great games against Sheffield this year so I was a little surprised, but once things started to go bad, they really went bad. No excuses we hit a better team on the day." Mike Blaisdell Apr 94.

*5 points deducted for breaking the wage capping regulations.