TONY Hand completed his 1000th game in British ice hockey on Sunday night.

And the 40-year-old veteran - awarded the MBE for his services to the sport - proved that the old campaigner has lost none of his sublime skills.

The Phoenix player-coach created a goal out of nothing for Brian Passmore with a killer pass which tore a hole in the Nottingham defence.

He then scored one himself - a breakaway goal finished to perfection with a bullet shot despatched with such venom he ended up on his back.

Unfortunately, the result did not go his way but that was down to a couple of schoolboy errors from two of his most experienced defencemen, Scott Basiuk and Jeff Macmillan, which Nottingham accepted gratefully.

"It was amazing to play my 1000th game and I didn't know about it until before the game," said Hand.

"I thought the guys played really well and it would have been nice to celebrate with a win but a couple of errors cost us.

"But apart from that, the guys played well especially with a back-up goalie in there, and you have to give them credit for that."

Overall, it was not such a bad weekend for Phoenix - without injured regular netminder Scott Fankhouser - as they recorded a 5-2 win on Saturday against Cardiff Devils.

Phoenix went ahead last night through a Luke Stauffacher goal but Nottingham equalised through Patrick Wallenberg.

The second period looked like being goalless until Basiuk coughed up the puck for Kevin Bergin to hammer it home for the Panthers.

But within seconds of the start of the third, Hand played in Passmore for the equaliser.

Nottingham edged ahead again through Ryan Shmyr before that man Hand levelled the game again.

But with eight minutes left, Macmillan's clanger let in Wallenberg for the winner. Tweet