ROD STEWART, Tina Turner and Shania Twaine all turned out to cheer on Manchester Storm, but even those icons of the music world could not inspire Daryl Lipsey's men to victory at the M.E.N. Arena last night (Sunday).

Actually, they were only lookalikes taking part in the interval entertainment in aid of the Children In Need appeal.

Cynics might suggest that some Manchester Storm personnel played like lookalikes impersonating ice hockey players. . . but that could be a little bit unfair.

After all Storm fans have been through this season, the diehards in the 6,305 crowd - inflated by 1,500 school children and their families - went home relieved that their team had managed to gain a point in this match against London Knights.

Torchia to the rescue

For that they had to thank the brilliance of goaltender Mike Torchia and the carelessness of the London forwards.

''We are bottom of the league right now and we are working hard to get off the bottom,'' said coach Lipsey. ''Tonight we got a point and that's a lot better than nothing.

''We wanted to start our season again after the last game and now we have got a point so we are starting again.''

Scoring goals has been the major problem for Storm this season but there was no questioning the quality of Storm's opener in the 29th minute when Trevor Gallant wrestled the puck out on the red line and skated down on London netminder Trevor Robins. He delayed his shot for what seemed like an eternity before caressing it into the net.

But Storm were living dangerously and no sooner had they killed off London's second five on the powerplay than the scores were level. Ironically after Torchia's heroics it was a simple one that beat him in the 38th minute as Mike Ware fired through his legs.

Tweet