Players old and new joined fans old and new to pay tribute to one of Milton Keynes' most loyal ice hockey servants, Nick Poole, at his testimonial on Saturday.

It was ten seasons ago that the Calgary-born 35 year old first came to the city when the former London Knights used Planet Ice as a training base.

Poole soon became involved with coaching junior club youngsters and went on to play for the now defunct Milton Keynes Kings before eventually taking the role of player coach of Milton Keynes Lightning when the club was formed in 2002.

And it was players from all eras that joined a bumper line up for a game between Bobby's Boys captained by Michael Wales and the MK All Stars in the charge of Adam Carr.

From Poole's time with Knights came goalie Pasi Raintanen while from the days with Kings came long term friend Justin Bekkering, now living in Holland, Jesse Hammill plus Mark Hazlehurst, Dwayne Newman, Greg Randall, Gary Clarke plus others.

Many went on to become integral and long term members of Lightning.

In the best tradition of testimonials Saturday's game began in a relatively serious manner with Andre Smulter registering for the BBs with just under two minutes gone – but there was some suspicion that the goal had been scored with a tennis ball!

James Archer put BBs 2-0 ahead before the eighth minute before Chris McEwen made it 2-1 less than a minute later and then Clarke equalised in the 12th minute.

The second period saw Carr give his side an early lead but from the halfway mark the game started to take on a less than serious note as Archer had a goal disallowed for there allegedly being a beer-belly in the crease!

A series of skills contests saw the All Stars win the relay race while Lukas Zatopek won the hardest shot for the BBs with a smash hitting 88mph.

The BBs also won the penalty shoot out which strangely included goalie Barry Hollyhead saving a Raitanen shot!

There were big cheers when Kurt Irvine won the sumo-wrestling bout with Grant McPherson – the former Lightning bad boy later being escorted off the ice by a junior club member dressed in policeman's uniform.

And the final score? Strangely it ended 91-91 – by coincidence the same as Mr Poole's squad number!