Stunned Knights given all-clear

Tonight's London Knights game against Nottingham Panthers at the London Arena has been given the go ahead. There were doubts about it going ahead after the death of two Los Angeles Kings scouts in Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Knights are a sister club to the LA Kings with both teams owned by parent company Anschutz and the organisation was shocked by the deaths of Garnet 'Ace' Bailey and Mark Bavis who were passengers on United Airlines Flight 175.

Three Knights players knew the scouts who died, but after speaking to Canadian head coach Bob Leslie they are ready to take to the ice tonight.

Leslie said: "Three of our players lost a friend from the LA Kings organisation who were on one of those flights.

We also have two American boys, Robbie Donovan and Trevor Roenick, on our team but we're all stunned. It has affected our team, especially Robbie and Steve Thornton, but we'll play the game and we'll honour the situation with a minute's silence."

After opening the season with two wins, Knights suffered their first defeat of the season at Ayr last weekend, but Leslie is optimistic about regaining winning form tonight.

He said: "It's going to be a real tough game against Nottingham, they're a very solid, very physical team but we're going to have to counter that with our speed."