It was an emotional day for the Invicta Dynamos last Saturday and the team turned in a fitting performance.

One of the Invicta juniors’ players lost his mum, suddenly, and the club rallied around in support with a collection at the match to help ensure the youngster could continue playing the sport he loves. All donations were doubled by the club, raising £802 in total.

There was a minute’s silence before the meeting with the Romford Buccaneers and it held added significance on what was a designated Junior Showcase event, where youth players got to ice during the first-period break.

By the end of the weekend, a gofundme appeal had already reached double the amount of the target.

“It was quite an emotional Saturday,” said head coach Karl Lennon.

“It was devastating news for a young player in our under-16s team, who’s only 14 years old. He lost his mother and with no care around him outside of that one of our other junior families took him in, which is quite a special thing to have happened in the club.

“We honoured that on Saturday before the game with a minute's silence and just by chance, of course, it was the junior showcase at the weekend.

“We had 25 young players on the ice with us as we marked that moment. It was quite moving.

“I can't imagine what that poor young lad's going through. It hit all of us quite hard across the course of the week and then leading into Saturday. For myself and the guys, we felt we had an obligation to play to our fullest potential.

“If there was one little bit of love that we could show him, then that would be in the performance that we put on the ice. Thankfully, we put in a good performance on Saturday and played really well.”

The Mos beat Romford 4-0 with Cameron Pywell getting the opener before Ruskin Springer-Hughes, Louie White and Tom Soar struck in the third period.

Lennon said: “We did well defensively and we did well offensively as well against a team that has caused us problems this year.

“We've lost two against them so we needed to make sure that we won this one.”

The Mos went into Sunday’s away game with the Chelmsford Chieftains hoping to turn the tide against them but the Essex side came out on top again, winning 5-2 to complete a clean sweep of wins against the Gillingham side in the league this season.

“We had an absolutely horrendous start,” Lennon admitted.

“It was the same thing last time we played there. I think we passed to them more than we passed to each other in the first period. It was crazy.

“I've never seen so many experienced players passing the puck into the danger areas that we tell our juniors not to pass into. They were doing the same things over and repeatedly. You can't do that against good sides.

“I think we were lucky to come out of that first period 2-0 down. We probably could have been four or five down if they'd have taken their chances.

“Brad (Windebank) faced a lot of shots in that first period. They were all because of our errors. You just can't do that against teams of that quality.

“We addressed that during the period break. For me, it wasn't so much just about the poor decisions we were making with the puck, but it was also about the intensity. We just didn't match their physicality until halfway through the game.”

Sam Oliver helped fire the Mos into life, nailing one of their top defenders and then following that up with a scrap.

“That lit a fuse in us for a while,” said the coach.

The Mos got a goal back at 4-1 but conceded again after being caught on the break. Oliver - the standout performer - supplied the assist for Mads Thune to pull another back but it was too little, too late.

Lennon said: “They were quite smart with how they used that last ten minutes of the game and just killed any momentum we had at any given time.

“We just couldn't get enough good quality scoring chances in that final bit.

“It was a polar opposite performance from Saturday, where we were very dominant, where we were very aggressive and on the front foot the whole game.”

The Mos will have to be at their best this weekend when they face the top two teams in the NIHL South Division 1 table.

A trip to Slough Jets on Saturday is followed by a visit to Gillingham from league leaders Streatham Redhawks (5.45pm).

Lennon said: “There is enough within our team on any given day to match anyone. We just somehow, some way, seem to be the makers of our own bad misfortunes a lot of the time.

“We don't need to do that. If the errors came from things that I'd instructed, like certain plays or passes and they got caught out, then you accept it. You say, okay, fine, we shouldn't be doing that or whatever.

“When errors come from poor decisions on things we don't practice then I've got a problem. Then I'm not happy. They knew that after the game on Sunday and during the game as well too.

“We have to dust ourselves down. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We've got two epic games this weekend.

“Slough is a place where we started very well last time when we played there and then we fell off as the game went on.

“The night before (playing against them at home) we picked up a shootout win, which was arguably one of the better moments of our season up until now. That’s something that we took a lot of confidence from post-Christmas.

“We know we can do it. There's no question.

“Ultimately, we have to be bang on it from the start because they'll punish us if we're not and the Same thing for Streatham on Sunday.

“It'll be the last time to play them this season until any potential match-ups in the play-offs.

“We did well against them at their rink. The 0-0 and overtime loss was the last time we played them but we need to avenge that.

“I have full belief that the boys will be up for this weekend off the back of the last performance on Sunday.”