CAPTAIN Shane Moore defended Wildcats forward Jonas Hoog after the Swede was thrown out of Saturday’s 3-2 loss in Basingstoke.

Hoog was ejected from proceedings in the second period after he was adjudged to have checked Doug Sheppard from behind.

The challenge sent Sheppard face-first into the boards and Hoog’s concern for the Bison player-coach was immediately clear.

After a brief respite from the action, Sheppard returned for the third period and Moore stated afterwards that such incidents were an unfortunate reality of EPL hockey.

“The thing with Hoogy was that it was a call they (the officials) had to make,” said Moore. Hoogy isn’t a malicious player and sometimes these things happen, but Sheppard kind of turned into him and Hoogy hit him quite hard.

“Unfortunately Sheppard’s head came off the boards first and the referee had to call it.”

However, like head coach Ryan Aldridge, Moore questioned the decision not to allow Henri Sandvik’s second-period effort, which would have put Swindon 3-2 up.

The officials ruled that the net had moved prior to the shot going in, but Moore felt that was an incorrect call.

“I thought Henri’s goal should have been in and we should at least have got a draw and taken it to overtime,” said Moore.

“If it wasn’t a goal then the goalie (Dean Skinns) should have had a penalty for delay of game for knocking the net off. That would have been the go-ahead goal and things were changing for us at that point as we had the momentum.

“I think we’d have gone on to score another goal, but unfortunately it happened.

“That’s the bounces sometimes but I guess we’ll get some bounces in another game which will make up for it. I felt we deserved more from the game. I don’t think the refs or linesmen really did us any favours, but you can’t really blame them.”