After finishing the regular season in 3rd place the Bears will do battle with the 2nd placed Melbourne Ice in a semi finals show down. 

The Ice will be playing in their home arena with the 2010 AIHL finals being held at the Docklands Ice Rink in Melbourne. The Bears will be counting on their solid playoff form that allowed them to beat Melbourne twice at the Penrith Ice Palace. 

After splitting the 4 game regular season series at 2 wins a piece, both teams can either win it or lose it on any given day.  Recapping all the games of the season between the Bears and the Ice. 

Game 1 - The Bears took the 1-0 lead in the series with a gutsy 4-3 victory in their home opener of the season way back in April. Under strength and missing key imports the Bears managed to find a way to score 4 goals from only 16 shots with back up goaltender Gabriel Robledo standing on his head stopping 31 of 34 shots to give the Bears their first win of the season. 

Game 2 - It was a different story with the Bears travelling to Melbourne on their first road trip of the season. Giving up a total of 5 powerplay goals on the night thanks to over 50 penalty minutes being handed out, the Bears were unable to recover and went down 9-2. 

Game 3 - Back on home ice and with import net minder Nick Boucher in goal, the Bears handed Melbourne their biggest loss of the season downing them by a score of 4-1. The game was all about the goal tender with Nick stopping an impressive 48 of 49 shots he faced and the Bears offence scored 4 goals from only 25 shots. 

Game 4 - In their final game of the regular season the Bears found themselves once again in penalty trouble in Melbourne after receiving 11 minor penalties compared to the home team's 4. The Bears managed to claw back a goal in the 3rd period but were unable to complete the come back after a second period onslaught with the final score of 7-3. 

The Bears will be counting on their veteran's finals experience this weekend, with 9 players making it to the playoffs for the 7th time and 7 of those players appearing in the grand final 4 times (winning 3 of them) in the past 10 years.

Adding to their veteran experience will be the 7 players from the Bears 2007 Goodall Cup winning team. After making history back in 2007 when the Bears beat the 1st placed Adelaide Avalanche 4-1 in the semi finals before taking down the 2 time defending champions the Newcastle North Stars 3-2 in overtime.

Coach Rubes comments for the game this Saturday night "Its great to be in the finals. We did not speculate whether to pick Melbourne or Newcastle for our semi, as there are no weak team in the finals. We beat Melbourne twice this year and they beat us twice." 

"There might be a slight advantage for them playing on home ice and in front of their fans, but we played there last weekend and know what to expect. It will be fun to play in front of a big crowd and doesn't matter who they cheer for as long as there is noise."

"We have several players that won the Goodall Cup before, top imports and (solid or superb) goal tending coupled with good young talent this year. "

"Melbourne had a good regular season but must feel the pressure of being the home team. Playoffs is a different contest to any regular season game"