SYLVAIN Cloutier says he's honoured Excel Hull Stingrays marked his 1,000th professional game by beating Newcastle 5-3 at Hull Arena.

Stingrays' player-coach failed to get on the score sheet in his landmark game, but did pick up the man-of-the-match award.

In truth it was a case of never mind the quality of the performance, feel the points as Stingrays rarely hit top form against the short-benched Vipers.

Nevertheless, it was a vast improvement on the 9-1 pasting suffered on Saturday against big-budget Nottingham.

"I've said all season the guys in our dressing room are a great bunch," said Cloutier, whose playing career dates back to 1991.

"I'm extremely honoured to have played last night and I'd like to thank the team for winning too, and everyone for the reception.

"It's an honour to play in Hull."

Despite it being the 35-year-old's big day, Stingrays did their best to keep Newcastle in the hunt.

Well-worked goals from Konstantin Kalmikov, Jason Silverthorn and Pavel Gomenyuk were cancelled out each time by "charitable donations" from Stingrays to Nathan Salem, Brent Hughes and Jerramie Domish.

Only in the last four minutes did Silverthorn and Kalmikov make the game safe.

"Our big line of Silverthorn, Kalmikov and Curtis Huppe all played a great game, the Glowa line had lots of chances too and I thought Ben Lowe played well alongside Matty Davies and Lee Esders," said Cloutier.

"It was a real team effort, you can't ask for any more, especially after Saturday night."

Cloutier was at a loss to explain the debacle in Nottingham.

It started well enough, with Stingrays having a handful of early chances to score, before going rapidly downhill, despite only being out-shot 39-35.

Panthers scored three times in each period, with hat-tricks from David Clarke and Cameron Mann, a double from Sean McAslan and one from Marty Gascon. Only Lee Mitchell's goal spared Stingrays from total humiliation.

Angry Cloutier had threatened his players with post-match training last night if they had made it a pointless weekend.

Fortunately, they spared themselves further pain by wrapping up the victory.

"Saturday was embarrassing for me as a coach, for the players and for our owners, Mike and Sue Pack," he said.

"Our fans turned out in huge numbers and I have to apologise for the display we put on, it was our worst of the season.

"For some reason we weren't in it and the guys were out to lunch.

"Saturday night cannot be acceptable with a full line-up.

"We have 15 games left to get ready for the play-offs and we either want to do it or we don't.

"Sometimes as a coach you have to send a message to your players."