Reflections on The Sheffield Steelers EIHL season.

The Sheffield Steelers’ season got off to a great start: they had to recruit early for the impending Champions Hockey League games. Although they could not live, at first, with the top teams in Sweden and Finland (Frölunda Indians andJYP Jyväskylä ) in Europe they were to hold their own in the return legs in the UK.

This European adventure seemed to inspire the team and their record was 100% in September, playing the sort of hockey that, had they kept it up, would have seen the title wrapped up by Christmas.

However, their netminder Tyler Plante picked up a strain which was to eventually see him forced to rest by November and the Steelers hit a rocky patch as Marek Pinc, the Czech international netminder was brought in and the defence struggled to cope with his more aggressive style of play.

In an attempt to get things back on track coach Paul Thompson decided forward Mike Duco was to be sacked and French-Canadian Guillaume Desbiens was brought in. Also, around this time Steelers lost top import forward Colton Fretter and Chris Lawrence, who had not fulfilled his potential with Coventry Blaze, was brought in as temporary cover.

The month of November was a period of transition for the team because of the new players and the injuries and it was not until late on in December that things began to slowly return to normal.

But it was not until the end of the season that the early blistering form that they had shown returned.

It seemed that no-one wanted to win the title; at least five teams were in with a chance with a month to go.

Considering their injuries; Colton Fretter was out all this year and British forward Robert Dowd missed thirteen key games during the latter stages, Steelers performed a monumental task in winning the title.

Then came, what I believe was the turning point of the season, Sheffield was dumped unceremoniously out of the Challenge Cup in February but just two games later Dowd returned and Sheffield went on a run of five unbeaten games to finally lift the trophy in Fife on the last day of the league fixtures.

Crowds on average of five and a half thousand at the Sheffield Arena certainly got their moneys worth.

The night Steelers won the league video

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