So Its Nearly The End!!

Were near the end of March which can only mean one thing its nearly the end of the elite league hockey season a part of the season that lets be honest no one likes. It been a strange season not a season that everyone expected! Before the season started and with the appointment of Doug Christiansen in charge we all thought we'd be on for a championship and with the players recruited we probably should have had one but how was we supposed to know we'd have injury after injury and we was struggling to keep players fit from pretty much week one of the season. I remember from really earlier on in the season we had the likes of Chad Langlais, Danny Meyers and Dustin Kohn all out injured for weeks and having a team that usually consists of 6 D men suddenly became 3 and we was looking stretched. The season started brilliantly with a 4-2 win in Coventry on the opening night but we was soon brought back down to earth on the Sunday by them lot just down the road. Our team didn't really start well and people had a lot of doubts at the start of the season I mean take Frank Doyle for example he didn't look all that at the start of the season but if you look at him now he is the stand out man every single night and gives us the opportunity to win every single match night.

It took the team awhile to pick up a four point weekend as the players just didn't seem to making the scratch and that showed after just 6 weeks when Rylan Galiardi was released from his contract and I think that was down to the fact he just wasn't better than anything we already had or could replace him with it would however be interesting to find out what went on with Galiardi! Sheffield fans have seen several players come and go this season and it was a pleasure to see the likes of Ilpo Salmavirta put on the orange jersey despite only being in Sheffield for a month and we unfortunately wasn't treated to a goal we did see him show what he can do with the puck and that was countless assists on match nights and how good did he look with DiCasmirro and Sirianni? those three were dangerous on the same line and that's another player that has since left and that's Robert Sirianni who had a clause in his contract which eventually meant he left to return to Italy! but does anyone remember Sirianni's debut?? a hat trick against the Cardiff Devils and it was that night I think everyone saw what a player we had and during his time at the club he certainly put up his fair share of points.

So its been a mixed season with players coming and going which saw Sirianni leave and Steelers sign Chris Blight who had just been released from Cardiff at the end of January but the end of a small era was coming and it came after the 1st leg of the challenge cup semi-final, Sheffield lost to Nottingham and it saw the end of Doug Christiansen despite the recent good league form with a good winning streak in December and January including three wins v Panthers in a row but it just wasn't good enough and it had been prove that Christiansen was the wrong man for the job and Tony Smith took the blame for that and admitted the appointment was wrong and both parties separated on good terms in which since then Christiansen has became the bench coach at Dundee but before his sacking also saw Marc LeFebrve leave for the head coach job at Coventry. Captain Steven Goertzen took charge of the team but unfortunately suffered a concussion in Cardiff which also meant he couldn't full fill his duties and Sheffield went out of the cup after a defeat in the second leg as well and within a couple of weeks ex Sheffield player and ex head coach of the Cardiff Devils Gerad Adams was appointed head coach of the Steelers and what a difference we've seen and in his short stay so far we've seen some fantastic games and performances and has only lost two of his games in charged which were both unfortunately in the Hull arena obviously not a happy hunting ground at the moment.

Gerad has a cracking playoff record getting Cardiff to the final four weekend for 10 successive seasons but unfortunately wasn't able to win it for the Devils. After two years away Sheffield are looking to make it this year and I think Gerad Adams is not only the person who can get us there but who can end our trophy drought. Bring on Coventry in the quarter-finals!.

So really what can we say about the season players were unaware how important the league was over here but eventually stepped up their game, we struggled to put a winning streak together and I think the slow start to the season is what really cost us. Just the number of injuries we have had throughout the season is damaging as I think we had suffered up to a 100 injuries before Christmas alone but we wasn't the only team as Nottingham and Coventry had injuries after injuries and then when you look at Belfast who have been so consistent throughout the entire season and have had very few injuries compared to the other teams and it just makes you think though what was it about the Giants that made them so great during the league season. Belfast won the elite league championship as well as the Erhardt conference with Dundee winning the Gardiner conference and Belfast did have a chance to make it 3 out of 4 trophies with the playoffs still to be played when they faced Nottingham in the challenge cup final but Nottingham created an impressive comeback in the second leg of the final to win the challenge cup for fifth successive season to take away any chance of a grand slam for Belfast. Next up is the playoffs one of the best parts of the season and were guaranteed to be in for a roller coaster ride for the final two weekends :).

So good luck to all eight teams in the playoffs and may the best team win!

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Let's Go Steelers!

Tom
@TomWalkeden
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