New Season
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Stats Centre
We are working on an archive of matches, stats and players from BIH in the past few years.
First month's report
One month on, and I thought it was about right to have an assessment of the new era of my beloved Sheffield Steelers. No longer Ben Simon’s Sheffield Steelers but Ryan Finnerty’s Sheffield Steelers and Finnerty in his rookie year as a player-coach. So what is the verdict on the team that the 30 year old Canadian has assembled so far? Read on and you will find out.
Finnerty, like his predecessor Simon, has benefited from a solid team behind him. Bench Coach “Big” Neil Abel is as experienced as you can have as a right hand man and ticks all the boxes you need for someone to run the show for you whilst you are on the ice, and probably the best British player of his generation (and I am not alone in saying this) aka Ashley Tait is a wise choice as an assistant coach since the Toronto born forward has been there and done everything you expect apart from the NHL call up.
The new coach has worked under a summer of turmoil it has to be said but knew what type of players he wanted and when players from the title winning season had departed the scene then had to find more than adequate replacements. How do you replace a netminder who set new records last season? Simple, look for a championship winning like for like replacement. For Ervins Mustukovs, now read John DeCaro. For a goalscoring superstar who has all the tools to hurt a team offensively, you read Mike Ramsay as opposed to Joey Talbot.
One thing that strikes me between the Simon team and the one that Finnerty has assembled is a common denominator, a workmanlike ethic that means the team will never surrender and give up until it is beyond them. This I believe was the principal reason why we won the league last season, and you can see it has manifested itself into the class of 2011-12. Finnerty said in the Festival of Hockey match programme: “We will have an exciting line up that can play style we want to DICTATE.” Yet you know something, from what I have seen so far then he is living up to the comment. The guys are buying into the system that Finnerty wants them to do so and apart from the Cardiff road blip, it is working.
So the big question is, can the Finnerty team retain the League Championship or not? I know it is very early days, after all we are only one month into the season, but the signs are positive and I’d have to say yes. As I said previously, the guys have bought into Finner’s system and apart from one loss we’re unbeaten. The top line is as good as anyone’s and in Neil Clark we have probably the most underrated import forward around. Not only does Clarkie have size, stand next to him and you realise how, but he knows where the net is and can create plays too.
All this has been achieved for two thirds of the game without Captain Jono, or Jonathan Phillips for the uneducated. Jono suffered an unlucky knee in the home opener, identical to the one that kept him out for months last season. Yet in has come “Spud”, aka Ashley Tait’s brother Warren and he’s done the job we wanted him to do. A totally different player altogether to Jono, Spud is not known for goals but for a tireless work ethic which is what Finner wants. Big props to Chris Allen and the Peterborough organisation for their assistance in making the move permanent however.
More thoughts shortly, but you can follow me also on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hockeybhoy
Yours in hockey,
Mark
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-3 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-5 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-4 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
5-8 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
- Adam Walker
- Alex Birch
- Andy Pierce
- Chris Gent
- Christopher Beal
- Craig Simpson
- Dave Simms
- Elliott Stanley
- Gareth Chalmers
- James Broughton
- James Gordon
- Katy Madgwick
- Luke Catterson
- Mark Briggs
- Mark Duell
- Mat Young
- Patrick Smyth
- Promotion
- Russ Morrell
- Seanna Murdock
- Stephen Dowson
- Stewart Roberts
- Tom Forster
- Vicki Smart
- William Lyon
