Sheffield Scimitars: Blog 1

Welcome to the Scims Blog.  Hi, my name is Mark and I have been a supporter of the Sheffield Scimitars for around 5 years now, having watched my hockey first of all in the North East as a youngster.  When the Scims are on a long road trip, which I sometimes cannot make, I watch the Sheffield Steelers in the Elite League and follow the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL.

 

So what can you say about the Scims this season?  One word describes us this season, NEW!  Well let me explain why, considering this is our fourth season at the EPL level.  We’re new in the sense that this season that we have new owners, new team sponsors, new team coach, new team colours, new captain.  Even our Supporters Club has had a new fresh look to it.  It’s like we have been re-incarnated and a brand new team has just come to the fore.

 

It’s certainly made us feel that we are on the birth of new and exciting times, and already we have seen it start to unfold even though the season is only six weeks old.

 

Pre-season had gone very well for us.  Two games against “local” Elite League sides and showing signs of promise – we definitely gave Sylvain Cloutier and his Hull Stingrays a lot to think about and could have won quite possibly.  A home and away challenge against the EPL’s so called big name team, Manchester Phoenix, was also played and even though they were missing Ed Courtenay at that time – the games were close and increased the belief amongst us.

 

The fixture list dictated that we would play the current EPL champions, and Grand Slam winners, Peterborough Phantoms first.  Not the easiest task in the world considering they had still got the majority of the side from last season, only Rempel and Peacock had left, so a fair few would have expected us to get something even though it was at our place.  A poll on a fans website had us down as the least impressive looking side on paper, so the odds seemed to be against us even more.

 

Yet we have, not only in this game, defied those odds and surprised people with our performances.  Not only have we beaten the afore mentioned Phantoms home and away, we have gone to Romford – which was last season a hard place to get a result – twice and won as well as have two close games in the league with the Phoenix again; losing only narrowly.  Then just last week, we travelled to Milton Keynes who have had a blistering start to the season and came off with an incredible road win.

 

So, despite a four match blip in between which might have worried some, the optimism is still high amongst us.  All teams will have losing streaks at some point of the season, it’s part and parcel of watching hockey, so the enthusiasm remains undimmed from our perspective.  We’re proud to be where are lie in the table, sixth at the time of writing this, and it’s definitely proved some of those doubters wrong before the first puck dropped.

 

What’s the main reason for our star?  Well, I suppose when you have a Gold Medal winning World Championship coach in your ranks then it does help.  Jon has brought us a brand of hockey that a newcomer would be fascinated by and seasoned hockey fans would be equally as excited with.  The players seem to be enjoying themselves as they expressing what talents they have in the way we play.  Jon’s also shown a ruthless streak, changing the side for the better where he feels it needs tweaking here and there.  The fans are behind him and said previously, we have got results from places where you wouldn’t have expected us to do so.  That’s the sign of a good coach who is knowledgeable about his side’s ability and looks at where he can exploit other sides.  Slowly but surely he is putting his own mark on the team and the league.

 

We have the potential to be this season’s dark horses but that only comes with consistency and we can do that with a bit of a luck that goes around now and then.  Still it’s been a very good start, and we hope there is more to come as the season progresses.  Well with that, I will conclude the first blog and will be back again in probably a fortnight’s time with more opinions.

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