Lions
to play in second tier of British Ice Hockey after pride’s surprise climb into NIHL
North Division One
Heading into their
twentieth season as a club, Nottingham Lions now look forward to their 2017-18
campaign with the knowledge that they will be playing in NIHL North’s Division
One (Moralee) next season. Gaining promotion during the NIHL North section
meeting, following the acceptance of Sutton Sting’s request for relegation, the
Lions will prepare to face tough competition in Division One which will now be
made up of last season’s Moralee contenders Billingham Stars, Blackburn Hawks,
The Dragons, Solihull Barons, Solway Sharks and Whitley Warriors as well as former
EPL outfits Hull Pirates, Sheffield Steeldogs and Telford Tigers One.
Starting out in the lower
tiers of British Ice Hockey in 1998, the Lions were then able to progress to
the English Premier League where they played for three seasons before switching
to the ENL North . It was in this league that the Lions were able to contend with
the best of their competition to qualify for playoffs in their
first three seasons. Battling in their quest for silverware and enduring a
sixth place finish in March 2007, Nottingham were able to bounce back to claim
the English National League title in their 2007-08 campaign, though losing out
on the double following defeat to league rivals Whitley Warriors. Securing
second place for three consecutive seasons after their success, the Lions then
plummeted to the depths of the ENL in 2012 to finish in eighth place and assume
their spot in the league placement playoff game. An 11-8 defeat to Sutton Sting
on aggregate saw the side relegated from Division One and, though winning
nineteen of their twenty four games to achieve promotion in their following
campaign, the club turned down a move back to Division One due to financial restraints.
Now though, after fluctuating form in the NIHL’s Laidler Conference, the Lions
have made the leap following their recent window of opportunity and
consequently find themselves in the second tier of British Ice Hockey.
This move perhaps a
surprise to many, The Cat’s Whiskers
caught up with Nottingham’s Head Coach Matt Bradbury this week who took time to reflect
on the Lions’ league change: “It was all about an
opportunity that had arisen to make that step. There’s no doubt, looking at the
teams and the standard, that we were really going to have to up the ante
but sometimes you don’t get those chances very often and we just thought the most sensible thing to do was to take that opportunity, just like we did
back when the Lions were in the EPL in 2000. The key then was to play at the highest level we
possibly could and that opportunity arose because Sutton moved down into Division
Two. I’m obviously aware that maybe other teams didn’t want to make that step
but we knew that the number of
games we were going to have to play, which was going to be thirty six, was the same and the amount of buses that we’d have
to take was going to be of a similar amount and the same cost so why not take
ourselves and be in the second tier of British Ice Hockey?
“For me, I’ve always
wanted to challenge the players from Nottingham, from within the junior system,
and you always want to challenge yourself to be the best. There’s no point in
going through the motions; if we’re going to do it, we may as well do it big.
The players still pay to play so that means that they wear their hearts on
their sleeves and it means something to them. They give it their all and that’s
one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that we will obviously be
looking for players that may not have jobs or may not be picking up big pay cheques,
or bigger pay cheques, in the NIHL1 because monies aren’t there
to be had. We will be pulling together a group of players that know Nottingham
and have come through Nottingham ranks and have played at that level. We need
established players and we’re already in conversation with those types of
players that we’re after. We’ll probably be looking for five or six players,
just like other teams in the division. They will have their core base of
players and it won’t be an auction because those teams don’t have the budgets
either. They aren’t going to pay some of the wages that were being paid in the
former EPL and we’ll be looking at players that are now working for a living,
or on apprenticeships, or at college or university near us. We’ve got a list of
who we’d like and if we can get those players that are on our wish list then we’ll
be quite comfortable in the team we’ll put together.
“Ultimately, we had two choices: we
could have played in the Division Two next season or we could make that push to
the Division One. The costs would have been exactly the same. We’ve got
targets. There’s certain teams and games that we’ll set to try and pick off
points against and obviously it’s survival
to not finish in the bottom two and be relegated. That will be the main aim and
if we can pick off those extra points here and there, and make our home games
count, then hopefully we could do even better than we probably expect
ourselves. It would be great to finish middle of the pack and see where it
takes us from there but it’s going to take some hard work and graft. The
players are really excited to be getting this opportunity, nobody expected it, and it will hopefully spur us on into pulling together a strong team for
next season.”
Thank you to The Cat’s Whiskers for views used in
this article and also to Head Coach Matt Bradbury and Lions’ alternate captain Adz Andrews for their support during the writing of this article. To listen to the full podcast, please click the link provided: https://thecatswhiskersonline.co.uk/.
