Sheffield Steelers

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For other uses, see Steelers.

See Sheffield Steelers (lacrosse) for another Sheffield sports team.

Sheffield Steelers

League:

Elite Ice Hockey League

Founded:

1991

Home Ice:

Hallam FM Arena

Capacity:

8500

Ice Size:

197ft x 98ft

City:

Sheffield, England

Colours:

White, Teal, and Orange

Captain:

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Head Coach:

David Matsos

Ownership:

Arena Sports LTD.

Sheffield Steelers are the most successful club in British ice hockey, from Sheffield, England. They were formed in 1991 and play their home games at the Sheffield Arena. They are currently members of the Elite Ice Hockey League.

1 Ice Hockey’s British renaissance
2 06/07 Roster
3 Honours
4 External link

[edit] Ice Hockey’s British renaissance

Ice Hockey began its return to an era of arenas and stadium size crowds with the opening of the Sheffield Arena in 1991 and the creation of the Sheffield Steelers — the ice hockey team that was to occupy the new arena. The Sheffield Arena was built as part of the city’s facilities for the staging of the World Student Games, and is a sizeable stadium originally seating 8,500 and located close to the city centre. Dave Biggar was at the helm as the Marketing Director at the club and set about promoting ice hockey to a city raised on the footballing success of Sheffield United and Wednesday football clubs. Biggar had a specific target, seeking to attract children and families to the city’s new sporting Arena. As he stated in an interview in Liam Sluyter's A Game of Three Halves (Mainstream Publishing, 1998) "we were sending guys around schools. We wrote to all the schools in Sheffield and said "Bring the kids, see the Arena, sit down, experience the whole thing" ". They also began taking players to local football matches and parading them around the ground with mascots in an attempt to pull in football fans too. Another marketing ploy was to give certain players nicknames to help the crowd associate with the new (and as yet unknown) players.

Sheffield Steelers were the first ever fully professional ice hockey team in Great Britain, and O’Brien suggested that there was a lot of resentment from the followers of other hockey teams who saw them as a "cheque book hockey club" able to buy whoever they chose. Likewise, Sluyter questions the authenticity of the majority of Steelers fans in the club’s early days. Though he admitted that it was a generalisation, Sluyter suggested hockey fans of teams like Cardiff, Fife and Nottingham were ice hockey fans first and foremost, while Steelers supporters were only Steelers fans, and knew very little of ice hockey outside of Sheffield. However, it made little difference as Sheffield began breaking several British ice hockey attendance records, and in March of that year added an extra 1,200 seats to the Arena to meet the growing demand.

Sheffield Steelers had begun their first ever season in English Division One. One year later Sheffield Steelers won promotion into the British Premier League, before going on to win this in 1995 — the last team to do so before the formation of the new British Ice hockey Super League (ISL) that year.

On Sunday 3rd of December, the Steelers are due to play their 1000th ever game. The game is against the Basingstoke Bison at the Hallam FM Arena, for which special orange jerseys have been made for the match.

[edit] 06/07 Roster

Netminders

#34 Jody Lehman
#47 Davey Lawrence

Defencemen

#06 Scott Ricci
#14 Ian Manzano
#19 Rod Sarich
#22 Regan Darby
#44 Mark Thomas

Forwards

#02 Shane Johnson
#11 Shawn Maltby
#17 Jason Hewitt
#20 Jonathan Phillips
#21 Brett Clouthier
#24 Shaun Sutter
#25 Phil Hill
#26 Dan Tessier
#42 Warren Tait

[edit] Honours

Promoted from English League Division One to British League Division One 1991–92
Promoted from British League Division One to British Premier Division 1992–93
British Premier Division Champions 1994–95, 1995–96
Superleague Champions 2000–01, 2002–03
British Championship Winners 1995, 1996
British Championship Runners-up 1994
Autumn Cup Winners 1995–96, 2001–02
Challenge Cup Winners 2000–01, 2002-03
Elite League Winners 2003–04,
Elite League Playoff Winners 2003–04,
British Knockout Cup Winners 2005–06