Sheffield Steelers

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For other uses, see Sheffield.

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

Sheffield Steelers

League	Elite Ice Hockey League
Founded	1991
History	1991 - Present
Arena	Hallam FM Arena
Capacity	8,500
City	Sheffield, United Kingdom
Team Colours	White, Teal & Orange
Head coach	David Matsos
Owners	Arena Sports Ltd
Team Captain	Jonathan Phillips
League Championships	1994-95, 1995-96, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2003-04
Championships	1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2003-04
Autumn Cups	1995-96, 2000-01
Challenge Cups	1998-99, 1999-00, 2000-01, 2002-03

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 December 2006, the Steelers played in their 1000th ever game. The game was against the Basingstoke Bison at the Hallam FM Arena, for which special orange jerseys had been made for the match. The Steelers lost the game 3-2 and the jerseys were all auctioned off at the game.

[edit] 06/07 Roster

Netminders

#34 Jody Lehman
#47 Davey Lawrence

Defencemen

#06 Scott Ricci
#14 Ian Manzano
#19 Rod Sarich
#44 Mark Thomas
#74 Shane Johnson

Forwards

#10 Ryan Finnerty
#11 Shawn Maltby
#15 Paul Moran
#17 Jason Hewitt
#20 Jonathan Phillips
#24 Shaun Sutter
#25 Phil Hill
#26 Dan Tessier
#28 Vezio Sacratini
#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