Sheffield Steelers closer to winning treble after defeating Fife Flyers in playoff quarter-final
By Esmé Kenney
April 15, 2024

The Sheffield Steelers will progress to the semi-finals of the Elite Hockey League after defeating the Fife Flyers in the double-header quarter-final yesterday.

They won yesterday’s match with a score of 4-1, with an aggregate score of 13-5. During Friday’s quarter-final first leg, they won 9-4.

They are only two matches away from winning the first treble in their history.

On the Steelers’ side, Kevin Tansey, Mikko Juusola, Marco Vallerand and Brett Neumann scored goals, and Mikko Juusola was man of the match. 

The Flyers achieved one goal, scored by Colin Shirley.

Speaking after Friday’s match, Tom Coolen, manager of the Flyers, said the Steelers “outskilled” them.

He said: “We didn’t play well enough defensively. We turned the puck over too many times and they swarmed us with their depth.” 

The team will face off against the Guildford Flames in the Semi-Finals, which will take place at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena on 20 April at 3.00pm.

The Steelers Manager, Aaron Fox, said the team “liked [their] chances” of succeeding in the semi-finals. 

He said: “Your aim in this setting is to try to give yourself as good a lead at home as you possibly can. We did a good job of that tonight. We’ll watch some tape and hopefully clean up hopefully a couple things defensively and and go up there on Sunday, hopefully to win. 

“We don’t want to sit back and play a different way than the way we have success, so we’ll again try to impose our depth and our pace on that team that plays three lines in 5D the majority of the time. If we can make them work for everything, we can have some success.” 

The Steelers already beat the Guildford Flames in the Challenge Cup.

Only three other teams have won a treble before; the Nottingham Panthers, Coventry Blaze and Belfast Giants.