News Report

Coaches thoughts

Coach Cliff gives his thoughts going forward to the playoffs

• admin
• 27 March 2024

Hi Chieftains Fans,

I hope you are all well and looking forward to the start of the playoffs this weekend as much as I am. The end of our season has been a tricky one to manage, playing quite a few games that didn’t have a lot of meaning, then a few that did and then back to ones that didn’t again, but I think we have managed it as best as we could and got to this point in the best health and readiness that we could have hoped for.

Now the regular season is done and in the books we can review it, which we will, but before that we need to get ready and prepared for a weekend long battle against Oxford.  Playoffs are an exciting time of the year for everyone, whether it’s a team at the top who are looking to add to their successes or a team nearer the bottom who are looking to put a disappointing season behind them and cause an upset.  Generally in the playoffs everything tightens up a little bit, it’s harder to score, harder to find ice, time and space, and everyone from 1 through to 8 will come out all guns blazing looking to get through this weekend so they can take their place in the final 4 weekend at the Palace, whilst we have had good results against Oxford this season, that counts for nothing now and we will need to find our ‘A game’ this weekend as things can swing one way and then the other in these aggregate score weekends, and we will have to manage our play, emotions and discipline to make sure we get through it with a positive result.  The rest of the way now, it’s ‘win or go home’ and with that risk comes a lot of reward, which big players relish and in those moments they stand up, be counted and focus in on what’s important. 

I have every belief in this team, I know what we are and how good we can be when we play at our optimum level, and we need to find that for 120 minutes this weekend.  As this is the last time I will be writing one of these before a home game, I am just asking for 1 more weekend of Riverside noise, we need you to be the extra man on the ice for us this weekend, be as loud as you can for as long as you can, the boys will feed off of it, I can promise you that. 

Thanks for reading, let’s get excited about playoff hockey, see you at the rink,

Cliff.