Sheffield Steelers coach sets out demands for new season

That was the spot they occupied at the end of last term, and assistant coach Carter Beston-Will doesn't want a repeat in season 2022-23.

He's had a taste of winning at Sheffield, in cup competition in 2020, and ending up the title bridesmaid last year in the league "sucks," he says.

Sheffield's Challenge Cup victory in Cardiff provided the "best ever" atmosphere best he had experienced in hockey.

The Cardiff arena "was split down middle orange and red on either side, 3,500 or something competing for noise the whole time. It was the coolest atmosphere ever."

When the Cup winners returned to Sheffield in the early hours, fans were waiting to greet them - part of a club tradition, he explained on the '2 Ales and Hockey Tales' podcast.

"Winning -I want to do this again," he said. "When you lose the lows are what make the highs so worth it.

"Last year's second place sucked! It is the worst."

Sheffield ended up eight points adrift of champions Belfast Giants, who scored 22 more goals than them and conceded 30 fewer.

Beston-Will said it was a gruelling 54-game play-off style tournament but one which ends with the silverware Steelers want most.

The podcast also floated the idea of retiring Jeff Legue's shirt.

Doubtless, that would be well deserved, he played 550 times for Sheffield and is all time fourth top goalscorer.

But the complication is that Legue mainly wore the number 11 shirt (he sported number 12 in 2014/15 and 2015/16) even though it had been retired after Tommy Plommer (462 appearances) had left in 2000.

Club official Dave Simms said: "Both players were brilliant servants for the club in different eras.

"This is only a personal view but would it hurt to have two number 11s in the rafters?

"I know that might not be the way they do things in north America, but hey...newsflash...this isn't north America."

*Should Legue share the number 11 retirement shirt with Plommer? Tweet your views to @westerdale10