Sheffield Steelers' coach gives honest assessment of trophyless season

But the team boss insists every decision he made was intended to help the club provide the silverware the team and fans both crave.

Sheffield ended in the EIHL division's third place and seven points shy of champions Belfast Giants.

It's a highly competitive league, but the fact is that Steelers have not won it since 2016 and the natives are getting restless.

So how much of the apparent under-achievement be laid at the coach's door?

Fox takes responsibility for all matters on the ice and accepts there were things he tried that did not work out.

Asked what he had learned from last season, he replied: "You are always going to find little things to learn but it is more about reflecting on and analysing decisions made that weren't the right ones and make sure you don't make them again.

"The reality is that it is a game of such fine margins - it only needs a bad decision here or there and it ends up costing you a trophy game."

Fox said in a long, cluttered fixture list of 70 games: "There are always going to be situations where you look back and maybe we should have had a tighter leash, from an accountability standpoint, maybe not give this player as much rope as we did.

"But, even on teams that went on to win, coaches are going to look back and question decisions they made over the year.

"You have to have confidence in yourself and believe you made those decisions in the best interests of the club at the time, whether or not they turned out to be wrong ones.

"That's the way this business works."

Fox, like his assistant Carter Beston-Wills, won't have spent a lot of mental energy concentrating on some of the negative comments that have been posted line.

He said: "We had people who were not satisfied that we did not win anything and I wasn't either.

"But it is not like we were a bad hockey team.

"Our points percentage was 71.5 if you look at the two last (Sheffield) title-winning teams they were 69 and 71.2.

"It is a hard league, there is more depth now, Dundee (Stars) can beat you every night, maybe back then it was different, I don't know."

*Great Britain expect to be based in Prague in Group B for next year's World Championship following the announcement of the tentative groups by the IIHF.

Pete Russell’s side will come up against the world’s number two ranked side Finland, as well as USA, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway and Austria.

Matches will take place in the 17,383-seater 02 Arena, from May 10-26.