A New Start

A well attended Fans’ Forum heard, with relief and enthusiasm, the announcement on Friday evening that Sheffield will be icing a new EPL team in the 2010-11 campaign.

The new team owner was announced as Shane Smith, a Sheffield businessman who coaches at the Academy and has two sons playing there also. He is passionate about Sheffield hockey and committed to the development and progression of the local talented players from U10’s all the way up to professional level. He thanked everyone for their patience after a hectic 3-4 weeks of setting in place a financially viable team, after the previous owners had suddenly decided to relinquish their involvement with the Club.

Matt Darlow was announced as the Head Coach, stepping up from his previous Assistant Coach role. He has been given the go-ahead to sign up his anticipated squad of players, all of whom had stayed loyal to the club during the turmoil. The team will initially include two imports, but if sufficient sponsorship can be attracted over the coming weeks, this number could be increased, and he was still looking at potential candidates.

Due to unavoidable circumstances in time constraints and other issues we had no choice but to move away from the Sheffield Scimitars’ name. In order to quickly move the team forward it had to have a brand new identity and name, this was also to ensure we retained the players to put a team on the ice.

The new Sheffield EPL team would be known as the Sheffield Steeldogs, a name which originated from players’ suggestions, with the final decision being accorded to a major sponsor of the team, Cressida Ridge.

There was overwhelming fan approval of the announcement that the team would revert back to their blue and white strip.

There was also approval of a slight reduction in some of the match night and season ticket prices. This move was made because the Steeldogs had to offer competitive prices alongside the Steelers in order to attract and increase their own fanbase.

Matchnight tickets have been set at:
Adults £8.00, Concession £6.00, Child £3.00 and Family £18.00

Season tickets have been set at:
Adult £165.00, Concession £125.00, Child (U16) £68.00 and Family £378.00.

As we are sure you will appreciate, there has been a huge amount of work to do within a very short timescale, and so a big appeal was made to the fans to help the Club bring in more sponsorship as, although a significant start has been made within the last two weeks, more was needed.

Sponsorship packages are on offer within a wide price range and Player sponsorships are already being taken up well. These packages will become available on the website shortly. For the time being, please email – contact@sheffieldsteeldogs.co.uk for further details.

The fans were thanked for their great support and they will be kept fully informed of future developments.