Leeds Knights boss hails 'phenomenal' players for delivering NIHL National Cup success
Ryan Aldridge hailed his Leeds Knights team for conquering their nerves to finally land the NIHL National Cup – helped in part by some video reruns in the middle of the night.
After conceding two goals in the last five minutes of the first leg against Romford Raiders, the Knights headed back up the M1 licking their wounds at a 5-4 defeat, despite having led the opening instalment most of the night.
In order to help them prepare for Sunday’s return leg at Elland Road Ice Arena, head coach Aldridge decided to run through some video of Saturday’s game - once they got back to their own rink at around 1am.
Whatever was shown to the players clearly worked as they came out of the blocks flying in the second leg, racing into a 3-0 lead inside eight minutes.
Romford hit back quickly to make it a one-goal tie again only for the Knights to restore their three-goal cushion inside 11 minutes.
There may have been the odd nervous moment in the remaining 49 minutes of the game - but netminder Sam Gospel was equal to anything that got through, his most stunning save coming in the 34th minute when he somehow stuck his right leg out to deny import Shaun Miller from scoring what looked like a certain goal at his right-hand post from barely two yards out.
Leeds had other chances to score themselves but did a good job of seeing the game out to end their wait for the one piece of silverware that had eluded them in their short four-year history.
It means they have won four trophies in all under Aldridge, out of a possible seven and, of course, they remain in the thick of a three-way race for this season’s regular season league title with leaders Milton Keynes Lightning and Swindon Wildcats.
A three-point weekend for the Lightning from their double-header against third-placed Swindon, means Leeds trail their Buckinghamshire rivals by four points ahead of tonight’s trip to Ice Sheffield for the first of two games in four days against Sheffield Steeldogs.
By the time the Lightning come to play again - at Bristol Pitbulls on Saturday - the Knights will hope to be level on points again with them.
On seeing his team deliver another piece of silverware in front of a packed out home crowd on Sunday, Aldridge said: “It feels really good - bloody marvellous.
“It’s been a long time coming, especially for the guys that have been here two or three years, those from the very start - it’s the one that has always got away from them.
“I think the nerves across the weekend were probably a little bit high and thinking it wasn’t meant to be. But I think losing in their building like we did on Saturday was probably a good thing for us - it took the pressure off a little bit.
“And we responded on Sunday - right from the start. I thought they were phenomenal and it’s hard for teams to beat us when we play like that.
“We did video at 1am when we got back from Romford - again, for me, that was about nerves and controlling the controllables and on Saturday we didn’t at times.
“We knew we needed a reaction (on Sunday) and we got that. We didn’t want to take our foot off the gas, but you obviously can’t play the way we did for the first 20 minutes for 60.
“I wasn’t overly-happy with the second period, I thought we started cheating a little bit because of the scoreline and I thought we were making weak defensive plays - but I thought the first and third periods we were phenomenal.”