Why coach Ryan Aldridge is proud of 'unbelievable' Leeds Knights
ANOTHER game, another injury.
The latest such blow came on Wednesday during the trip to Hull Seahawks, the Knights losing 3-2 after a shootout which came at the end of a pulsating derby encounter.
In the second period, 19-year-old forward Kurts Baumanis took a hit from Josh Hodgkinson into the boards in front of the Leeds bench. He never returned to the ice.
On Sunday, during the 4-3 defeat at Romford Raiders, Finley Bradon left the game early after he too was hit into the boards, ruling him out of the trip to Hull.
Two weeks earlier, Innes Gallacher suffered what later transpired to be a season-ending injury in the 7-5 win over Milton Keynes Lightning.
The night before, in Milton Keynes, defensive pair Jonas Bennett and Sam Cooper suffered upper-body injuries, ruling them out for three and two weeks respectively.
Cooper returned for Saturday’s 2-1 win over former club Sheffield Steeldogs, while it is possible Bradon will return this weekend, with Bennett potentially back on the ice for Saturday’s trip to Solway.
Baumanis, however, one of a number of teenage forwards to emerge this season, is unlikely to play this weekend.
Injuries are part and parcel of every team’s season, of course, and Leeds are no different in that respect. But the 2025-26 campaign seems to have seen them hit particularly hard.
A relentless schedule is far from helpful but, again, they are not alone in that respect in NIHL National.
Watching on and having to deal with the shortage of bodies throughout is head coach Ryan Aldridge, who is increasingly relying on the younger end of his roster to fill in the gaps out on the ice.
They - along with the more experienced, no doubt jaded, players around them - impressed collectively once again in Hull, edged out on penalty shots by the league’s form team.
The two go at it again in Leeds on Friday night before the Knights close out a hectic period of six games in nine days with a trip to Solway Sharks.
Aldridge is a coach who has never been shy from being critical of his players’ performances in public at times but, equally, he is quick to heap praise on them when it is merited.
He knows how much he is getting from his players at the moment.
“It’s not easy, not easy at all,” said Aldridge. “There’s no other sport in the world where you’re expected to play three games in as many days, but we expect guys - some of who work 40-plus hours a week elsewhere - to do it.
“It’s tough. Literally mentally and you could see that in our game on Sunday in Romford, mentally we were drained. We had guys who weren’t picking up their men, we were all over the place.
“What are you supposed to do, or ask of them when they can’t give any more?
“Before that, we beat the top two teams, so you probably then haven’t got a lot left to go and win the third game.
“I was shattered, I said that before the game, so I don’t know how they must have felt.
“The impact on me is more mental, obviously, but again, theirs is mental and physical, as we were just making mistakes we wouldn’t normally make.
“We were already very, very short, so to turn Swindon and Sheffield over - with where we were at in terms of the injuries we’ve got - I can’t say enough good things about the boys, they have been unbelievable.”