Ice Hockey: Captain's Log

Feb 23 2008 by Brad Voth, South Wales Echo

LET'S get it straight. We are not doing well enough as a team and now is the time to get things right.

Earlier this season, when we climbed the Elite League table quickly, everybody believed we would win.

I don't know if that same belief is in our locker room right now. But it won't take much to alter that situation.

We have to work hard, individually, for each other and as a team. Maybe players are operating at 90 per cent and every one of us must step things up.

There is only one match this weekend and that's at Basingstoke Bison tonight.

Hopefully, only having one game will help us focus and work for that win we need.

We have eight matches left in the regular season and they present a chance for us to lift confidence and get the wins we need.

Make no mistake, we still have the ability and desire to achieve big things.

The play-offs are coming and they are our aim now.

It could be argued we don't have the same amount of skill that, say, Coventry Blaze have in their locker room.

But we have shown in our last two matches against them we can certainly compete – and if we stick together and work through this we can beat anybody on our day.

Look back at the home match against Blaze, which was shown live on Sky television. Everybody did really well and underlined what we can do.

It's not going to be easy over the last of this season, but that's the nature of sport and ice hockey.

Our job now is to give the fans something to cheer over the remaining matches – and head into the play-offs feeling good about ourselves. Together, players, staff, fans and everybody, we can still achieve such a lot from what has been a difficult season.