“WE WILL only get better” was the defiant message from Bracknell Bees’ bench coach Gareth Cox, writes Lewis Rudd.
Thanks to a late Alex Barker goal, the club pulled themselves off the foot of the English Premier Ice Hockey League (EPIHL) table with a brilliant, if not dramatic, 4-3 victory over fierce rivals Guildford Flames last Saturday.
Although beaten 3-1 at The Hive by another near neighbour, Basingstoke Bison, on Sunday night, these latest results demonstrate a huge improvement from player-coach Lukas Smital’s young side.
In previous encounters with the two clubs earlier in the season, Bees suffered heavy 8-4 (Guildford) and 8-1 (Basingstoke) reverses, so the progression is clear to see.
It was inevitable the roster may encounter some teething problems this term given the time available to Smital to assemble a team after he and countless other volunteers spent most of the close season battling heroically to keep the club in existence.
And those players at his disposal boast an average age of just 24, with some of those individuals having little or no experience of the EPIHL at all.
Results over the past few weeks, however, suggest the side is beginning to settle down and Cox is confident the team can only continue to get better.
“It is a young team with a lot of young faces in there, so it is a big learning curve for some of them,” he told The Wokingham Paper.
“It is such a young side with some EPL inexperience – we have four imports who have never played in this country before, but we are only going to get better and better.
“These players are finding their feet at the moment, but we are growing in confidence and we need to keep it going.”
Cox added: “The Guildford result was a fantastic one and is the way we need to play, but then people say it was a disappointing result (against Bison) after we are beaten at home.
“But the last time we played them we lost 8-1, so a 3-1 defeat is a massive improvement.
“We were unlucky not to take anything out of it as we had a couple of opportunities on the power play and created some scoring opportunities but didn’t take them.
“But going from 8-1 to 3-1 must be looked at as a massive improvement.”
Cox is back with the club once again following his shock dismissal as then-Head Coach back in 2013 amid what owners at the time, Precision Sports Marketing, described as a cost-cutting measure.
Since then he has taken charge of the Bracknell Hornets and coached both the club’s Under-15s and the South East Conference team at U17.
But he is back on the Bees’ bench once again, explaining how the offer of a return from close friend Smital was an easy one to accept.
“It’s good to be back,” he said.
“It’s nice and I know most of the guys from before and across the league.
“I’m here to help support Lukas really, he is the one making the key decisions and I’m making the easy ones for a change!
“It’s all good fun and I’m happy to be here.”
Bees are away at Milton Keynes Lightning on Saturday (7pm) before hosting Sheffield Steeldogs the following day (6pm).
The points have gone the way of the opposition when the sides have met this season, but the bench coach is hoping the galvanised side, who sit ninth in the standings, can come away with something this weekend.
He said: “We had a bad result last time against Sheffield (5-2) but we believe with our better performances and improved confidence we can do better this weekend.
“MK is always a tough place to go. They have a lot of talented players and a lot of experience, but we ran them close last time, losing 4-3.
“But given the way we played last weekend, we need to make sure we build on these performances.”
