ELITE SERIES: Manchester Storm take on the Nottingham Panthers at Motorpoint Arena Nottingham this Wednesday in Elite Series action! Buy the webcast HERE! Face-off is 19:00 14th April.

Wednesdays fixture against The Nottingham Panthers see’s us exactly half way through our ‘regular season’ fixtures and with the Storm well-positioned in joint second and playing some exciting stuff we decided to catch up with Manchester Storm Head Coach, Ryan Finnerty!

Ryan opened up about his thoughts on how the Elite Series is going: “Well, it certainly is different playing in the same venue and living on-site, but I know how fortunate we are playing this sport for a living and the world is still not back to normal, so we cannot complain too much.

I think after five games you get a good feel for how any season will go, how the guys are bonding and what tweaks you need to make going forward. It has helped our dressing having the likes of Dally, Critch and Tyson back as our leadership group, then you add in a bunch of guys who I have worked with before and you don’t really have to do much in terms of breaking the ice.

The Head Coach continued; “Our squad is full of players with and wanting international experience, I know a few of the guys have a real point to prove in this mini series and want to throw down the marker to Pete Russell. On the ice, I would say going forward its nearly clicked…obviously Longer has been doing what he does in this jersey and score goal after goal. The all-round player of Simmer and Lundell Noer has been exceptional, you can see why both these guys were sought after in Europe.

At the back, we have been steady and the guys have done a great job short-handed, we are really hoping to get Andreas back into the line-up, as not only is he an exceptional player but he balances out our left-handers. I think the play of Joe (Hazeldine) has been eye-catching and you can see why the Panthers weren’t keen on giving him away, but knowing he is under contract for next season is great for our franchise.

I feel like the next couple of games will be a more accurate reflection of what we can bring to this series, some of our goal scorers are getting the feel back now and all the guys are well accustomed to the Olympic ice sheet.

Lastly, I hope all our fans are keeping well! We all really appreciate you tuning in to watch these games and hopefully we can give you something to cheer about in the weeks ahead! Let’s go Storm!”

ELITE SERIES: Manchester Storm take on the Nottingham Panthers at Motorpoint Arena Nottingham this Wednesday in Elite Series action! Buy the webcast HERE! Face-off is 19:00 14th April.