Solway Sharks head coach Martin Grubb is ready to hunt down more silverware as the new NIHL season gets under way.
The Dumfries Ice Bowl side had one of its best ever seasons last year winning the NIHL North 1 league, the playoffs in Leeds and then the National Championship in Coventry to complete the treble.
In a town, and country, where football is still the dominant sport it was an incredible journey for a Dumfries team to be so successful.
Martin said: “I think it was a huge achievement.
“It’s like any sport. You’re at the level you’re at. You can only win at that level. But for a town the size of Dumfries, with limited resources compared to other teams and the catchment area is smaller in a non-traditional hockey market, I think we’ve managed to exceed expectations.
“We’ve managed to do it with a core of local players who have come through our successful junior programme in feeding players into the senior team.
“We’ve also got that hardcore element of our fan base that follow us and give us that support.
“When you’re up against a team like Streatham Blackhawks in the National Championships who had more resources than us, and win, I think people maybe underestimated just how big an achievement that was.”
Now one of the biggest obstacles for Grubb, who has been in the role since 2008, is to ensure complacency doesn’t set in after such a trophy-laden season.
He added: “Complacency has to be the thing we focus on.
“Like any team in any season there’s an element of risk. We’ve spoken to the players and tried to freshen things up with some young blood coming through that hopefully keeps the veteran core on their toes and then the younger players have a hunger to emulate the season we had and push us forward.
“In preseason we spoke to the players about that complacency and at this stage there’s nothing I’ve seen that worries me. They’re hungry for more success but we’ve got to guard against that and get off to a good start.
“Obviously last season was really successful for us. I think our biggest challenge is going to be from ourselves and how we approach things and our motivation within the group.
“There were three trophies that we won and a fourth that we let slip. We’re going into this season under no illusions that it’s going to be difficult but we’re going to try and retain the three that we’ve got and find a way to win the fourth one which was the cup.
“We want to maintain that success and we’ve kept a core of our players to allow us to do that.”
Sharks start their campaign at the Ice Bowl on Saturday night against Billingham Stars who Solway beat in the playoff semi finals last year
Martin said: “They’re a young team and they’ll be up for it.
“They’ll come with speed and we’re going to be looked at as a scalp. I’m expecting it to be an open game and a fast and skilful game. If we focus on ourselves and play the way we know we can and take that confidence from last season then we should hopefully start as we mean to go on.”
