OUR hockey season came to an end last weekend after two hours of intense sudden death hockey, when Manchester Phoenix put us out of the play-offs by a single goal.

We had travelled up to Manchester on Saturday knowing that we had not won on their ice in our last seven meetings. At the very least, we had to put ourselves in a position where we had all to play for when we played the second half of the quarter-finals in Basingstoke.

Matt Selby came to the Altrincham rink to give his support and Tom Karpov and Declan Balmer returned to the team.

The atmosphere was heightened by the fact that this was to be Tony Hand’s last appearance for Manchester on his home rink. The home fans were delighted when his team took an early lead in the first period.

It says so much for the character of the Bison team that they fought back for a great 5-4 win. We left with high hopes of completing our win the following day.

The hopes were obviously shared by the sell-out home crowd, especially when this time we went in to an early lead. We continued to outshoot Manchester, but momentum began to shift towards our opponents as they scored a few individual goals and worked very hard in defence.

The highs of the previous day were replaced by the lows of losing our chance of travelling to Coventry to defend our title.

We haven’t picked up any silverware this season but continue to be one of the top three teams in the EPL.

The support we receive from the Booster Club and our fans enables us to build for the future.

A huge thanks to our sponsors, our volunteers, our bench staff and off-ice officials.

All the best,

Doug