IF YOU ever doubted how sport can lift the feelings of everyone involved, then Sunday evening must have reminded you of how lucky we are to work and play in such a sport-rich community as Basingstoke.

Swindon and the Bison were tied on Saturday evening after a tight match and the teams had only another 60 minutes – or slightly more – to decide who was going to Coventry for the play-off finals.

The large band of Swindon supporters, who contributed so much to the atmosphere on Sunday, have been there before. For our fans, it could be the first time that they would have the chance of supporting the Bison in the finals.

The Coventry weekend is the culmination of the hockey season. Every player and every fan wants to be there. When we scored the winning goal in overtime, players erupted off the bench, fans off their seats.

That’s the drama of the play-off format. We had 120 minutes to play against Swindon. We’ll have 60 minutes in Coventry.

As the clock ticks down, we know there has to be a result and that result will determine whether our hockey season is over.

We made it, with five players missing. We thank those guys for all they did to help get us into a strong position and regret they can’t be out there on the ice with us when we skate out to meet Manchester on Saturday evening.

On home ice, I was able to put Alex Symonds and Zach Sullivan out against Jonas Hoog and Aaron Nell, the top offensive pairing in the league, throughout the game. The team was delighted to see Alex being given the man-of-the-match.

We were also delighted to hear of the success of the Great Britain under-18 team with Matt Selby and Cameron Wynn in Estonia.

See you all in Coventry. The season is not over yet!

Doug.