The Sheffield Steelers have been celebrating after becoming Challenge Cup champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Steelers defeated the Guildford Flames 3-1 at the Utilita Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steelers captain, Robert Dowd said: \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a very special night personally to me, but as a team we\u2019ve been building towards this all year, and I think we deserved that tonight.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: \u201cSome very special memories I\u2019ll take to the grave with me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Steelers started quickly as Brien Diffley finished at the back door past Flames goalie Taz Burman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite a strike from Bradley Lalonde bringing the Flames level, Patrick Watling restored their lead late in the first period with a powerplay goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mitchell Balmas doubled the Steelers lead and sealed the win in the second period as the Flames had no answers for Sheffield Goalie Matt Greenfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Steelers have been dominant this year as they sit top in the league standings in addition to a comfortable run in the Challenge Cup winning every single game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Challenges did face the Sheffield side this season, most notably the tragic event back in October where player Adam Johnson died on the rink after his neck was caught by a skate blade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A fan on social media said: \u201cWhat an incredible night last night was. Proud to be a part of the Sheffield Steelers. The best defensive hockey I have seen in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The side are also in pole position to win their first Elite League title since 2016 as they sit eleven points clear of the Cardiff Devils with ten games remaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coach Aaron Fox said: \u201cWhat an absolutely unbelievable feeling, what a great group of guys we have, I truly believe we\u2019re not done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Utilita Arena saw an attendance of 9,206 on Wednesday to watch the celebrations take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steelers player Marco Vallerand said: \u201cThis is another level, winning at home it\u2019s just amazing all these fans were there the whole night and behind us the whole night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sheffield\u2019s next fixture takes place on Saturday 16 March back at the Utilita Arena, Sheffield, where they take on the Nottingham Panthers in a top versus bottom-of-the-league clash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sheffield Steelers have been celebrating after becoming Challenge Cup champions. The Steelers defeated the Guildford Flames 3-1 at the Utilita Arena. Steelers captain, Robert Dowd said: \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a very special night personally to me, but as a team we\u2019ve been building towards this all year, and I think we deserved that tonight.” He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[102,101,12,100,84],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sport","tag-challenge-cup","tag-ice-hockey","tag-sheffield","tag-sheffield-steelers","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}