Ryan Aldridge keen for Leeds Knights to give home fans the perfect send-off

Given the news coming out of Hampshire earlier this week that Basingstoke Bison won’t be competing in NIHL National next season, it has placed added significance on the play-off quarter-final between them and Leeds Knights.

For Knights coach Ryan Aldridge, it will be a particularly poignant moment, given he coached there for 18 months when the Bison were still an Elite League club.

All being well, the Bison will be back for the 2024-25 campaign once the overdue repairs to its rundown rink are completed.

It means, of course, that the Knights will welcome a Bison team to Elland Road Ice Arena on Saturday night even more fired up to go out on a high.

What better way to do that than dispatching the newly-crowned league champions in what will be their last appearance in front of their own fans for what is hoped to be no more than around 18 months.

As far as Aldridge is concerned, as much as the Bison hold a special place in his heart following his time down there between 2007-2009, he is keen for his players to give their own fans a fitting send-off in Saturday night’s first leg (face-off 6.30pm).

Given the way support has grown in only its second full season under the ownership of Steve Nell, Aldridge believes Leeds has quickly become a special place to play.

“Steve and me were having lunch the other day and talking about how quickly things had taken off and how this rink had become such a special place in so many different ways,” said Aldridge. “The locker room is great, full of good people, the on-ice product has been good and the fans have been great - everything about the whole organisation is going the right way and the fans are a massive part of that.

“It would be nice to finish off on a high note at home. We need a performance for our own confidence to take into Sunday night, but we also need a big performance because it would be good to finish the season off in front of our fans in the right way and reward them for their support.”

On offer, of course, is a place at the Final Four Weekend at Coventry’s Skydome Arena the following weekend, something the Knights missed out on last season when they effectively ran out of steam once it got to the post-season, losing all six games.

This time around, the group format - popular with both players and fans - has been replaced by the more traditional, at least for the UK, two-legged aggregate, knockout ties.

As the Knights know from painful recent experience in the final of the NIHL National Cup, one bad night and your hopes can effectively be over.

The Knights almost pulled off the impossible before coming up just short in overturning that 6-0 first leg deficit against Peterborough Phantoms.

Aldridge believes playing on home ice first may be more beneficial to his team, a team who also carry good form into the tie, losing one in five since clinching the league title in Telford on March 19 and ending their regular season with a 9-1 thrashing of runners-up Milton Keynes Lightning last Sunday.

“The guys down at Basingstoke are obviously going to want to finish on a high given what is happening,” said Aldridge. “I’m sure they were going to be up for it anyway, but it will probably be the case even more so.

“I think playing at home first will hopefully suit us better, as opposed to how the Cup final went, but I don’t think there is any more pressure, it’s just going to be business as usual for us.

“Last Sunday against MK was the first time we’ve played like that in a long time - we were seriously relentless. The boys were flying.

“It was one of our best performances in the last six to eight weeks and if we can carry that into this weekend then I’ll be a happy man.”