AS YOU read this, I will be sat in the dressing room of the Sheffield Steelers for our morning pre-game skate. Later tonight will be the last time that we play in the Arena this year, our final home game.
How quickly the season has passed, but the most important hours and days are just ahead of us.
Tonight we play the Manchester Phoenix in the first leg of the Play-off quarter-finals – it's a game we have to win.
Seven of the Elite League coaches h
ave all predicted we'll beat Manchester comfortably, but I am convinced that this will not be a comfortable series.
Manchester are too proud and too experienced to just let us walk all over them.
In Scott Frankhouser they have one of the League's outstanding goalies and in Joe Tallari, a player who has scored 50 goals this year.
Their most important player, though, is my former GB team-mate, Tony Hand. Tony is 40 now, I wish he would retire because every time we play against Manchester Tony has an impact on the game; I hope I can playing half as well as him when I am 40.
But one thing we have to remember tonight and on Sunday in the second leg is that this series should be about us and not Manchester.
It should be about the things we do well; let Manchester worry about our speed and depth and how they will cope with us playing three lines against their two; how they can break us down defensively. Yes, we have to be respectful and we have to be professional in our build-up to this game.
I look around our dressing room and see some guys who are a little racked off; racked off with finishing second in the League and runners-up in the Challenge Cup. These players are hungry.
I don't want any more silver medals, I want the gold cup and when I look around this room I can't believe that this group of players won't deliver a trophy to Sheffield.
If we can get past Manchester and make the final four, then we have a legitimate chance of bringing home the Championship.
In the last few hours before the game, my respect and admiration for the Manchester players will not dip. I know we are in for an absolute war over two games.
However, I can't help but think that the troops on our side of the trenches will be the troops that deliver the final victory. We simply have to win tonight against Manchester.
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