Hull Stingrays - 2004/2005

2004/2005

Although still very much having to keep a close eye on the purse strings, the squad had a much stronger feel to it when the first puck dropped on the 2004–05 campaign.

Coach Strachan brought in Scott Wray, Jeff Glowa, Craig Minard and Ladislav Kudrna in nets to join Alipov, Nikolaev, Burgess, Gomenyuk as his eight import contingent and with a strong British content including Slava Koulikov, and the Phillips brothers, hopes were high.

A 'top four finish' was predicted by the coach but this turned out not to be ambitious enough. Stingrays were overtaken for second place in the last fortnight by Guildford and Newcastle, the team made the Winter Cup semi-finals and gained a play-off place.

Amazingly it could have been even better had star defenceman Minard decided not to quit the club in November leaving a young British defence to be marshalled by Gomenyuk. Another blow followed when free-scoring Scott Wray had to return home for personal reasons. Not surprisingly the replacements proved not to be as effective and the team's form suffered.

That season was memorable for the 'crossover' competition that pitched the British National League teams against their bigger spending, import heavy neighbours in the Elite League. Widely expected to provide one sided games, the reality was a little different and most of the games provided sporting contests worthy of the name.

Although the Stingrays had to endure a couple of bad losses during this competition they also achieved memorable victories over Coventry, London and Sheffield at home, and also took the points off Cardiff on the road. Goalie Kudrna was often the hero and his performances gained him a place, with Gomenyuk on the BNL All-star team.

The crossover competition was planned to be a potential pre-cursor to a closer relationship between the two leagues but, in fact, the reality was far from that - 2004–05 season proved to be the last for the British National League.

The Newcastle Vipers and the Edinburgh Capitals decided that their futures would be more secure in the Elite League leaving the remaining five clubs having to consider their own futures. The English clubs made the decision they had to drop to the four import English Premier League whilst the two remaining Scottish clubs, Dundee and Fife were left with no alternative than to build their business in the SNL.