Other new additions included Chuck Taylor and Darren Schwarz. Most crucially, the Panthers secured the signing of Rick Brebant on a two-year contract. Undeterred by the shocking set back of Wembley, Blaisdell set about building a team capable of challenging the Steelers. Though the Steelers were themselves on the wrong end of a one sided match the following day, Cardiff lifting the playoff championship with a 12–1 victory, the semi final set the stage for a decade of almost complete dominance by the new club over their older neighbour. The two sides met again at Wembley, this time with Sheffield coming out on top by a dominating 8–0 score line. The season included a number of feisty tussles between the Panthers and their new foe, most memorably a meeting in Nottingham where the Panthers’ Simon Hunt and Sheffield’s Les Millie fought in the opening minutes of the match and Panthers rallied from 2–0 down to win 6–3. The Steelers had already made a breakthrough, however, finishing second in the league. Cardiff continued their domination and, having secured the services of Rick Brebant, retained two of the three trophies they had won during the previous season. ![]() If Cardiff had introduced ‘cheque book hockey’ to the sport, then Sheffield were taking matters to whole new extremes.īlaisdell was able to secure the signings of a number of influential players, including forward Ross Lambert and defenseman Garth Premak, and the Panthers finished in a respectable fourth place. ![]() This sense of injustice was repeated at other clubs. Among these were Odelein, Chris Kelland and Mark Wright. Having lost their coach of seven years to the Steelers, new coach Mike Blaisdell immediately had to deal with a string of Panthers players being tempted up the M1. More than any other team, the Panthers came to represent that view point. The arrival of the Steelers caused deep-seeded hostility from the rink based clubs who viewed the wealth of the new club and their ability to sign players at will as an affront to everything the game stood for. The Panthers were a club based at a community rink with a small but knowledgeable following of fans, the Steelers were an arena based club built on glitz and glamour whose large number of fans learned the dance routines before they learned the rules. ![]() When the Steelers were promoted into the Premier Division in 1993, the two clubs were complete polar opposites. The two cities had long shared in sporting rivalry by way of the competition between Sheffield’s football teams and Nottingham Forest. The Nottingham Panthers and Sheffield Steelers were natural enemies from the very beginning.
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