The Sheffield Steelers easily beat the Excel Hull Stingrays in the first Quarter Final of the inaugural 20/20 Hocktoberfest before going on to beat the Cardiff Devils and Coventry Blaze, to take home the first trophy of the season in front of their own fans at the Sheffield Arena.
The Steelers easily knocked out the helpless Stingrays in a 5-1 trouncing in the tournament's first quarter final, in a poor showing from Sylvain Cloutier's men.
In fact, they would have been incredibly fortuitous to come out of just the first period down by those four goals, let alone the single goal that they actually trailed by, as the Steelers well and truely grabbed the early initiative of the new rules, and refused to let go.
Stephen Burns leveled for the Rays, much to the delight of a healthy following from East Yorkshire on 12 minutes, after Brad Cruikshank, who was impressive right throughout the tournament, had given the Steelers a third minute lead.
Dave Matsos' men pushed home their advantage on the ice at end of the first and beginning of the second with four goals breaching Tommy Sandahl, who didn't have the best of games in the Rays net, before the Stingrays finally started to find some semblance of form in the shorter format, albeit with the game already, well and truly, gone.
However, despite late pressure on the Sheffield net, mostly thanks to the Steelers taking their foot off the gas, the Stingrays couldn't beat backup Dan Green, and Sheffield progressed with a convincing 5-1 win.
The Steelers carried on their good form into the semi final by shutting out the Devils three-zip in the semi final. That victory sent them into the grand final against a Coventry side that had convincingly defeated a much fancied Nottingham Panthers, six-nil, in the quarters, before edging the Newcastle Vipers via a shootout in the semi.
The Blaze and Steelers served up one of the more entertaining ties of the day as the Blaze twice took the lead through Dan Carlson and Adam Calder, only to be pegged back on both occasions, thanks to goals from Kevin Bolibruck and Jeff Legue.
The Steelers finally gained some momentum, in an, at times, physical, seventh game of the day at the Sheffield Arena, before Jason Hewitt scored the tournament-winning goal with less than seven minutes left on the clock to take a close 3-2 win and hand the Steelers the first silverware of the season.
