Cloutier concentrates on Yorkshire battle with rivals Steelers

Sheffield Steelers’ head coach Finnerty and Hull Stingrays’ player-coach Cloutier were revealed on Friday as the coaching duo responsible for the team of imports who fill face Tony Hand’s Great Britain ahead of their Olympic qualification bid in Latvia.

The match is scheduled to take place at Ice Sheffield on Tuesday, February 5 – one day before the GB squad fly out to Riga where, as the lowest-ranked team, they will be up against the hosts, Kazakhstan and France. The winner will qualify for the Winter Olympics 2014 in Sochi, Russia.

But before the two coaches can get their heads together in their new, albeit temporary roles, they will have to battle it out at club level at Hull Arena on Sunday night.

“It will be interesting to be involved in this Imports game,” said Cloutier. “It’s exciting because it’s a big week for the British team and it will be their only training game before leaving so it’s good to be helping in some way.”

So far this season, the Steelers have got the better of Stingrays on three occasions, winning both Challenge Cup games before a 4-2 win in the league in Hull shortly before Christmas.

Despite sitting at the bottom of the overall Elite League standings, Hull have shown improvement of late, earning a point in a 2-1 overtime defeat at Cardiff Devils, beating Edinburgh Capitals 1-0 before going down 5-4 at title hopefuls Belfast Giants last week.

But Cloutier admits his team have to start converting promising performances against the big teams into points on a more regular basis and, with a return visit to Cardiff tonight ahead of the visit from Steelers, they have two chances to do that this weekend.

“I feel like we are heading in the right direction,” added Cloutier. “Yes, we are at the bottom of the overall standings, but I honestly don’t feel like we are a last-placed club.

“We’re confident we can move up the table but we’ve got to start making sure we deliver on our performances by picking up points against these top teams on a regular basis.

“That’s the difference between us and other teams in our conference – they’ve picked up wins against the top five and we haven’t.”

Steelers will arrive in Hull hopeful of staying in touch with the top two after tonight’s visit to second-placed Belfast Giants.

Finnerty’s team are seven points behind Belfast and nine behind leaders Nottingham, although they do have a game in hand on the East Midlands club.