Hull Seahawks coach Matty Davies on why Leeds Knights games mean so much

Yes there is the Yorkshire derby element that oversees every encounter between the two teams in the space of four short years, it has become about much more than that - both on and the ice.

There is, at times, genuine animosity both on and off the ice, each team offering up its fair share of pantomime villains, while the coaches have also had their fierce disagreements - in a sport as ferociously fast and physical as hockey, it can only be expected.

A number of faces have crossed over the West-East Yorkshire divide, with six players on the Seahawks roster having played for the Knights at some point in their careers.

Leeds have Owen Sobchak, who made the switch mid-season last time out, while Matt Bissonnette is well-known to the Hull faithful having spent a season there when the Pirates’ franchise was operating during the inaugural NIHL National season of 2019-20.

When drawing up the opening weekend of fixtures, those responsible must have taken some perverse delight in pitching together the two teams who closed out the previous campaign.

Of course, on that occasion it was Leeds who prevailed - coming from behind at Coventry’s SkyDome Arena to crush Hull’s dream of a first-ever piece of silverware by winning the play-off final 5-3.

That leaves Hull with plenty of incentive going into Friday night’s opener at Elland Road, not that their head coach Matty Davies believes his players need an excuse to get up for these particular derby encounters.

“It's never actually just a game with them,” said Davies, Hull-born but a former Knights player himself in 2021-22. “There's just always something more on the line.

“That's why I believe that the games between us are always so very competitive - there's always an edge to the games.

“Personally, I love it. I think it's good for the clubs, good for the fans, good for the league.

“So I don’t think Friday will be about the play-off final - it’s just become this thing, really.

“There's obviously a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of players that have played on both teams, a lot of players that know each other.

“There's a lot of, I wouldn’t say bad blood, but it's just ultra competitiveness. There's so many different things that go into it.

“I don't think we've ever had a game with them where it hasn't had that edge to it - even the pre-season game the other week, that had an edge to it.”

For the record, in 31 competitive meetings between the two teams, the Knights have the edge, winning 20 to Hull’s 11.

That can partly be explained by a lopsided head-to-head series between the teams back in 2022-23, when the Seahawks were embarking on their debut campaign - Davies having left after his one season at Leeds for the challenge of helping launch the latest hockey franchise in his hometown.

Leeds won all six games that season as Hull finished bottom, a big frustration for all involved at Hull but understandable given how late they had started to build a team from scratch the previous April.

A measure of how much the gap has closed can be seen in the past two seasons, when both head-to-head series’ saw the teams finish with three wins apiece. Last season also saw Hull finish above Leeds in the regular season standings for the first time.

Their most recent meeting came in pre-season, a game which, as Davies testifies, was a typically fiesty affair with Leeds running out 4-3 winners.

That was the only win of their pre-season schedule, with Ryan Aldridge’s team coming off second-best against Tilburg Trappers from the Netherlands and twice against Sheffield Steeldogs.

But the Knights head coach has still taken plenty of positives from his team’s build-up to Friday night’s opener.

“I’m pleased with how things went, I think,” added Aldridge. “We've still got a lot of growing pains to clear up but yeah, it was four good games, four good workouts. We were in some pressure situations at times which was good for us.

“Hull are a very good hockey team and I felt like the game at theirs the other week was a great game - either team could have won.

“Again, it's a tough test, no doubt about it, especially for the first night. But I'm sure it will be a great opening game.”