Leeds Knights: Ryan Aldridge on the challenge of winning, rebuilding and striving to be better
HAVING enjoyed huge success in his first ever season as a coach, Ryan Aldridge could have been forgiven for thinking the transition to life behind the bench was going to be an easy one.
Back then, he was still juggling both roles as player-coach of Bracknell Bees, first leading them to the English Premier Ice Hockey League (EPL) title in March 2007 before adding the play-off crown a few weeks later.
It would be another 16 years before he lifted silverware again in senior hockey. But since winning that first trophy with Leeds Knights - the NIHL National league title - he hasn’t stopped.
When he was parachuted in to replace the axed Dave Whistle at Leeds in January 2023, it was only meant to be a temporary assignment.
At the time, Aldridge had taken a step back from hockey and was fully immersed in the ‘real world’ outside of the sport. He was still doing some coaching of juniors in Swindon, but he had a regular job with a regular wage with which he was supporting his family.
When Steve Nell first asked Ryan to “pop up” to Leeds to help him out after Whistle’s exit, it was initially expected to be for a month or so.
That translated to the rest of the season and, before he knew it, he was hooked back in again, signing a deal to take charge the following season.
In his two and a half seasons in charge, he has guided the Knights to three league titles, one play-off crown and, finally last season, a NIHL National Cup.
As Aldridge is rightly quick to point out, nothing has come easy but, on the eve of the 2025-26 campaign - the Knights start their league title defence at home to Telford Tigers on Saturday - he probably faces his biggest challenge since taking over at Elland Road.
The summer saw Aldridge bring in eight new faces, with nine heading out, three of them perhaps more significant in the shape of imports Matt Barron and Noah McMullin along with veteran British centre Matt Haywood, all heading off into retirement, each having played a huge role in the success of the previous two years.
As has been the case each summer, but perhaps more so given the turnover of players, there are again plenty of doubters regarding the Knights’ ability to maintain the level of success they have enjoyed since 2023.
Aldridge, with three new imports and a desire to bring junior players into the fold more and more, acknowledges the willingness of others to see his team ‘fail’ is probably greater than ever, it comes with the territory.
But he is determined to silence those questioning his roster’s ability to keep the Knights’ trophy bandwagon rolling.
“You just become a bigger target for everybody else, essentially,” said Aldridge when reflecting on his team’s run of success over the past three years.
“I don’t do social media as such, but I’ve seen or heard about some things, people talking about this, that and the other. I mean basically, everybody wants us to fail - and so they should.
“It’s probably good for the league that we don’t win, but that isn’t in our mentality, it’s not in our make up, it’s not what we’re about.
“I said at the start, a rebuild doesn’t mean that I’m just going to be happy with fifth or sixth place, I’m rebuilding to stay as strong as we were before.
“I’m rebuilding with more competitors, I believe. Do we want four league titles? Yeah of course we do - that’s just part of our make-up.
“I love this kind of situation, I loved it when I played and I love it even more as a coach.
“But I want it for them, the players, too.
“It’s hard - it’s a hard, constant graft to be successful and there are some ugly moments and spells along the way to getting there.
“We’ve talked about that as a group already and I think I’ve made it pretty clear to the boys already that we’re here to do a job and that job is to win trophies.
“And it does get harder and harder because the league is getting stronger with each year.
“But everybody knows that they have to come into Leeds and win and if they win in Leeds, then they know they’ve got a chance of winning the league.
“That’s just the way it is, they’ve got to take points off us if they want to win the league. So every game we play is a championship game.”
Aldridge freely admits he can be a difficult coach to play for but, naturally, believes he has evolved as a coach since taking those first steps down in Bracknell 19 years ago - even moreso, perhaps, over the last three years.
He takes inspiration and knowledge from coaches both inside and outside of hockey, whether that be through direct contact, or something more simple as listening to an audiobook on the long drives he still has to sometimes make to and from Swindon.
“I think I’ve changed, I’m always trying to be better in different areas, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, listening to a lot of audiobooks in the car this summer, some are hockey-related, some on management, winning formulas, winning teams, how to keep going in the face of adversity, how to keep rebuilding and keep winning teams going.
“I know I can be a bit direct and blunt and probably some people think rude at times, but sometimes you’ve just got to get your message across and sometimes that may hurt or upset people.
“I went to a coaching seminar in North America this summer with Aaron Nell from Swindon, which was great.
“I don’t think any coach is ever perfect or the finished article, I know I’m certainly not and I want to be better, not only for myself but better for the organisation and for the boys in the room - a big part of my job is to keep getting better.”
And on his team’s chances of maintaining their success this season, he says: “Am I going to come out and say we’re going to win the league? Absolutely not. But are we going to try to? Of course we are, we’re going to try and win as much as we can.
“Everyone focuses on winning the league, we just focus on winning on Saturday night. And then when that’s out of the way, we focus on winning on Sunday night.
“Hopefully, at the end of the season, that will all accumulate to something special again.”