Sheffield Steelers quell the party as they zero in on their next Elite League target

Having already secured the Challenge Cup, the Steelers took just another 10 days before wrapping up the Elite League regular season championship - their first since 2016 - when they beat visitors Guildford Flames 7-3 last Sunday.

It was the cue for more wild scenes of celebration by the Steelers and their fans and enabled them to take a longer than normal break between games ahead of Saturday’s visit from second-placed Cardiff Devils (7pm).

Save for a season ticket event on Tuesday night where the players and staff got to continue their celebrations with fans, Fox didn’t have his team back at the Utilita Arena until Thursday morning.

Some light gym work was followed by an optional skate before the normal routine returned on Friday morning.

Fox said it has been well-earned downtime this week for his players, having got over the line in their battle to win the most coveted prize in the British game.

Last year, Belfast Giants won the treble of league, Cup and play-offs - Fox is convinced his players will be motivated to emulate that in the weeks ahead.

“They have all enjoyed the celebrations and the success of the past two weeks and experienced how good that has felt,” said Fox, whose team head across the Pennines to take on Manchester Storm on Sunday.

“So I know when it comes time to dig in again, this group has done that all year long and so I feel really good about them wanting it again.”

The Steelers have five regular season games remaining - closing with a double-header weekend in Belfast - before the post-season kicks into life on the weekend of April 13-14. From there, four quarter-final winners will advance to the Play-off Finals Weekend in Nottingham the following week.

The objective of the next five games will be to ensure that the Steelers are back playing their best hockey by the time the play-offs come around - the kind that has seen them win the league title with some considerable ease.

“We have a plan that we’ll put in place here for the next five games, so that by the time that last Belfast game is over, we will feel like we’re playing close to the type of hockey we need to be playing to hopefully go on and win the play-offs,” added Fox.

“We’ll almost treat these next 10 days or so as a bit of a mini training camp-type situation, whereby we find our way a little bit and hopefully be playing our best come that first round.

“There are some guys dinged up that we’ll have out, so it won’t be our normal line-up, we’ll be rolling both games this weekend and probably the Wednesday game as well and then we’ll go from there.”