VIDEO: Cloutier lauds Stingrays for grabbing play-off chance

HULL Stingrays’ player-coach Sylvain Cloutier has hailed the self-belief of his players as he prepares for the biggest weekend in the club’s history.

Hull stunned the UK hockey world on Sunday night when they defeated Sheffield Steelers 7-4 on aggregate in the Elite League play-off quarter-finals, booking a semi-final date with Nottingham Panthers at the National Ice Centre this Saturday (5pm).

While they will need to throw the form book out the window yet again to stand any chance of upsetting Nottingham and making Sunday’s final, the fact the East Yorkshire club have made it to the season’s finale is a remarkable achievement in itself.

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Although they only spent one day outside the top eight in the regular season league table, there were still doubts lingering over Hull’s chances of making the post-season going into the final week of the campaign.

With an impressive looking roster at the start of the season, some suggested Hull could break into the top six.

But a difficult campaign followed and a combination of injuries, suspensions and the failure to replace axed defenceman Josh Mizerek left Hull with only seven imports for a short spell.

Combined with the loss of top scorer Jereme Tendler for six weeks for failing a drugs test and the growing speculation over the club’s future ownership in recent weeks, it was no surprise that Hull were given little chance of defeating the Steelers, who finished as regular season runners-up.

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Click PLAY to watch Sylvain Cloutier’s post-match interview at Ice Sheffield.

But Cloutier said a collective determination on the part of the Hull players to weather all the adversity paid dividends at Ice Sheffield on Sunday night when they pulled off a stunning 5-2 triumph.

“Not too many people gave us a chance to do anything and some people thought we wouldn’t even make the play-offs,” said Cloutier.

“But we stuck together as a group and it paid off in the end.

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“I can’t give enough credit to these players. For all those people that didn’t believe in us – well, it’s just too bad. We believed in ourselves in the room and that is all that mattered.”

After holding Steelers to a 2-2 draw at home on Saturday night, Cloutier said his players sensed they could achieve something special in the return leg.

“We talked about what was possible and I told the guys it was there on a plate for them,” said Cloutier.

“I said you never know when you’re going to get this kind of chance again and they just took that chance when it came along.”

Twitter: @philarra

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