Manchester Storm defenceman Zach Sullivan says he’s eternally grateful for the ongoing support of the fans as the club prepare to celebrate the Storm faithful.

It’s Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday as your Manchester Storm take on the Glasgow Clan – Sullivan’s old team – in a game that’s set for a fourth straight sell out at the Storm Shelter!

And the British D-man appreciates the backing from the stands as he admits this weekend’s meetings – with a trip to Braehead Arena first up on Friday – giving him a little more motivation than normal.

He said:

“⁠In my opinion, the fans are the most important cog in any sports team. They bring the passion and the noise, even when things aren’t quite going our way on the ice.

We can hear the fans still willing and cheering us on to win the game and we wouldn’t be able to play if fans didn’t spend their hand earned money to come, watch and support us every week.  For that, we are all eternally grateful for that support.

Looking ahead, having played five years in Glasgow, I think there is a little bit of extra incentive.

But equally, regardless of who we play, the most important thing is to get the two points available on any given night.

We’re approaching the run in of the season now, and we want to make sure we are competing at the level that we know we can, and which we have shown over the course of the season thus far.

We obviously want to finish as high as possible this season, and make sure we are hitting our best form moving into playoffs.”

Storm head into the weekend after picking up two losses at the weekend, although they did take a point from the 4-3 overtime loss at Guildford Flames.

It’s now four games without victory for Manchester as they have Glasgow in their sights and Sullivan says believing in the strategy set out by the coaching team is the key to getting back to winning ways.

He added:

“I think it is a case of believing in the game plan that Critch, Dallas and Mikey play out for us.

A lot of hours are spent pre-scouting each teams’ tendencies and habits to give us the best chance to win the game.

We’ve shown glimpses of how well we can play, so we just need to make sure that we commit 100% to the game plan for the full 60 plus) minutes.

The silver lining is that we picked up a couple of overtime points, but we as a group hold ourselves to a higher standard and want to get back to winning ways as soon as possible, and that starts with hard work, determination, and commitment to the game plan every game.”

 

By: Craig Anderson