Telford Tigers' Tom Watkins aims to be in the mix for silverware

The Tigers begin their Planet Ice NIHL National League and Cup campaigns this weekend visiting Solway Sharks tomorrow before hosting Bees IHC on Sunday.

With a busy summer and plenty of squad additions, Watkins is hoping to be back towards the top of the table this season after a 6-3 win over Peterborough Phantoms to close pre-season.

He said: “We’ve been the best team in this league for a long period of time for six or seven years.

“It’s very difficult to put one season down, we’ve had a lot of transition in terms of players leaving and departing before the season started last year.

“We want to get back to our best, we want to be competing every night.

“Last year we took a very heavy losing streak of I think 12 games, and we’re keen to avoid those pitfalls.

“With the depth we have in this roster I’ll be very surprised if we are anything but a top four team.

“We play to win, we play to be in the big games and every game means something to us as a club, as a team and as a group.

“We put a lot of focus on it, we play as hard on the road as we do at home and I think that’s been part of our success over the period of time where we have been the best team at this level.”

Watkins is feeling positive about his squad ahead of their season openers this weekend and looking forward to their Telford Ice Rink return hoping to hear the fans in full voice.

On his squad Watkins said: “I love it! Sometimes you look around and look at the league and comparisons, it’s very difficult to make comparisons and make a judgement from it but I like the balance we’ve got throughout the line up.

“It’s always great to play at home, at the back end of last season we had some great crowds, the atmosphere in the building was brilliant.

“It would be great to start with that level of support in this first game and carry that on to every home game we have.

“It will be good to see everyone bright and early this year supporting what I believe is a very strong group.”