GLASGOW CLAN may have had a dream start to this year’s EIHL, but Matt Beca has had a more tricky time of things.
The Clan are currently sitting top of the EIHL having shown some dazzling form in recent weeks, but Beca has played only eight games this season. The Canadian suffered a lower body injury early in the season and so had to sit on the sidelines watching his teammates rocket up the league table.
The forward is now recovered and he admits that while his teammates good form made it easier to watch games from the bench, he is delighted to be back out there on the ice.
“It was nice to see the team doing so well when I was out injured and that meant I didn’t need to rush too much to get back before I was ready,” he said.
“Them doing so well does make you keen to get out there and it gets a bit boring when you have to sit on the bench though so it’s great to be back.”
This season, Beca is operating in a duel role as he is operating in a player/coach capacity. Doing both jobs is not always an easy task but Beca is, he says, enjoying the challenge.
“It was a little bit tricky at first but actually, being injured helped me ease myself into the assistant coach role and I tried to help Fitzy (head cpach, Zack Fitzgerald) in any way I could,” he said.
“I just try to do anything he asks me and help out in any way I can – we’ve got a pretty good relationship.
It’s not quite good cop, bad cop because luckily we’ve not needed too much of the bad cop so far this season. We have a pretty open line of communication between the players and the coaching team so if they’d rather speak to me first, they know they are more than welcome to do that.”
This is Beca’s second spell at the Clan, having played for them in the 2106/17 season, before moving to Manchester Storm for a year. He returned north of the border last summer though, with his decision being vindicated by the team’s form this season.
And there is, he says, no reason to believe they will not maintain their position in the EIHL and be challenging for top honours come the end of the season.
“Every player goes into every game thinking they can win it or else there’s not really any point in going out there but it’s nice being part of this team because we’re really high in confidence and we’ve very resilient,” he said.
“We don’t panic about being in any situation and I think that’s a big part of why we’re doing so well. We’ve bounced back well after a couple of bad games this season and being able to not let bad games drag over has been so important for us and we’re just looking to keep that going throughout the rest of the season.”
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