Deeside Dragons

Deeside Dragons
City	Queensferry
League	NIHL
Conference	Division 1 North
Founded	2012
Operated	2012 - present
Home arena	Deeside Leisure Centre
Colors	Red, Green & Black
General manager	Shaun Bebbington
Head coach	Mike Clancy
Captain	James Parsons
Media	Jakob Forster
Website	https://dragonsihc.com/
Home colours Away colours Third colours
Championships
Conference titles	1 (2015/16)
Playoff championships	1 (2015/16)

The Deeside Dragons (known for sponsorship reasons as the Steel 4 Structures Dragons) are a Welsh ice hockey team that play in the National Ice Hockey League, north division. ^[1] They play their games at Deeside Leisure Centre, Flintshire, and replaced the previous team Flintshire Freeze. They won the North League championship in the 2015/16 season, with a record of 24-3-1 ^[2] as well as the 2015/16 Laidler Playoffs. From the 2022/23 season the club had Aspray Chester ^[3] as the clubs title sponsor. This changed for the 2025/26 season to Steel 4 Structures.

The 2022/23 season sees the return of ice hockey to North Wales for the first time in over 2 years, due to the ice rink being used as a field hospital and later a vaccination centre for North East Wales.

In July 2015 it was reported that the Dragons had been bought by Red Hockey Limited, ^[4] a British Company who own the Telford Tigers English Premier League Ice Hockey team as well as having stakes in Manchester Phoenix and Bracknell Bees.

In 2015/16, the team won the league, gaining promotion to NIHL North 1 (Moralee). During the season there were issues between the owners of the Deeside Dragons and Flintshire County Council ^[2] which resulted in the ownership of the Dragons being removed from Red Hockey. Despite prior fears with the ownership of the Deeside Dragons logo these have been quelled with a rebranded logo. On the final home game of the 2015/16 season the Dragons were involved in an incident which saw their opponents Widnes Wild walk off the ice in the second period and refuse to continue the game. ^[5] Dragons player Alex Roberts received a three-game ban as a result of this incident.

In July 2016 it was announced that Scott McKenzie had left the Widnes Wild to join the Dragons as player-coach. ^[6] He left the following year.

At the end of the 2017/18 season the Dragons were relegated to the North Division 2 league.

Season-by-season record

Season	Position	Wins	Draws	Losses	±
2012-13	2	17	1	6	88
2013-14	2	18	2	8	61
2014-15	5	15	2	17	31
2015-16	1	24	3	1	132
2017-18 (NIHL1)	10	2	0	32	-347
2018-19	7	9	2	21	-43
2019-20	6	12	0	15	2

Club roster 2022-23

(*) Denotes a Non-British Trained player (Import)

Netminders
No.	Nat.	Player	Catches	Date of birth	Place of birth	Acquired	Contract
30		Philip Pearson	L	(1987-08-05) 5 August 1987 (age 38)	Stockport, England	2022 from Bradford Bulldogs	22/23
37		Michael Rogers	L	(1997-08-17) 17 August 1997 (age 28)	Warrington, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23

Defencemen
No.	Nat.	Player	Shoots	Date of birth	Place of birth	Acquired	Contract
11		Billy Perks		2001 (age 21)	Wales	2022	22/23
13		Matthew Wainwright	L	(1993-11-19) 19 November 1993 (age 32)	Chester, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
14		Reece Cairney-Witter	L	(1995-02-14) 14 February 1995 (age 30)	Bradford, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
15		Lewis Otley	R	(1999-07-30) 30 July 1999 (age 26)	Sheffield, England	2022 from Malungs IF	22/23
19		Joshua Richardson	R	1998 (age 24)	Chorley, England	2022 from Bradford Bulldogs	22/23
21		Micheal Jones	R	(1981-09-04) 4 September 1981 (age 44)	England	2022	22/23
55		Ross Kennedy	R	(1998-01-30) 30 January 1998 (age 27)	St Asaph, Wales	2022 from Leeds Knights	22/23
91		Marc Lovell	L	(1982-06-02) 2 June 1982 (age 43)	Chester, England	2012 from Flintshire Freeze	22/23

Forwards
No.	Nat.	Player	Shoots	Date of birth	Place of birth	Acquired	Contract
4		Charlie Spridgeon		2001 (age 21)	England	2022 from Telford Tigers 2	22/23
5		James Parsons 'C'	L	(1987-09-22) 22 September 1987 (age 38)	St Asaph, Wales	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
7		Alex Parry		(1992-07-01) 1 July 1992 (age 33)	England	2022 from Altrincham Aces	22/23
9		Gary Dixon	R	(1986-06-08) 8 June 1986 (age 39)	Liverpool, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
22		Karl Bacon			Wales	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
23		Simon Furnival	R	(1984-08-11) 11 August 1984 (age 41)	Warrington, England	2022	22/23
29		Andy McKinney	R	(1991-04-13) 13 April 1991 (age 34)	Hamilton, ON, Canada	2022 from Telford Tigers	22/23
33		M.J. Clancy	L	(2000-06-17) 17 June 2000 (age 25)	Chester, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
61		Jared Dickinson	R	(1994-09-17) 17 September 1994 (age 31)	Salford, England	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
72		Chris Jones	R	(1988-05-25) 25 May 1988 (age 37)	Ely, England	2022	22/23
79		Petr Valusiak*	L	(1986-09-07) 7 September 1986 (age 39)	Ostrava, Czechia	2022 from Blackburn Hawks	22/23
88		Christopher Keating		1988 (age 34)	England	2022 from Altrincham Aces	22/23

Team Staff
No.	Nat.	Name	Acquired	Role	Place of birth	Joined From
		Michael Clancy	2022/23	Head coach	Chester, England	Blackburn Hawks, NIHL 1
		Matt Compton	2018/19	Assistant coach	Chester, England
		David Clancy	2022/23	Goaltending Coach	Rinteln, Germany	Blackburn Hawks, NIHL 1
		Bruce Morton	2014/15	General Manager	England
91		Marc Lovell	2016/17	Player-Assistant Coach	Chester, England
		Charles Humphreys	2022/23	Equipment Manager	Wales	Blackburn Hawks, NIHL 1

2021/22 Outgoing

Outgoing
No.	Nat.	Player	Shoots	Date of birth	Place of birth	Leaving For

References

1. "Deeside Dragons at eliteprospects.com". Eliteprospects.com. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
2. Powell, Dave (17 February 2016). "Deeside Dragons crowned Laidler Conference champions". Chesterchronicle. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
3. "Aspray Chester Title Sponsors of Deeside Dragons".
4. "Deeside Dragons Ice Hockey team bought by Red Hockey – Deeside.com". Archived from the original on 2016-06-30. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
5. Porter, Gary (4 April 2016). "Watch Deeside ice hockey bust up that left player with head injury and saw one team walk off". Dailypost.co.uk. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
6. Powell, Dave (14 July 2016). "Deeside Dragons appoint Scott McKenzie as new player/head coach". Chesterchronicle. Retrieved 7 January 2019.