Stewart sign new deal with play-off bound Panthers
Nottingham Panthers head coach Danny Stewart has signed a new "multi-year" deal after guiding the club to the Elite Ice Hockey League play-offs with a third-place finish.In the 46-year-old Canadian's first season at Motorpoint Arena he has Panthers challenging for their first piece of major silverware since 2017.Nottingham, who reached the the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup earlier in the season, face Guildford Flames in the quarter-finals over two legs this weekend."We talked a lot about putting this team back on the map and fighting for those trophies and so far we have certainly done that," Stewart told the Panthers website., external"I am excited to see how we can push this forward."
If Panthers get past Guildford they will advance to the play-off weekend at their home arena, where both semi-finals and the decider take place next week.Nottingham are six-time play-off title winners, but have not claimed the showpiece honour since 2016.Panthers chief executive Omar Pacha said Stewart has had "a great first season" as Nottingham boss after his arrival from EIHL rivals Coventry Blaze - where he spent more than a decade as both a player and coach over two spells."I said when we appointed Danny it was part of a long-term vision and I truly believe we can build something special here with Danny," Pacha said.
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Scottish Sun
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Daily Record
10 hours ago
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The Ibrox CEO said: 'I fully appreciate it's very different and the expectation is success now whilst developing. 'So we've got to build the plane while we're flying the plane. 'Everyone recognises that. Russell recognises it, Kevin recognises it. 'It is hard, it is really hard but we're all used to working in hard conditions. 'The people at the club now are used to big challenges but we see that as a positive, we enjoy the challenge. 'You come to a club of the stature of Rangers and if you don't come with your eyes open you probably wouldn't get through the door in the first place. We love the challenge, we want to take on the challenge and we're confident we'll succeed.' Rangers' recent trajectory has been a spiralling decent. One league title in 14 years tells a story of failures stacked on failures. Dragging the club out of that nosedive won't be easy but Stewart is prepared to make the alterations that he believes can soon have things looking up for the Ibrox legions. 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'That requires a lot of analysis, video, data, taking a lot of references. 'There's been a lot of work going on so, we've not wasted the time but equally we've not been providing a running commentary. 'It's not the way a professional club wants to run, playing everything out in public. 'We've used the time well and it was really critical for the club that we got in place a sporting director and that the sporting director was integral in the head coach process and decision. 'I still think we're in a good spot because transfer window is June 16, I think. 'We've got the new head coach in place well in advance of the opening of the transfer window but also critically well in advance of the players coming back. So actually I'd say we're exactly where we want to be and we've used the time well.' Rangers are now under US control, with the Pennsylvania-based Andrew Cavenagh now sitting in the chairman's seat and Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe - who will split his time between Glasgow, Elland Road and San Francisco - next to him as his deputy. But with Stewart, alongside Thelwell and former chairman Fraser Thornton, based in the city permanently, he is confident the of avoiding snags in the chains of command. 'I think in any organisation where you want alignment from ownership throughout the organisation, you're in constant dialogue,' he explained. 'So it's not quite as binary as am I deciding something or are they deciding something or is Kev deciding something. 'Of course we've got different decisions that are better taken by different people but we're in constant dialogue. 'So I speak with Andrew frequently and I can pick up the phone to him and bounce stuff off him. 'Likewise and similarly with Kevin and myself, I think we've seen more of each other than certainly our families have seen of us. So communication is key and just making sure we've got alignment so that we're all pulling in the same direction.'
