From the Jubilee Programme

1998 saw the return of the Kings. The Bladerunner became Planet Ice and Mike Darnell took over the franchise to run the team.

Mark Mackie, former Sheffield Steeler and Coach of Invicta, came in as Player/Coach. Mike and Mark assembled a strong team, headed up by returning players Paddy Scott, Andy Allan and Dean Campbell. Brad Kirkwood (netminder), Marc Twaite, Norman Pinnington, Dan Prachar, Joel Pickering, Andy Port, Craig Britton, Bobby Brown, Ross Macintosh, Andy Watt, Slava Koulikov and Stuart Spells completed the line up with defenceman Michael Knights joining in November.

Although the fans would have preferred a team in the British National League, Kings entered the English Premier League. Several players, however, including netminder Brad Kirkwood who had dropped down from Premier club Guildford Flames said that there was not much difference in the quality of the leagues.

1600 Kings fans turned out for their first match back, with the face-off having to be delayed as supporters queued outside. Although everyone was happy to be back, it was also a sad occasion as tribute was paid to former Kings' player Lee Saunders who had been tragically killed that summer. Everyone who had known this popular and easy going player was devastated by his death and the Player of the Season award was renamed the Lee Saunders Memorial Trophy in his memory.

The season started with back to back challenge matches against the team that was to become Kings' "bete noir" that season - Solihull Blaze, with Kings losing out on the aggregate score. The word went out in the League beware of Stormin' Norman and Hot Shot Scott as these two immediately formed a prolific scoring partnership.

The team had set themselves for a top four finish, something that their early results in the English Cup competition showed was possible, as they lost only once - away to BNL team Basingstoke Bison. In the Final of the English Cup they faced the Blaze once more. The away leg was played first and with Brad injured, Stuart gave a brilliant performance and Kings won 7-6, with Paddy netting 3+2 and Norm scoring 2+0. After winning the home tie 6-3 (Paddy scored 3+1, "Super" Dan netted a hat trick against his former team), Kings showed off the Trophy to an almost capacity crowd.

There was disappointment amongst the fans when top scorer Slava Koulikov decided to leave to join Kingston Hawks. Kings then brought in Jesse "The Hammer" Hammill from Paisley.

In December Kings were in the false position of fifth in the league, having played six games less than top of the table team Blackburn Hawks.

They reached the top of the League in mid February. But their form was up and down. They were clear at one stage with 2 games in hand. However defeats by Swindon and Solihull saw them falter. When they lost to Invicta and Blaze beat Swindon on the same day they dropped to second, where they finished the season with a record of W23 L7 D2.

Spurred on no doubt by the hair colouring of Jesse, Marc and Michael Knights, - red, white and blue respectively - Kings reached the Playoff finals and who should they find waiting for them - Solihull Blaze. The final was played over two legs and was lost in the first home leg when Solihull won 3-0. Back at Solihull Kings won 3-2 but it wasn't enough.

Dan was top points scorer for the season with 32+41, followed by Paddy with 34+32 and Marc with 35+23. Brad topped the League netminding stats with a Sv% of 89.7.

Kings honoured their highest ever points scorer with a testimonial match in February of this season. Many of Paddy's former team-mates turned out to celebrate his career in front of 1800 fans.

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