The Hormadi ends the regular season in 10th place, with the last games played last night in the Magnus League. The Angloys hockey players finished with a great 3-1 victory over Rouen on Saturday. We are now focusing on the matches of the maintenance group, the playdown. A mini-championship between the last four teams of the Magnus League (Nice, Mulhouse, Anglet and Briançon). Thomas Decock, the 34-year-old Angloy striker, who is playing his eighth season at the Barre ice rink, talks about the rest of the season.
FBPB: Is this weekend the symbol of the season for Hormadi, between the correction suffered against Amiens, and the great success against Rouen, both at home?
We have a great group, the group lives well and we are disappointed not to have fulfilled our objective of seeking a top 8 and a qualification for the playoff. It’s still really a disappointment. But beyond the disappointment, we are not a team that will let go of anything and with the history, with everything that happened against Rouen, it was really a match that was close to our hearts. . Apart from the points, apart from the classification, just for the game itself, the competition, we really wanted to win this match and in this sense, it is a small fraction of winning the match.
What interest for the players to play a playdown without a descent?
Of course it’s going to be a little special in the sense that there’s no downhill so there’s less of a challenge. Still, it’s still sport. It’s still a competition. It remains four teams that have met all season and are at the bottom of the standings. We don’t play in the finals, but we still want to finish as high as possible and beat the other teams. So it’s going to be full-fledged matches. We are not planning so much on the sequel for the moment. We are still thinking about this season, we are disappointed and a little frustrated not to have gone further now. There, we have six games ahead of us, six challenges. Matches that we want to win, that we will play hard and we will try to rank as best as possible, finish as high and achieve the best possible performance.
You are six points behind Bordeaux, the first to qualify for the playoffs. Looking back, what did Hormadi miss?
It is sure that we do not go far, after, reasons, analyzes we can have, full. There are many matches that we lost by a single goal, matches also where we had the advantage and which escaped us, which we finally lost in regulation time. Within three games, we went to the other side but it’s not much for all the teams at this level. Chamonix, for example, was stalled for a long time before recovering to finally get a place for these final phases. At one point, they were really in trouble and they were able to come back. For us it was the opposite, it swung to the wrong side. But the precise analyzes will be done later. It’s still fresh and we’re still in it.
The playdown schedule
- Tuesday March 8: Mulhouse – Anglet
- Wednesday March 9: Briançon – Anglet
- Friday March 11: Nice – Anglet / Mulhouse – Briancon
- Tuesday 15 March: Briançon – Mulhouse
- Wednesday March 16: Nice – Mulhouse
- Thursday March 17: Anglet – Briancon
- Friday March 18: Nice – Briançon / Anglet – Mulhouse
- Sunday March 20: Briançon – Nice
- Monday March 21: Mulhouse – Nice
- Wednesday March 23: Anglet –Nice