CHUCK Weber admits his side are ‘heartbroken’ after crashing out of the Continental Cup at the final hurdle.
An action-packed weekend saw Blaze travel to Poland to take on Dunarea Galati, Partizan Belgrade and GKS Tychy in three Group C matches.
Blaze made an impressive start to their Continental Cup second-round campaign by beating Dunarea Galati 7-2 last Friday, with Cale Tanaka impressing by scoring a hat-trick.
Weber’s side followed that up with another thumping win, this time beating Partizan Belgrade 12-1 on Saturday to move just one win away from progressing to the third round of the competition.
But Blaze’s hopes of advancing were dashed on Sunday evening when they narrowly lost 3-2 to hosts Tychy in Poland.
“We are all heartbroken right now – that hurts,” said Weber.
“The guys battled tooth and nail all weekend and I could not be more proud of their effort. Unfortunately, we came out on the wrong end.
“But we need to build on our battle level. This will hurt for a while but we now need to refocus and prepare for Edinburgh on Thursday.”
Weber’s side had lead 2-0 heading into the third period on Sunday evening thanks to goals from Jordan Pietrus and Michael Quesnele.
But But Mateusz Bryk and Jakub Witecki hauled the hosts level before Radoslaw Galant netted the game-winning goal five minutes from time.
Weber added: “It was a hostile environment, we were emotionally involved and it was a physical game.
“We had four ten-minute misconducts and lost three defencemen for 30 minutes of hockey. There were some things which were out of our control.”