Start of the 2024-2025 season for the Beaufort Knights

11th October 2024

Beaufort Knights

Fotograféiert vum Sven Cruchten

Today Friday, 11 October marks the official start of the season for your Beaufort Knights. They travel on a Friday night to Charleroi for their first game in the Belgian Division 1 and the start of a new coaching tenure. The game starts at 21:00 and can be viewed on the pay-per-view channels available at https://www.rbihf.tv/en/home.

Indeed Andrey Esipov, a former professional player and more recently player with Tornado Luxembourg during their successful run in Division 3, getting promoted to Division 2 in France, replaces Yves Barthels at the reins of the Beaufort Knights. After 4 years behind the bench - winning the Beaufort first ever Luxembourg title with the Knights - and most recently a year with double duties for the club, Yves decided to focus his attention on management for the near future, helping the club build a stronger base for the many new players and the large youth program.

Notable departures from the team include Sacha Backes and Kevin Gronlund who leave the club to join forces with Tornado in D2 while arrivals  on top of player-coach Esipov include Olivier Biver (Tornado) and Terence Clement (Puckers).
Artemij Frizel returns to the team having decided to settle in Luxembourg for the long term. Sniper and veteran David Müller will not be available for the near future for medical reasons while most of the rest of the roster remains the same.
Andrey Esipov has started to get the team into shape with an extensive summer and autumn training off and some on ice. Test matches against Liege and Puckers ended in a 4-0 win and a 4-4 tie respectively.

Apart from the Beaufort Knights 1 team, active in the Belgian Division 1 and LHL Division 1, the club has a record 7 other teams that will play in a championship this upcoming season.
The LHL Division 2 vice champion Beaufort Knights 2 and the 4th placed Beaufort Knights 3 will be back in the LHL.

The Knights U14 will play the same 22-game season the Belgian league and will have games almost every weekend until April. They will be guided by new youth head coach Karol Fako from Slovakia.

The development leagues in the form of tournaments will be played by the youngest of the club, the Knights U12, U10 and U8 teams where most of our children will have a fun way of competing and developing their skills.

New this year and for the first time in the 55 year history of the club is the participation in a league by a girls-only team. The Knights Girls will be playing in a 6 team development league in Belgium, joining forces with girls from the Huskies and Tornado Luxembourg. This is all preparatory work for our strong group of 25 girls ranging in age from 6 to 19 in light of the creation of a Luxembourg U18 and Women's team in the near to mid term future.

All game schedules can be found on the websites of the Belgian and Luxembourg federations
https://www.rbihf.be/
https://www.icehockey.lu

They will also be fully available on our own website soon.

The first home game of the Beaufort Knights in the Beaufort Ice Park will be on 2 November featuring many new and old activities and entertainment events.
Season tickets will soon be available on the website at €80 and single game tickets at €10 for adults (16+) and €5 for teenagers (12+) in the very near future.

Join us for an exciting and thrilling new season, come support us and our children at the Ice Park

#GoKnights
#weareallKnights