Jonathan Phillips to set new Elite League record

It will be a momentous game on Saturday for Jonathan Phillips. The Sheffield Steelers and Great Britain captain will play in his 1,000th Elite Ice hockey League game - becoming the first play to reach such a milestone.

The obvious place to start when we chatted with him about the record, is does it really feel like 1,000 games? “No it doesn’t, not at all. It’s funny to think, but it really does only seem like yesterday that I was the young kid coming in to Cardiff. You think about what the future might hold for you, and there you’ll be, but to play 1,000 games in the EIHL is quite a crazy feeling!” began the 37-year-old. “When I first played in the EIHL in Cardiff, I don’t think it had the depth that the Superleague had, nor that team have started to have in the last three to five years of the EIHL. That said, there were still some very good and skilled players who you could really learn a lot from.”

Phillips’ first taste of senior hockey came in Cardiff, in the latter days of the ISL. “Paul Heavy gave me the opportunity to play. I think I was 16 or so at the time, I’d just left school, and he wanted me to become an apprentice like Kieran Brown and Alex Graham are with us now in Sheffield,” explained the forward. “I used to practise with the team each day, and the next season he offered me a contract. Suddenly I was basically full time with the Devils at age 17 in the ISL - one of only about five of six British players in the whole league. I knew it was a huge opportunity and I was very lucky, so I had to earn my place and show it was the right decision to give me the contract."

During his Elite League career, Phillips has enjoyed several successful seasons, including four league titles. “I’ve been fortunate to have been on some unbelievable and very tight teams. Each time you win something it’s very special, and you look back and think ‘Was this the best one, or was it that one?’, but if I really sit back and think through them, the playoffs in 2008 was really very special and a huge moment for me. I used to go and watch the playoffs at Wembley with the Devils, and to then be on that stage playing for the first time is something I’ve never forgotten,” he recalled. “With the league being the big prize that it is, every league title is up there as well - especially the last couple that we’ve won have gone down to the wire and that brings so much more excitement as it’s like a playoff mentality.”

After a season in Cardiff of having the ‘A’ on his jersey, Phillips was given the ‘C’ in Sheffield partway through his first season there after having an ‘A’ there to begin with. “I was extremely shocked, and nervous when I was first made captain,” revealed the Welshman. “It was only my first season in Sheffield and Shawn Maltby was our captain. He got injured, and Dave Matsos made me the captain for the time being - and then stuck with me after that. ‘Malts’ was great with me though, and helped me through it. It could have been a very awkward situation aged 24 or so, and I wondered why he’d chosen me. I guessed it was the way I tried to work hard and lead by example, and do what’s right, and that’s what I’ve continued to try and do.”

In leading by example, Phillips has gone from a younger player on the Steelers’ roster to one of their most experienced. How does he now approach the younger players joining his team? “You try to treat them like any other person, you’ve been there as the young guy yourself and know what it’s like. If I see things that they’re doing, such as trying to make plays at the wrong time or not make them when they perhaps should, then I try to talk to them,” he said. “The younger kids coming through now though are so much more skilled than we ever were, so you try to help them in different ways. I think when we were younger you learned the game more, and did less skills practise. Now the new generation are a lot more skill-orientated, have better edge work, and a better shooting technique; but they need to learn how to read the game and react. I think this is something I’ve always been good at, so I try to pass on what I see."

Aged 37, another obvious question is how long does the 1,000-game man think he’ll keep playing. “A lot of people ask about it, and it’s true when I say that I really don’t feel like I’m 37 year’s old! One thing my game has always been about is speed, and I’m not losing any. All of my pre-season testing with our fitness coach in the gym has me getting quicker and setting new personal bests,” explained Phillips. “The only thing that would make me stop is joining the real world, and I don’t think I want to do that any time soon! I love to play hockey, and everything about it. The experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, I wouldn’t change for anything. My children have started playing now, too, and one of the reasons I wanted them to get involved is for that environment. I said to my wife, it doesn’t matter if they become good players or make teams, just being around the rink and hockey will mean they learn and grow so much."

When mentioning speed, it would be remiss to not talk about ’that goal’ for Great Britain in the World Championships last May. “It was something that ‘Westy’ (Jonas Westerling) and I used to do a lot in Sheffield, if we were on the kill I’d tell him to shoot forward and get me in a footrace,” explained Phillips. “On that play the winger lined up really close to me and I thought ‘If the puck gets forward he’s got no chance of turning’, so I whispered to Ben (Davies) to put it forward. He got the perfect weight on it, and followed up with an unbelievable finish in a fantastic tournament for him!”.

How this ranks in his career, Phillips continued: “I think we’ve all had the conversation and spoken about what was better - the game in Budapest to get promoted, or the win to stay in the top group. I honestly think it was the win to stay there, it meant a whole lot more. Teams have gone up for a year and come straight back down, and just the respect that we as a team, and our fans, got from the other teams and other fans was huge. That night we had NHL players buying us drinks - Slovakia’s captain Andrej Sekera took me to the bar and bought us two huge magnums of champagne. It was quite unbelievable how pumped so many other people were for us!"

Coming full circle, as he prepares for his 1,000th game in the Elite League, what is it that still drives Jonathan Phillips to keep playing hockey each season? He concluded: “It’s the competitiveness, I think I realised this last season in Sheffield. We didn’t have a great year and we knew we weren’t doing well, but it realised how competitive I actually was and that it’s the thing that drives me. Obviously I love playing, I enjoy it, and I love the completion that the game brings. You will never get these feelings back - nothing will replicate going to Cardiff and winning, or playing a game against Nottingham on Boxing Day and winning in front of 9,000 people. It’s a feeling that can’t be described, and the inner child in you never wants it to end."