Time served abroad as Phillips targets more familiar home ice
THERE were no shortage of challenges for Sheffield Steelers’ veteran Jonathan Phillips while gaining his first taste of club hockey in Europe – but he wouldn’t swap the brief experience for a moment.
The 38- year- old was forced into seeking alternative full- time employment after the decision was taken in the Autumn by topflight Elite League bosses to cancel the 2020- 21 season.
The absence of crowds because of social distancing rules for the Covid- 19 pandemic, meant a regular EIHL season was not financially viable for the 10 teams.
Noises were made back in September when the decision to postpone was taken that some kind of hockey may be possible this year but, needing to earn a living, Cardiff- born Phillips couldn’t wait that long and, having spent his entire career playing in the UK, found himself taking a career step he never expected he would have to.
In early November, along with fellow Steelers forward Anthony DeLuca, Phillips flew to Bavaria to play for the EHF Passau Blackhawks in Germany’s third tier.
The duo’s stay there lasted just over a month and saw them go winless for eight games before returning home to the UK in December. But, for Phillips, while there were numerous challenges to deal with on and off the ice, there are certainly no regrets.
“The first couple of weeks we were playing Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, so it was quite hectic,” recalled Phillips.
“They were good enough to bring us in and they were great people. I don’t regret going there because we got what we were looking for in terms of daily practise and maintaining our levels of fitness and hockey.”
Part of the attraction for working abroad is to sample the culture of another country and its people but, given similar counterCovid measures were also in place in Passau, that was not possible.
“If Covid wasn’t around then there would have been so much more to do,” said Phillips. “It was a great little city and we were right on the border of Austria and the Czech Republic, so the possibilities of exploring the area and sampling authentic German life would have been so much easier.
“But the gyms were closed, restaurants were closed, so we went to practise every day, then came home again. It was a good job we had a Netflix account!”
And while Phillips got the fulltime on- ice experience he was looking for, he admits the hardest part was being away from his family, meaning his return to South Yorkshire in time for Christmas – a decision reached mutually with the Blackhawks – was the best present he could have wished for.
“It was real tough being away from the family and the kids,” added Phillips. “My eldest had just started high school, so it was a big transitionin his life and then with everything else that was going on with Covid, it wasn’t easy.
“When you’re at home, with the kids, you’re involved in the school run, getting tea on and sorting their sport out, so being over there and not having much to do, that kind of hit home hard.”
A number of Steelers’ players are still plying their trade abroad, with GB international Rob Dowd and fellow forward Marc- Olivier Vallerand playing in the Italian second tier. Defenceman Davey Phillips spent a couple of months playing in Hungary.
But all Steelers players are now hoping there will be some EIHLlevel hockey in the pipeline, as moves continue by the five Englishbased teams to try and access up to £ 4m in government funding in order to get some kind of a competition up and running this year.
Ifnothingmaterialises, GBmay still have to compete in this year’s World Championships which remain scheduled for May and June, meaning Phillips and others like him may yet not be done with their time playing abroad.