Jonathan Phillips can finish the maximum embellished profession in British ice hockey in storybook type through main his side back on house soil to the top degree of the World Championships.
Phillips will captain the Great Britain side over seven days at Nottingham, beginning on Saturday, as they try to in an instant hit back from relegation final 12 months and re-join the elite of the international sport prior to, at 40, retire to absorb an excessively other problem.
‘If you could write a script that’s how you can inform the tale,’ stated the GB captain for the final 11 years and his nation’s file look holder with greater than 100 caps. ‘To go out with a gold medal and with GB back at the top is the dream for me.
‘As a child you want to play professionally and when that happened I never thought about how long I might play, just to enjoy every year. So to do it for this long and have some great success along the way has been so much fun.’
That luck for Phillips contains 4 home league titles, 3 play-off triumphs and one Challenge Cup victory with Sheffield Steelers in conjunction with being the captain who took GB back to the elite degree in 2019 after a 25-year absence.
Jonathan Phillips (L, pictured in 2019) has captained staff GB for 11 years and is now set to retire his storied profession
The 40-year-old has observed Britain’s fortunes in the ice hockey international grow to be over the process his involvement in the nationwide staff set-up
They had been very a lot the underdogs then in Kosice, Slovakia, in opposition to a few of the absolute best gamers in the international once they took on the likes of Canada, the United States and Finland.
But they stayed up in exciting taste, coming back from 3-0 down of their ultimate sport in opposition to France to win 4-3 in extra time, Phillips helping on the successful objective for his fellow Welshman Ben Davies, and remained at the elite degree for 4 years.
Only final 12 months in Tampere, Finland, did GB slip up, dropping a relegation decider in opposition to Austria they will have to have gained, and cross into their Division One Group A event at the Motorpoint Arena as robust favourites to cross directly back up.
GB will play Korea, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Italy understanding they want most effective end in the top two to acquire promotion however with a unprecedented weight of expectation on them.
‘We’ve come an enormous approach,’ the Cardiff-born Phillips informed Mail Sport. ‘We had some bad times when I first started but things began improving.
‘There were a couple of years when we couldn’t get out of the One B team [third tier] and after we in the end cleared that hurdle all of it started to click on. Pete Russell coming in [as coach] gave us an identification and it simply grew and grew from there.’
Phillips by no means believed it could be like this, let by myself play at the top degree in 3 tournaments (the 2020 World Championships was once cancelled on account of Covid). Britain have at all times been a small ice hockey country, albeit with a good home league, and there he was once buying and selling blows with the multi-millionaires of the National Hockey League.
‘Back at the start all this was a very distant dream,’ stated the ahead who has performed professionally for two decades. ‘You always thought ‘what if’ and ‘maybe one day’ however I’ll be fair and say for a very long time I didn’t assume it was once reasonable for GB to get to the top.
‘But as it went on the whole programme improved. There was one year in Ukraine we almost went up and back then we thought that would be the closest we’d ever come so for it to in fact occur was once wonderful.
‘The big thing for us once we got up was that we deserved to be there. We wanted to earn the respect of the huge nations. That first year when we played Canada and the USA we were a little star-struck and didn’t take it in like we will have to have achieved at first.
‘But once we settled into that tournament we started playing to win rather than sitting back admiring other teams. We said ‘let’s display the international what GB hockey is all about.’
They did that spectacularly to ship down France, the all Welsh objective in 2019 taking place as the greatest second in British ice hockey since they gained the first ever Olympic event in 1936.
‘It was definitely as good as it gets,’ stated Phillips. ‘You could see the inexperience in the top group in us for the first 30 minutes and our heads were down but then you saw what got us to that group. We totally dominated France and to then play a part in the winning goal is something I’ll at all times bear in mind.
Phillips and his team-mate Ben Davies (centre) have fun after their well-known win over FranceÂ
‘This is why it’s so vital for us to get back up. We want to stay hammering house that we will be a top hockey country and that’s particularly vital for the more youthful gamers and the youngsters coming via. It simply opens up extra home windows of alternative.
‘There haven’t been many tournaments the place we’re one among the top seeds and I feel we’re in point of fact were given to be aware of ourselves. We know we’re one among the absolute best groups there but when we’re now not enthusiastic about what has made us a hit we’ll fall brief. It’s thrilling to be at house and an excellent probability for all the GB supporters to pop out and notice us.’
And for Phillips to start his new process as supervisor of an inclusion centre at Neverthorpe School in Chesterfield with the best possible finale in the back of him.
You can in finding tickets to this 12 months’s World Championships tickets at www.icehockeyuk.co.uk