This Month In History - January

JANUARY 1995 (20 years ago)

Two days into the new year Sheffield slumped to an 8-3 defeat in Hull. After the game Alex Dampier boarded the supporters’ buses and made a personal apology for the performance.
Within a few days Dampier had put his words into action as Jamie Van Der Horst, a no-nonsense defender joins the Steelers from Solihull Barons.

Steelers went top of the league with a 4-2 victory over Durham at the Arena. This was to be their second victory of six that month.

JANUARY 2000 (15 years ago)

Angry Steeler owner Darren Brown has carpeted his managing director, over a £5,000 payment to finance company, which was due to pursue a winding up order against Steelers in court. Brown was furious when he discovered his accounts department had not settled the relatively modest bill which was in danger of bringing the club to its knees. 

There was a bid to oust sport tycoon Darren Brown he's been secretly asked to hand over running of Sheffield Steelers ice hockey club. He has been dogged by a series of cash-flow difficulties, including a threatened visit of bailiffs to Chesterfield FC over a £49,000 tax bill. A long running saga over the payment of £150,000 soccer transfer cash, failure to pay an ice hockey player on time and a £5,000 lottery prize owed to fans.

The row over the finances of sports tycoon Darren Brown rumbled on with ice hockey players setting a deadline for possible strike action and football fans demanding real answers. Steelers coach Mike Blaisdell has revealed how he fully supported his players decision to threaten strike action against unpaid wage.

The league continued to be a success for the Steelers, who had been top all year and were now closing in on the title. They won all games bar one, that to their rivals Cardiff at The Wales National Ice Rink.

JANUARY 2005 (10 years ago)

Dave Whistle and Dennis Maxwell will lose their jobs if they fail to turn round the Steelers season owner Bob Phillips declared. The management pair will be dismissed at the end of the 2005-06 season unless they can change the woeful sequence of Elite League results and make a decent push for the Play-offs.

Jason Hewitt, formerly of the now defunct London, made his debut on the 7^th January in a 3-2 win in Nottingham.

The threat of the axe falling on the coaching staff did little to turn around their fortunes in the league but they embarked on a new competition, The British Ice Hockey Cup. This was to be a knockout competition and because Nottingham could not enter Hull Stingrays of the EPL stepped up.

JANUARY 2010 (5 years ago)

Steelers today unveiled another new owner and this one is made in Sheffield. Tony Smith boss of Rhino Sports manufacturers has acquired a 15 per cent stake in Rink Corp, the company that holds the rights of Steelers and Cardiff Devils.

Steelers’ new owner Paul Ragan has no intention of adopting the one time club dream of a new rink in Rother Valley Country Park. But Regan had little intention on moving Steelers to any new rink there. He told the Star "I knew nothing about it until the week before last. As far as I was aware, the Yes! Project is more likely the 'One day in a million years time project.'

This successful month, on the ice, was marred only by the debacle against Cardiff at the Motorpoint. I (Robert that is - Editor) witnessed, and walked out of, a totally inept display by Sheffield against a Cardiff side on a record breaking run. Sheffield capitulated to a 7-1 defeat which left people wondering “can a person really own two clubs without bias”.  NB: Paul Ragan also owned Cardiff Devils.

Fortunately it was only a blip and the Steelers made it six wins out of six for the remainder of the month, keeping the momentum up as they chased Cardiff for the title. Indeed, in the next game they routed Edinburgh with Neil Clark getting five in an 18-1 win.

Thanks for reading guys. If you want to get involved please contact us on twitter or find us on Facebook and like us and leave a comment:-

@FrozenSteelBlog

@FrozenSteelMNL

@hockeybhoy

@Disgu15ed

Check out the Frozen Steel Podcast

Or Email the team at frozen.steel.91@gmail.com