Veteran Jonathan Phillips is retiring from Sheffield Steelers, but won’t quit ice hockey completely says the person who knows him best – his wife, Kirsty!

That comes from the person who knows him best: his wife Kirsty.

She was rinkside last weekend when Phillips, 40, played his final Sheffield Arena match and will be willing him on this Saturday when his team of the past 17 years, Steelers, meet his first love, Cardiff Devils, in the semi final.

Kirsty and their two sons Oshan, 14, and Albie, 12, – the junior pair has just been called up by England – love the game as much as Jonathan does.

The sport is hugely time-consuming of course and Kirsty is relieved the professional club side is coming to an end.

“It is bitter-sweet really, he would play forever if he could,” she said.

“But I’ll be glad to have him back on the weekends,” adding that their boys play ice hockey at venues like Solihull and Whitley Bay and have just been called up by the England national set-up.

“It’ll be nice that he can share the driving!”

Asked how she’d feel if semi-pro Sheffield Steeldogs offered Phillips a spot next season, Kirsty joked: “I’ll shoot him!

“No, that would be totally his decision … he won’t walk away from hockey completely.

“I know he won’t so I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up somewhere else but both boys play so he can get involved however much he wants to.

“Hockey has been all of our lives.

“Twenty-three years we have been together and I don’t know anything different.”

Retiring from full-time hockey is going to be “a massive culture shock” Kirsty said.

But she added: “He will never walk away from the Steelers completely it is all he has known for the last 17 years.

“It’ll be weird for him to walk in as a spectator but you’ll still see him around the place, I’m sure. You won’t be able to get rid of him!”

Phillips will many happy memories to take into retirement, following this weekend’s play offs and Great Britain’s World Championships, both in Nottingham.

Kirsty, 45, said her husband becoming an EIHL play off champion shortly after arriving in South Yorkshire will always be a major memory.

And his last trophy, the Challenge Cup win of 2020, meant it a lot as it had evaded him for so long, she said.

Meanwhile, the kids have their own minds when it comes to their hockey experience.

Albie thinks Matt Petgrave is the best player to have played for Sheffield while Oshan plumped for Levi Nelson.

They both agree on one thing – when they have grown up they want to play abroad for a club bigger than Steelers!