Coach Rowbotham - jersey retirement The Bradfield Brewery Sheffield Steeldogs are delighted to announce that at our fundraising game on August 2nd, we will be honouring the services of former Sheffield ice hockey coach Jon Rowbotham. This will be done by retiring his number 24 jersey. Jon coached the Sheffield Juniors for 15 years, beginning back in 1996 by running the introduction programme and also the beginner fundamental sessions which took place on Sunday mornings at Queens Road. These training sessions started off as an introduction to ice hockey but due to the quality of the sessions, they became something of a ritual for many of the junior club. Tom Squires recalls Unless we had a game that day, every Sunday would be hockey day as we would all go on the ice with Jon for two hours and practice our on ice skills. Then, as soon as we had finished, we were straight off up to Norfolk Park to do our off ice. After we had finished that, pretty much all the boys would rush back down to catch the end of the public session, followed by a quick trip to McDonalds and then back to Queens Road (with our food smuggled in under our team jackets!) to watch the Scimitars game. Jon did this for a total of 8 years after which the junior club moved to iceSheffield where they have remained ever since. Jon dedicated his entire life to ice hockey and he bred the same passion in to his players. All the juniors grew up instilled with a winning mentality which helped them get to where they are today - not just in the hockey world but also in day-to-day life as well. Many believe that this was the main reason why the junior club were so successful in the late 90s and early 00s. Although some found some of Jons training methods a little unorthodox and maybe didnt agree with them, the players loved them. The drills Jon used to set out brought the best out of the players and prepared them for the sport both physically and mentally. Tom added “Im sure a few player will remember the 3 stage drill, the steel pucks and also the goalie and checking confidence drills”. During his 15 years coaching in Sheffield, Jon became the most successful junior coach in the country. In this time he won an outstanding 10 League championships, 6 National titles and an ENL cup. In addition to this he also coached winning teams to two U10 Nike UK tournaments and also the U12 Swindon international tournament. In 2003 Jon was named the head coach of the Junior Club and then in 2010 was named the Director of the Sheffield Scimitars Ice Hockey Academy. Jons dedication and hard work was rewarded not only by his players being selected for the regional conference teams and national teams but also by him being named the assistant coach for the England U14 team. Jon held this position for 2 years. After this he became the head coach of the England U15s team for 3 years, where he led the team to two silver medals in Windsor, Canada and Fussen, Germany. In 2007 Jons success was rewarded by being named the Great Britain U18s coach for the World Championships and he held this position for 3 years. In his first year they won a silver medal in Estonia for the Division 2 championships. A year later they went one better winning Gold and gaining promotion to Division 1. In his third and final year, the team managed to avoid relegation and maintained their Division 1 status. Unfortunately due to his deteriorating health, Jon retired from all hockey related involvement at the end of the 2010 season. A wealth of Sheffield ice hockey talent has been queuing up to share their memories of working with Jon and to pay tribute to him, so keep checking the Steeldogs website and Facebook page over the weekend as we share those thoughts with you. Everyone involved with the Steeldogs would like to thank Jon for everything he did for hockey in Sheffield. We feel that honouring Jon by retiring his number 24 jersey is the least that we could do and we hope that we get a great turnout on August 2nd to honour Jons services on the celebratory night.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:19:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015