Ahead of this weekend’s games with the Telford Tigers, Wildcats Press Editor Ben Callaghan caught up with #28 Stevie Whitfield, sponsored by The Glenister Family, to look ahead at the weekend and see how the Cats D man had adjusted to being back on the ice.
BC: Firstly Stevie, how does it feel being back on the ice for the first time since March last year?
SW: It’s really good to be back on the ice, when we were just training I think some of us had just forgotten what it was like to play in an actual game and we then realised how much we had missed it. The day after my first weekend was pretty tiring, what’s fortunate is we have a deeper line up than perhaps we usually would so some of us aren’t clocking the minutes we usually would. It’s nice to ease back into it.
What about playing in front of empty rink, how much do you notice it on the ice?
Playing in front of an empty rink is strange, the times you do notice is during warmups and the national anthem. For me once the game gets underway we get into our zone a little and you don’t really notice it. That said, the moment a goal goes in and the rink is silent is something very bizarre. I don’t think it’s as bad as what I was expecting but we definitely miss the atmosphere and hopefully it’s the first step on the ladder of getting fans back into the rinks.
Going back to that first weekend against Sheffield, how tough was it to play that Dogs team?
The first weekend against Sheffield was tough, my first shift in a year resulted in Liam Kirk flying past me and it really felt like jumping into the deep end! The standard of hockey with the EIHL players coming in have been amazing, it’s always nice to challenge yourself against players you wouldn’t usually go up against as well.
You mentioned the EIHL players, what’s it been like icing alongside them and against them in the Spring Cup?
It’s not just competing against the EIHL players, to have some in our locker-room will bring all our games along, we can ask them things during training and see how they approach games and we can then take little things into our own games. As well as this, they bring an added quality to our line up and it’s great to be working with them, especially for some of our younger players.
Looking ahead to this weekend, do you prepare any differently knowing there’s more afternoon games?
For me, preparing differently for afternoon games just comes down to when I eat. Other than that, when we get to the rink we prepare in a normal way. It’s just an earlier finish!
Telford look strong again, you must be excited to take on the Tigers and a very familiar face in Sam Jones?
We know how good Telford can be, and it’ll be fun to go up against Sam Jones. Swindon fans know how dynamic he can be and we have to be very aware of him when we are on the ice. I think Telford will be up there again, they’re so well drilled and they are so good in just playing a solid game for 60 minutes. They’re going to have some additions with guys like Ross Venus and Robert Lachowicz, it’s going to be a fun game for sure.
Does last year’s title race between Telford and Swindon have any impact on these games?
We absolutely want to win, they had the best of our series last year. I remember last year they came into the rink with a few guys out and we had to win to keep the chase for the title going and they played the perfect road game and beat us. They’re very well coached and they can find the bit of quality they need at times and it’s successful for them. There’s definitely a rivalry between the two sides now and I think it’s going to be a really intense weekend of hockey and I just can’t wait to get back on the ice Saturday afternoon.
To book your tickets for Saturday’s game against the Telford Tigers visit out ticketing page.
