How Eric Meland is still helping Sheffield Steelers - even though he is 4,000 miles away

Coach Aaron Fox recently turned to the player who had left the club in mid-January to pursue a career in dentistry in his native America.

The utility skater's last match had been a 7-3 win over Manchester Storm and the club went on to embark on a feel-good winning streak of six games.

But when results started to go against them, Fox came up with a plan.

While he didn't go down the route of bringing the player back, something which might have been available to him, he still made contact.

"As much as I like Eric he has been off the ice and we have guys who have been competing and battling every day," said Fox.

"I actually did make a phone call to Eric. I asked him to send me a video of the starting line up and I sent him who the starters were.

"He sent the boys a little video of the starting line up before the game on Saturday."

As they won, the same process was repeated for the last match, a win over Belfast Giants.

"I think the boys are enjoying the videos that Melly is sending at the moment for us, they have been pretty good."

He said the new ritual would be continued until the team loses: "He is not getting off the hook on this one!"

Meland was pretty battered and bruised at the end of his 45-game stint with Sheffield, in which he scored nine goals and 15 assists and played in just about every position other than goaltending.

The former skater has hung up his skates to train to become a dentist.

But his contribution to the club will be remembered for some time - not least of all for playing through injuries and propping up the blue line while players like Arron Johnson, Jonas Liwing and Aaron Brocklehurst were out injured.