Jono Phillips joins legendary band of brothers
Former Sheffield Steelers, Steeldogs and Cardiff Devils' ice hockey forward Jonathan Phillips has joined a unique sporting group which includes Ryan Giggs, Sir Gareth Edwards, and the late Gary Speed.
The one-time EIHL club skipper was inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Cardiff.
The former Steelers' captain stands alongside greats such as JPR Williams, John Toshack, and Ray Reardon.
Phillips is a much decorated athlete who won League titles, play-off championships and World Championship gold medals during a playing career which started as a 16-year-old schoolboy.
He made a record 1,042 appearances for Steelers and is the fifth highest points scorer in the club's history (488.)
‘Jono’ called a halt to his full-time professional playing career to embark on a new job as inclusion manager for the Cavendish Learning Trust.
He manages the Trust's integrated resource centre, a role he prepared for by working voluntarily one day a week at Netherthorpe.
Phillips, aged 42, is GB’s most capped international, having overtaken Ashley Tait's haul of 110 caps.
He started his hockey life with home city club Cardiff more than 25 years ago before moving to Steelers in 2006.
Playing hockey transformed his life: “I was never a confident child" he said.
“I was a kid with a stutter who wouldn't put his hand up in class even if I knew the answer.
"Being around that team environment where everybody's working together, hockey teaches you to be resilient and to have confidence.
"Hockey gave me so many life lessons."
Phillips grew up the Ely area of Cardiff and remembers how he began to fall in love with hockey, saying: “When I was around eight or nine-years-old my uncle Kevin took me to a Cardiff Devils game against Murrayfield Racers as a birthday present and I absolutely loved it.
"Then, a couple of years later, my mum (Alison) signed me up with the junior Devils and I became obsessed.
"I spent hours in the street stick-handling with golf balls, roller-hockey balls and little plastic pucks. I'd set up a few cans on the curb and keep trying to shoot the cans off in between the cars - that kind of thing.
"A couple of headlights were broken, which we had to pay for, but every spare second I was out in the street just doing something to try and get better.
"When I was about 14, Devils created a second team, Cardiff Rage and then Paul Heavey, Devils’ head coach, invited me to make up the numbers in training.”
He was signed by the Devils on a full-time contract aged 17.
Phillips is particularly thankful to his mother, Alison, saying: "Mum sacrificed everything for me to play hockey.
"She'd finish work on a Friday, drive me to Peterborough for an 11pm training session with a junior England team and then straight back.
"Next day she would take me to a midday game in Cardiff, all those things that you take for granted when you're younger.
“Her hard work and dedication gave me the chance to achieve my dream.”
Phillips and his wife, Kirsty, who is from the Aber Valley mining village of Senghennydd near Caerphilly, are proud to be Welsh, but he says: “We are completely settled in Sheffield and we're here for life."
Phillips’ first taste of senior hockey came in Cardiff, during the latter days of the Superleague.
The play-off finals in 2008 were special for Phillips, and he said: “I used to go and watch the play-offs at Wembley with Devils and to then be on that stage playing for the first time is something I’ve never forgotten.
“I loved playing hockey and everything about it. The experiences I had, the people I’ve met, I wouldn’t change for anything.”
Phillips says he always loved playing for GB: “It was the tightest group of guys I was ever a part.”
Now Phillips still skates for Steeldogs when possible, while his sons, Oshan and Albie, love to get on the ice.
Phillips was not told why he was invited to the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame lunch and was surprised when he was inducted into a unique group of sporting stars. He was proud to become the first hockey player to join footballers, rugby players, Olympic athletes and more.
*Steelers' season of 2024-25 ended empty-handed, 12 months after landing the treble.
Belfast Giants won both the league title and the Challenge Cup, while Nottingham Panthers collected their first playoff title since 2016.