Sheffield Steelers forward Robert Dowd has mixed emotions following his team's narrow defeat to Finnish powerhouse JYP Jyvaskyla on Sunday.

by Jon Rowson

SHEFFIELD – Robert Dowd, forward for the Sheffield Steelers and Team Great Britain, opened his CHL account at the Sheffield Arena on Sunday evening, scoring his team’s first goal in their Group N clash with Finnish side JYP Jyvaskyla. Despite outshooting their heavily-favoured opponents, the Steelers were unable to hold on to victory, falling behind to Joose Antonen’s third period power-play goal, before Janne Tavi added an empty-net marker as JYP secured a 4–2 win on Game Day 4. 

Commonly regarded as one of, if not the best, British forward in the Elite Ice Hockey League, Dowd is no stranger to putting in big performances, both for club and country. The 27-year-old forward netted 22 times last season as the Steelers claimed their fourth EIHL title in dramatic circumstances. His scoring ability was on show at the Sheffield Arena on Sunday, as the Billingham native found the back of the net on the power play, his first CHL goal.

Despite that, the Steelers were unable to come away with any points on the board from the game. “It’s bitterly disappointing”, commented Dowd. “We didn’t come here to put up a performance, we came to get points. We were very close; it’s a one goal game with an empty-net at the end. We hit two or three posts tonight and if those bounce a different way it’s a totally different score. We have to draw the positives from this game, but for now, we’re bitterly disappointed.”

Sunday’s game represented progress for the Steelers, who competed with JYP for the full 60 minutes. After two tough defeats on the road to start their CHL campaign (9–1 at Frolunda and 3–0 at JYP), Dowd commented, “I think it’s starting to click now.”

He added, “last week we’d only had one week together before playing teams who had been together weeks and months. We were playing catch up from day one so I think it’s another week under our belts, another week of conditioning, another week on the ice together making plays and I think we showed that tonight.”

One adjective to describe the Steelers’ performance on Sunday is hard-working. The EIHL champions battled for every loose puck, and as Dowd himself credited, his goal came as the result of good work on the forecheck by Levi Nelson.

“I think Thommo [Paul Thompson], our coach, has brought in a team of grafting guys, a team that will work together and battle for every loose puck and battle hard every night. Its credit to our coach for bringing in a group of guys like that. It’s a great play from defence to throw it to the corner, and for Nelson to spin round that quickly and give me the puck as quickly as he did gave me plenty of time for me to pick my corner.”

“It’s nice to get going and get some goals on the board. It was disappointing not to register any points in the first two games but now I’ve made my mark I want to keep on kicking from here.”

Dowd is a proven winner at the EIHL level, winning four titles in his illustrious career to date. However, this season is the first time his club has competed in the Champions Hockey League, against opponents as tough as JYP and Frölunda. Despite being yet to record a point in three games, Dowd reflected on the Steelers’ CHL journey as of yet.

“It’s great to win the EIHL which put us in the situation where we play great teams like this and to qualify for a great competition like the CHL shows the true colours of all the boys who have been here and battled over the years.”

This season is Dowd’s sixth full season with the Sheffield Steelers, a team desperate to retain their EIHL title in order to secure qualification for the 2016–17 CHL campaign. However, despite qualification to the next stage being out of the question for the Yorkshire club, Dowd commented that the Steelers would treat Saturday’s match against Frolunda as anything but a meaningless encounter.

“I think we battled absolutely fantastically well for two periods in Frolunda but we let the third period slip,” commented Dowd. 

“We owe it to ourselves to put in a good performance and try and take some points from that game.”