Mr Sheffield Steelers

I first met Ron Shudra way back in 1993.
I’d just opened up my first Hockey Shop and had negotiated a deal that enabled me to stock merchandise from the Sheffield Steelers. I received their stock on a ‘sale or return’ basis and took a small commission when it sold.
It was a win win situation with no upfront costs to me. I sold the clubs merchandise whilst also selling my hockey equipment and NHL merchandise to their rapidly increasing fan base.

Part of the Steelers deal was that they would occasionally send over a few players for photo shoots and promotions. One day it was the turn of Ron Shudra and although I’d seen him play several times, I had absolutely no idea of his background or hockey pedigree.

Edmonton Oilers

Originally from Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, Ron was chosen in round 3 of the 1986 NHL draft by the previous season’s Stanley Cup Champions, the Edmonton Oilers. Ron played 10 times for the champions in 1987 – 88, including a couple of shifts with the ‘Great One’ himself, Wayne Gretzky.

Check out the points stats in the Oilers 1987 victory, 5 – 0 over the Buffalo Sabres and you’ll see:

“Goal scored by Jari Curri, assisted Wayne Gretzky and Ron Shudra”

Now that’s an achievement to be proud of, in fact Ron went on to get 3 assists that evening.

He was then traded to the New York Rangers and spent the rest of the season playing for the Rangers farm team in Denver, Colorado. Subsequently he moved to their affiliate team in Michigan with the prospect of another 3 year contract with the New York Rangers on the table.
However it was withdrawn when the then GM, Phil Esposito was replaced by Neil Smith.
Smith cancelled all contract offers and so at the age of 22 Ron chose to look for other opportunities.
One opportunity was Europe, in particular the UK and the Solihull Barons playing at the Hobbs Moat Road rink.

The UK adventure begins

Having “landed” at Hobbs Moat Road, Ron quickly began to build his reputation as a solid D Man with a “rocket” of a shot, but maybe his biggest challenge was  understanding his own British team mates . With a range of West Midland, North Eastern and Scottish accents to decipher, his task wasn’t easy.

Unfortunately, within weeks of the start of the new 1991-92 season the financial position of the Barons became untenable and players had to be released from their contracts. Despite a brief visit to Basingstoke, Ron chose to follow several of his team mates up to South Yorkshire and join the new Sheffield Steelers  – their new GM being former Barons forward and team mate Ronnie Wood.

Sheffield Steelers

For the next seven seasons Ron would play a pivotal part in the rise of the Steelers, up through two divisions, taking the British Hockey scene by storm before reaching what, in my own opinion, was to be their finest hour, 25th March 1995.  By beating their main rivals, Nottingham Panthers 8-6,  in their own barn,  Steelers had won the first of their BHL League championships.

From 1991 to 1998, with Ron as Captain, the Steelers won an astonishing 7 trophies in 7 seasons, including:
2 x BHL Championship titles, 3 x Playoff titles, 1 x  Benson & Hedges Cup and 1 x Challenge Cup as well as 2 promotions.
I asked Ron what was the secret of all of the Steelers success, his reply:

We were a group of  tight knit, experienced guys that knew how to win, everyone was a leader, everyone played hard and everyone played focused.

BHL

The 1999-00 season saw Ron drop down a league to play for a couple of other BNL teams. He returned to his beloved Steelers twice before finally retiring at the end of the 2008 – 09 season.
On retirement he joined the Sheffield Junior Development Program at Ice Sheffield and in June 2014 became their head coach.

Ron was honoured by the Sheffield Steelers, in March 2010, by having his #26 team jersey retired.
In the same year he was also inducted into the British Hall of Fame.

Here’s Ron’s full playing stats – as listed by Hockeydb.com’s database.

Click here to listen to Ron’s Podcast Interview .

You can also listen to Podcast interviews from Ron’s alumni of former Sheffield Steelers players:
Les Millie  Episode S1E05
Ken Priestlay  Episode S1E09
Jamie Leach  Episode S1E10
Ivan Matulik  Episode S1E18
Scot Neil  Episode S1E23
Selmar Odelein  Episode S2E01
Tommy Plommer  Episode S2E03
Steve Carpenter  Episode S2 E06
Wayne Cowley  Episode S3E01
Nicky Chinn  Episode S3E02

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Watch the Jersey retirement ceremony here: