Liam Kirk heading 'home' to bring an end to Sheffield Steelers' Champions Hockey League journey

Fast forward almost six months and the 24-year-old Great Britain winger finds himself heading back ‘home’ to face off against the team he supported as a boy with a place in the quarter-finals at stake.

The Steelers did indeed produce something special.

Kirk, of course, went on to play for his boyhood team, signed as a 16-year-old apprentice - along with current Steelers’ star and close friend Cole Shudra - by former head coach Paul Thompson back in 2016.

What happened next was the stuff of fairytales, Kirk being a seventh round pick for the Arizona Coyotes in the 2018 NHL Draft.

The dream of playing in the NHL remains very much alive in Kirk’s mind but if it is to happen one day, it will have come via a circuitous route which has taken in several countries, playing in various top-level leagues.

The latest elite hockey environment left-hander Kirk finds himself in is Germany’s DEL, having earned a two-year deal at 2023-24 champions, Eisbaren Berlin. It follows spells with HC Litvinov in Czechia’s Extraliga and Finland’s Liiga with Jukerit.

Key to Kirk’s remaining NHL ambitions is the fact Berlin is an affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings, who maintain a presence in Germany throughout the season.

But, for now, Kirk is busy getting ready to face-off against former team-mates, only a handful of which remain from when he headed to North America in the summer of 2018.

Kirk has remained a Steelers’ fan and has been impressed by his former team’s ability to get themselves through a regular season CHL campaign that brought stiff challenges against teams from top-tier hockey nations in Czechia, Sweden and Switzerland.

“When I knew I was signing in Berlin and we knew the Steelers were going to be in the Champions League we all wanted it to fall so that we would get a chance to play each other,” said Kirk.

“And when the group stages didn’t work out that way I guess you could say most people, myself included, probably underestimated the Steelers – seeing the draw that they had been given, we knew how tough a challenge it would be for them to get through.

"But I know that the Steelers mindset is that they want to win and having just come off a grand slam, they will have had high expectations of themselves as a group and what they wanted to achieve in this competition.

And it’s good for the league and it’s good for the Steelers organisation and I’m happy that they got through.

"I would like to see them go as far as possible but, now, obviously, it has to end for them so that we can go through!”

It wasn’t clear that the Steelers would face Berlin until they won their final ‘regular season’ game in a shoot-out against Czechia’s Dynamo Pardubice.

“We’d finished our last game in Berlin and it seemed like we were going to play one of two other teams,” added Kirk.

“Then, about 15 minutes later, we sat in the kitchen area at the rink, just refreshing the Steelers game to see who won from that one - because we then knew that determined who we would be playing. I guess it was just written in the stars.”

Kirk was back in the UK last week with the DEL having had a week off as part of an international break, a luxury the Steelers and their domestic haven’t been afforded by the Elite League.

He caught up with some of the Steelers players for breakfast before heading back to Germany to begin preparing for tomorrow’s homecoming.

“When it comes to game time, everyone will be ready to play and do their job to give their own team the best chance of winning,” said Kirk. “But we were all talking when the draw got announced and we spoke again last week about it when a few of us met up for breakfast.

“There was a lot of excitement and I’m really looking forward to coming back and playing at the Arena, my family is going to be there and I’ll be back where it all began for me.”

Where it will end up for Kirk is anyone’s guess, but he has hit the ground running in Germany, Berlin having started strongly in the defence of their championship and Maltby-born Kirk making a telling contribution already with six goals and seven assists in 16 games.

His switch to Berlin after his season with Litvinov was made easier by having former Steelers’ strength and conditioning coach Danny Mawer already there, having moved to Germany back in 2021 after five years Sheffield.

It’s a move which Kirk is glad he himself has made.

“It’s been a great start,” said Kirk. “I’m really enjoying it. It’s a great team, great staff and it’s obviously an amazing city.

“It’s a very North American style, similar to how it was in Czechia last season – maybe a bit more physical and gritty – but they are all top leagues.

“We’ve got a really good team this year and they’ve had so much success in the past.

"The challenge is to keep repeating that and I’m just happy to be a part of that and know that I am contributing.”