Sheffield Steelers: How familiar faces helped direct Derek Gentile to the Elite League

A childhood friend of Steelers’ forward Mitchell Balmas, Gentile took in a Steelers game when visiting his former team-mate last year.

It clearly helped sow the seed and was a contributory factor in him signing up with the Steelers for the 2025-26 season.

It remains to be seen whether Balmas will be reunited with Gentile come late August, but he certainly had a say in convincing his fellow forward to take the plunge in South Yorkshire.

“Mitchell and I have been the best of friends for as long as I can remember, since elementary school,” said Gentile, whose signing was announced by the Steelers on Wednesday afternoon.

“He said such good things about, not only the organisation, but the fans, the city, everything altogether and it just gave me a level of comfort in my decision but, also, I’ve seen the success that Mitchell has had there and how much he has enjoyed his time in Sheffield.”

Gentile, who heads to Sheffield on the back of a standout year in the USports league for Saint Mary’s Huskies last season, became aware of the Elite League long before fellow Canadian Balmas set foot in Sheffield in August 2023, going on to win the treble.

Both hail from Sydney, in Nova Scotia, as do former Cardiff Devils forwards Joey Haddad and Chris Culligan, who Gentile saw as role models when he was coming up through junior hockey.

Haddad, now retired, played a pivotal role in the Devils winning two league titles, two Challenge Cups and two play-off crowns under coach Andrew Lord between 2014-2019, with Culligan on board for three of those successes.

“It’s a league I’ve been aware of for some time as there have been a few players from our home town of Sydney that have played in it,” added 26-year-old Gentile. “Joey Haddad and Chris Culligan are a couple of players that I’ve followed their whole careers, players that were really good to me as a kid and were role models for me.

“So it's a league I had always been interested in and so it was perhaps always something in the back of my mind.

“My conversations with coach Fox have reinstated what Balms has already said to me, that the Steelers are a team that expects to win.

"And that is so cool – to become part of a culture like that is something that really excites me.”

Steelers’ head coach Aaron Fox is confident Gentile will be a good fit for his team as he looks to return to winning ways after a trophyless 2024-25 campaign, just 12 months after guiding the Steelers to the treble.

“When you watch tape on him, the puck just gravitates towards him,” said Fox. “”He skates well, competes hard and sees the ice at an extremely high level and just makes the right play every time. He’ll be a very good offensive player for us.

“Obviously you ask players for character references and stuff like that, to make sure he’s a good fit and Balms knows him really well which helped a lot.”