British invasion: Liam Kirk calmly carrying hopes of UK hockey on his shoulders with Coyotes

Jonathan Phillips is a celebrity in the British hockey community. He is entering his 18th season in the Elite Ice Hockey League, he has been a fixture on various British national teams since 1999, he ranks eighth all-time in EIHL points, and he ranks first in games played.

Those achievements earn Phillips a nod when he walks into the local supermarket in Sheffield these days, but the topic quickly turns to another subject.

“You can pretty much guarantee that they’ll know you and they’ll say a quick hello,” Phillips said, chuckling. “But then the next question is, ‘Has anyone spoken to Liam Kirk? How’s he getting on?’”

Ice Hockey does not enjoy the same stature as football (soccer), rugby or cricket in the UK. It probably ranks below several other sports as well, but Kirk’s story has become far more than a local curiosity in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and the greater UK sporting community. Kirk tied for the goal-scoring lead at the 2021 IIHF World Championship, he is still among a small group of British players to have been drafted by an NHL team, and he signed a three-year entry-level deal with the Coyotes in July, paving the way for him to play for the team’s AHL affiliate in Tucson this season.

Liam Kirk has become a British brand.

“His performance at the recent World Championships has kind of catapulted him to another level,” said Peter Spencer, who covers hockey for the BBC. “I would imagine young hockey fans might not know who Tony Hand is, but young hockey fans who are 12, 13, 14 at the moment, definitely know who Liam Kirk is; especially if they’re (Sheffield) Steelers fans. Hockey fans around the rinks of all 10 teams, no matter which club they support, they just want to see Liam succeed. He is essentially the poster boy for UK ice hockey.”

With that notoriety comes responsibility; even pressure. Edinburgh’s Tony Hand was a 12th-round selection (Edmonton) in 1986, Brendan Perlini was the Coyotes’ first-round selection in 2014, but he moved from Guildford to Canada when he was 11 so most Brits do not view him as one of their homegrown talents despite Perlini’s protests. A handful of other British players have heard their name called at the NHL Draft, but Kirk is a unique story. Born in Maltby and schooled on the ice in Sheffield, he proved that he could play the North American game at a high level when he had 21 goals and 50 points in 47 games for Peterborough (OHL) in 2019-20.

Now he carries the hopes of his nation’s growing hockey base.

“Any time you get a player that comes out of a country that’s an especially soccer-dominated country like the UK, people want to write stories about it because it’s a feel-good story and it’s something different,” said Peterborough coach Rob Wilson, who played and coached in Britain fo a combine two decades.

“Just having him in Arizona could have a massive impact for young players in Britain to see that they have an opportunity that they may not have considered before. And if he succeeds, people from North America are going to have to start scouting a little bit more in these other countries like the UK to find that diamond in the rough. The EIHL has some good players. It’s an underrated league.”

Kirk arrived in Arizona on Aug. 28 to take part in some informal skates with teammates before prospect development camp began this week. Along with Josh Doan and 2021 first-round pick Dylan Guenther, he is at the top of interview lists for local media, and he knows that all eyes are on him back home. He understands the burden that he carries, and the possibilities that his presence creates, but his low-key personality appears to equip him perfectly for the intense scrutiny that he is facing.

“I guess there is a little bit of pressure, but I don’t really see it like that,” Kirk said. “Obviously, there is a lot of background noise about me trying to be a trail blazer and create this pipeline so that the next generation has an easier path. I want to help them in any way I can by talking to them, by encouraging them, but at the end of the day, this is still my journey.

“There was a point where it seemed like this was so far away, especially when I wasn’t playing (because of COVID-19) and everyone else was, but I just stayed focused and just kept believing and working hard. Now here I am just really trying to live in the moment.”

Photo caption: Liam Kirk scores the first goal of his life at age 5 in a tournament in Fife. “It was against Whitley Bay and I just got a pass back door and shot it just over the goalie’s pad.“ (Photo courtesy of Jonathan Kirk)

Modest beginnings

Kirk’s hockey origin story began in the backyard of his home in Maltby, and on the streets around his house, playing in-line with his older brother Jonathan.

“I think he was just 2 or 3 years old, so really young, and he could barely skate so our old in-line manager used to just basically throw him out there and stand him in front of the net and he’d whack at it,” Jonathan Kirk said. “Most of the time, it was Liam just wanting to go with me and me just firing a ball at him. A few times, it got a bit rough and we were told to tone it down a bit by our parents.

“I remember one time when the street actually froze over a little bit. It wasn’t ice, but it snowed quite a lot so it got compacted down enough to be somewhat skateable. Me and my brother managed to cost our parents some extra money by ruining both of our skates by skating on the street.”

By the time Kirk was a teenager, his brother was having a hard time denying that little Liam was taking hockey to another level.

“I tried to ignore it my whole life; tried to deny it,” Jonathan Kirk said laughing. “We were playing in this regional tournament on different teams, but in the same arena. I think he was with the Under 13s. I just remember seeing him sort of stand out and score every game and carry his teams through it, and not in a way where he was doing it for himself. He was doing it for the team and helping other guys out. Everyone kept saying, ‘Your brother’s doing really well’ and now I have spent most of the last few years trying to bring him back down to earth.”

Phillips noticed Kirk’s skill immediately when he signed with Steelrs at age 15. The two began working out together in the summers, but the elder Steeler insists that it really wasn’t a mentor-pupil relationship.

“I don’t think I could even say that I took him under my wing,” Phillips said. “He’s got such a mature head on his shoulders. I think he may have thought that ‘If I stick with Jonah, he’s gonna push me every single day’ but I really didn’t even know he was there a lot of the time because he was doing his own thing. He really did know what he had to do and how hard he had to work.”

After the Coyotes drafted him in the seventh round in 2018, Kirk had a rough transition to Peterborough. While he was excited about being drafted and playing in North America, the reality of the situation did not match the fantasy.

Wilson chalked it up to a competitive environment where every player was working toward a loftier goal — the NHL — while most of Kirk’s peers back home were focused on more modest hockey achievements. That was a part of it, but Kirk’s girlfriend, Alisha Yakub knew there was more behind it.

“I don’t think he realized what he was leaving behind at that point because he was just so excited to get there,” said Yakub, who has been in a relationship with Kirk since the two were 14. “He hit a rough patch and then he started struggling.”

Kirk’s parents visited him in Peterborough, and Yakub visited him to ring in the new year, but there were a lot of phone calls sandwiched around those trips.

“It might have been three o’clock in the morning when he got transferred but he knew I was always on the other end of the phone,” said Yakub, who is studying to become a midwife. “I always told him that I was there for him and that I believed in him; that he could do this.

“Fortunately, the family that he lived with (in Peterborough) is a really good family; really supportive. When he left again for the next season, he was much happier leaving the second time around.”

Celebrity status

British hockey media members, such as Spencer, watched every bit of news involving the Coyotes in the weeks leading up to Kirk’s contract. At first, it did not appear that the Coyotes were going to sign Kirk this year, preferring to wait another season to watch him develop. But after a conversation with Kirk, GM Bill Armstrong came away impressed.

“You just got the sense that this kid would give his left arm to play in the NHL,” Armstrong said. “He was impressive at the World Championship, but on top of that, he just wants it so badly and he is so driven. You just have to give a kid like that a chance.”

Despite the trials of COVID-19, Kirk has done what he can to prepare for his first pro season in North America. While he was not able to skate for about a month, and while he waited to get his work visa, he worked out with former Steelers trainer Danny Mawer, now with Eisbaren Berlin of the DEL, to add weight and strength without sacrificing his skill and speed. Like Armstrong, Mawer has seen Kirk’s drive firsthand.

Before the draft combine in 2018, Mawer took Kirk to Sheffield Hallam University to run him through battery of tests similar to what he would face at the combine in front of NHL scouts and executives.

“The physiologist there who works in professional boxes and soccer players said he’d never seen an athlete with so much grit; the ability to dig in and just keep working and working and working even though your body’s telling you to give up,” said Mawer, who has worked with Kirk since Kirk was 12. “We gave him a brief rest and then he picked right back up from where he started so it was amazing to see how long he could keep grinding it out. He just found this dark place and he got comfortable there.”

When Kirk left for Peterborough, Puck Stop, the local hockey apparel shop across the street from where the Steelers play, started selling Petes jerseys with Kirk’s name on the back.

“You couldn’t get one of these shirts for love or money,” Spencer said.

Kirk will be in Tucson this season, so there will likely be a lot of Roadrunners jerseys flying off the racks. And if he takes the next step, the Kachina logo could become a familiar brand in South Yorkshire county.

“When I got drafted I kind of put goals in my head like I needed to reach this point and that point and get to the NHL by a certain point,” Kirk said. ‘My goal now is to have some fun, play hard, play the right way, and just keep working and working and what will be will be.

“Every step of the way is a bit of a step on the ladder to get to the NHL game. So you just go to work and focus on the journey.”