WE’LL be saying goodbye to Dwight Parrish on Boxing Day and he’s a guy we will miss and not just because of the way he plays hockey.

All the guys like him. He’s a great person, the type of guy you want in your team. He’s a leader and he will be sorely missed.

Dewi is taking up a job in the real world. He has a wife and son and he wanted to get his life started. There is only so much hockey you can play and he’s doing what’s right for his family and the guys appreciate that.

Most of the guys have their wives and girlfriends over for Christmas and we are getting together ton Christmas Eve  for a big meal. I’m the only guy who doesn’t and that’s because I’m going home to spend New Year with my wife.

We only got married in the summer and when I signed up again Tony (Hand, player-coach) and Neil (Morris, Phoenix owner) agreed that I could go back for a few days which was a pretty cool thing to do and shows what a class organisation we have here.

Energy

Before I go we have back-to-back games against Newcastle, at home on Boxing Day (4pm) and in their place the following night and we can’t afford to play the way we did against Sheffield last week.

The first period we played pretty well. We came out of the gates quickly but then they just out-played us.

It was a game we thought we could win because it was our only game of the weekend. We should have had the energy to beat them but sometimes it works against you if you haven’t played the night before. You are not as warmed up and not as ready to go.

But I’ve no excuses because they out-played us and deserved to win the game.

Newcastle are always a fun team to play, especially for me. This year they have been kind of quiet on the dummy side of things. They haven’t acted up too much so far but we’ll see what happens.

If they get out of hand I’ll be there to set things right. The rest of the guys just have to play their game.

They have a really good squad and had a good result against Sheffield last week but I don’t think they match up against us and we should be capable of winning both games.

We are confident but we won’t underestimate them.

Finally I would like to thank the supporters for cheering us on every week, the management for making it a good first half of the year and all the people behind the scenes who work for nothing to help the organisation thrive.

Merry Christmas

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