Sheffield Steelers: Danish treat may be hard to resist for John Armstrong

The big centre has spent the last two seasons at Sheffield.

But, crucially, his MBA course is finished at the University of Sheffield and Armstrong has the opportunity to cast around for higher salaries in overseas leagues, as Ben O’Connor has done.

Armstrong’s reputation is held in high esteem in Denmark.

The 6ft 3ins forward, now 30, scored 50 points in 31 games for Odense Bulldogs in season 2015-16 - the Danes having been attracted to his performances in the previous season at Lillehammer, Norway.

While Steelers are operating on a limited public-profile recently, it is known that coach Paul Thompson has sounded out Armstrong’s agent.

Armstrong missed 26 games to a hand injury last year, but when he returned, he scored four goals and six assists in five games before being blanked out in the Play Off final.

Like Armstrong, team-mate Robert Dowd is hoping he’ll have a better year next year, in terms of fitness.

He missed 15 games to a leg injury and says: “Points-wise I did well last year, around a point a game, it might be my best ever season, I don’t know, I’m not a stats guy. It’s just a shame the injury took so long to heal” - said the GB forward. It’s not as if I overtrained or overworked, it was just a freak accident.”

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