Neil Dolan
My mum’s favourite player and certainly one of the best players I have had the pleasure of coaching and playing alongside with. Dolan had all the assets of a greater player: incredible hockey IQ, puck control, skating (hence my mum’s favourite), vision, shot - and was a very capable player in his own zone. This would ultimately lead him to captain the Eagles during his time with the club. When I first met Dolan, he had been playing for the Edinburgh Capitals SNL team as part of the academy set-up. He would eventually ice for the Elite League club in 2010-11, scoring his first professional goal away against the Cardiff Devils.
Dolan's stats on his EliteProspects profile is remarkably up to date. For the Eagles however, he brought all the intangibles that numbers can't measure. Given his character, Dolan was somebody the team could rally round. On the ice, he was serious when needed, but he loved to joke around. Many of my fondest road-trip memories involve him jumping on Coach Dible’s back in the minibus and declaring he was a scarf; and famously rugby tackling a snow man at a service station.
Dolan’s on-ice highlights include setting a short-lived club record by scoring seven goals against Cardiff in his last Celtic Cup game, lifting the Scottish Cup as captain with the Edinburgh Phoenix in 2013 and being a two-time Scottish Cup MVP.