The news of Henri Sandvik leaving came as a bit of a surprise, especially the timing of it.

I spoke to Aaron Nell on Tuesday and Ryan Aldridge briefly on my way to the gym. I also spoke to Henri as well that day. Luckily I bumped into him because he left pretty quickly.

He was very professional in the way he played every time he was on the ice, which is something we are thankful for because another player may not have been so honest.

I think he has left on good terms and everyone is wishing him luck. It is just one of those things. He has had an opportunity come up and if he is not very happy at the club you can’t really begrudge him leaving.

However, if they get the right player in it could be a big opportunity for someone to come in and help us win something this season with us in a cup semi-final and one eye on the play-offs.

It can go a few different ways when you have a player leave you midway through a season.

I can’t really remember someone asking for a release before but the club have released players before, with the forethought to improve the side.

It wasn’t Ryan or Steve Nell’s decision to let Henri go, so it can go either way. If they bring in a new player then it could help us kick on.

When Jonas (Hoog) came back we started getting a few better results and went on that winning run and maybe recently we have had another lull. So it could, if they get the right replacement in, make the best of a bad situation.

Ryan has been really good with the mid-season players he has brought in in the past. Henri himself was brought in mid-season as was Jan Kostal and Jonas, so we have had success doing it before and hopefully we can do it again.

It is an import forward they are looking to bring in, so you would want someone who is in the right frame of mind and who is going to work hard and buy into what we are trying to do here.

We have also had another join the club. It is nice they could bring in a player of Sam Oakford’s quality as an extra two-way deal.

That pairing of him and Kenton was one of the reasons we were able to beat Bracknell last weekend.

I know Sam from juniors because we were in the same age group so I knew him a bit before and a lot of the boys know him from playing in the league before so he settled in quickly and hopefully we can use his services again in the future.