Gough lights up Swindon

SWINDON, UK – After thirty years playing hockey no one could blame Swindon Panthers star Scott Gough if he decided to spend the summer relaxing. However the former Oxford and Bracknell forward prefers to spend it on the ice and is still lighting up the lamp.
 
Back in 1986 the youthful Gough took a twelve hour bus journey from Glasgow with his friend John Matassa to sign for the Oxford City Stars in the Heineken League. The pair had £40 between them and were hoping to start a new life south of the border. Gough had spent the previous year living in Dublin playing for the brilliantly named Dublin Dolphins under the tutorage of his former Glasgow coach Colin Adam.

 
“I just felt that I could make a life for myself along with playing the game I lived for” explained Gough, who played as a junior at the old Crossmaloof ice rink in Glasgow.
 
“It was pretty tough back then living in a shared hockey house with four or five of my team mates but at that age you just get on with it and hope that things work out”
 
“That’s not to say there were also some very good times and the whole experience made me grow up and realise that it was down to me to make something of my life”
 
Gough settled in the South of England and with a career spanning nearly 400 games in which he has scored 467 goals and 408 assists; he can safely be placed in the bracket of the most prolific snipers still lacing up the skates in the UK.
 
Gough currently sits near the peak of the league scoring charts for the Swindon Panthers in the John Cleighton-Hills Memorial Cup (formerly known as the summer cup) this season and had scored twenty goals and twelve assists in his first eight games. The Panthers lie in first place, narrowly ahead of reigning champions Chelmsford Nighthawks and Gough believes that the Link Centre based outfit have some real quality within their ranks and that the competition they play in is improving in standard.
 
“The Panthers have always been a well organised outfit over the years” explained the 43 year old winger, who also iced for Chelmsford Chieftains during his career.
 
“To be honest they put a few ENL teams to shame in terms of management, equipment logistics, game day preparation and training sessions. They have a real professional approach to the game”
 
“The Summer cup has also improved over the years from basically a real recreational league 10 years ago to a competition now that has a mix of ex EPL and ENL players, combined with a lack of import player limitations”
 
“Most teams in the cup this year have number of imports that could easily play at a higher level. The Panthers themselves if they were to play ENL2 this year in my opinion would be in the top six come the end of the season”
 
“With experienced players like Drew Chapman, Ian Richards, Neil Rouse, Dave Lovejoy, Alan Bishop, Danny Sturgeon, Bart Widawski who have all played EPL or ENL in the past along with a capable bunch of team mates and two goalies in Andy Webster and Pekka Raittila I think we could compete”
 
For all the ex-league players, Gough himself has been leading the way from the front and his impressive goal scoring record which begs the question. Are the goalies getting worse or does the wily Scot still have the magic?
 
“On a serious note I think goalies have improved quite a lot, especially over the last decade” said Gough, who won league titles with Oxford and the Bracknell Bees across his career.
 
“There are far more goalies coming through the junior ranks with more focused training plans and camps   in place along with more advanced equipment that helps the reflex and reaction time of goalies”
 
“I watch quite a bit of EPL hockey and if you look at the EPL at the moment all the teams have a quality starter and in most cases a very good back up which was not always the case a few years ago”
 
“Ten or fifteen years ago you had a few outstanding stoppers and the rest were average and some of the back-up situations were poor hence a lot of higher scoring game back in the day, but as with everything as the goalies improve the players need to do the same and I think this has happened”
 
“When you consider a lot of player’s equipment in terms of the weight of skates or carbon fibre sticks as opposed to the old wooden or two piece sticks there are also advantages for out skaters”
 
“On a personal note I still love scoring goals and always work on this to give me the best chance when I have a shot on net. The feeling when the red light goes on is the same as it was 30 years ago and like to think there is still a bit of magic in my old hands”
 
Aside from the on-ice success Gough has enjoyed, the sport and his relocation as a youngster have benefitted him off the ice too. A successful business man away from the rink, Gough has wise words of advice for youngsters hoping to make their way in the sport today.
 
“Hockey has been a massive influence in my business career” admitted the Scot, who was playing for the Glasgow Dynamos senior team by the time he was 15 years old.
 
“I left Scotland at such a young age with no real plan of what I was going to do. I was lucky enough to get a job with team sponsor Stralfors when playing with the Swindon Wildcats in 1988 and grabbed every opportunity they gave me and worked as hard with work as I did with hockey”
 
“The early years were based around production before moving in to a sales role and as anyone in sales knows, you need to go the extra mile to do well and this morphed over the years and I have ended up working with a couple of close friends running a profitable business for ourselves”
 
“My advice to any young hockey players would be unless you have a gift and the drive to play this great game to an Elite or top European level that will pay a salary that will allow you to save for the future, then always remember that this is a short career so pay as much attention as you can to your schooling and any other work or business opportunity that presents itself or you may be scratching your head at 35 thinking what will I do with my life now”
 
So with the wise words of advice out of the way and Gough in reflective mood, what would he say have been the highlights of his hockey career so far?
 
“Wow there have been a few” laughs the Scot with enthusiasm.
 
“As a youngster I was playing for Glasgow away at Dundee Rockets and they had just signed Mark Pavelich who was in fact playing NHL and had a dispute with his team and came to Britain for a short period before returning to back there. For a 15 year old kid it was great to share the ice with such a talented player”
 
“In terms of Oxford memories I had won the ENL title with the Bracknell Bees in 89-90 and moved back to Oxford to play alongside Dan Prachar and Don Jamieson in the old ENL/EPL when it was three imports per team”
 
“The league title that year went down to the last game of the year versus the Chelmsford Chieftains at home and was a must win game or Milton Keynes Kings would take the title as they had enjoyed a great year with Paddy Scott, Doug McCarthy banging in the goals along with a few GB Brits”
 
“The Stars won the home game 12 goals to 5 and I grabbed my 100th point of the season so that will always be a big one for me. Over and above that I guess the third league title with Richard Boprey in 95-96 was also a big one as I finished top scorer in the league with 134 points from 34 games and a career high of 72 goals”
 
“Coming back from retirement after seven years away from the game with the birth of my son Dale to play for the new formed ENL stars that Dan Prachar had started in 2003 was also great”
 
“Other than that I guess signing for Solihull and playing left wing with probably the best player I have played with in Steve Chartrand, he had all the tools as you can see from his record over the years”
 
“One last highlight to add was playing against the Fife Flyers when their imports new to the country was Steve Moria, Dave Stoyanovich and Al Sims and if people new to hockey in the last 10 years think Moria is good now then back in the mid 80s when he first came over he was probably one of the best to hit our shores”
 
With so many highlights and great memories to look back on, perhaps it is not so surprising after all that after thirty years in the game; the Swindon Panthers can still rely on Mr Gough to lace up the skates this summer and probably many summers to come.
 
To check out the fixtures and results of the Summer Cup you can visit the John Cleighton-Hills Trophy website here:
 
http://summercup.drover.ca/index.asp
 
Contact the author david.carr@prohockeynews.com