LONDON, UK – It was the late American entrepreneur Jim Rohn who famously remarked that motivation is what gets you started, and habit is what keeps you going.
Image by Clive Bright
After the longest break in competitive action for decades, lower league British ice hockey clubs will be hoping that the first behaviour Rohn references, comes to the forefront in fans, players and officials at the start of September, when leagues finally resume.
The top Elite League in the UK will draft in its professional players from overseas and do what it has always done, but in the lower leagues where riches are almost non-existent and required commitment can be high; engraining habitual behaviour in those involved is of course the key to the sport’s survival.
For players and officials, it’s the late-night training, the miles on the road, the weekends sacrificed, the ignored injuries and the stretching (and sometimes breaking) of relationships. For most involved, this behaviour and commitment becomes habit from a very young age.
For fans at every level, the long journeys to rinks far and wide each weekend become habitual too, along with the merchandise purchases and commitment to a sports team and community most non-hockey friends will be oblivious too. The money spent by the fans keeps the sport afloat with attendances at the gate key to covering rising overheads in a sport eye wateringly expensive to operate a team in.
The golden question though, is how many people during the various lockdowns the UK has endured, have taken a step back and re-evaluated their lives and habits?
Those lightbulb moments when £50 a week on Pret A Manger is no longer vanishing from the bank account not to mention the midweek bar bills. When the visit to the petrol station is once a fortnight rather than every week, and when the early morning alarm no longer involves bleary eyes or aching bones.
We know even before a puck has dropped that some players have stepped away from the game, but overall, how many fans have really missed hockey at NIHL level and will return? Have they re-evaluated their lives and concluded that its something not to return to?
Equally, how many people have confidence in, or worry about their own safety at ice rinks among crowds of people?
The toxic social media debates on vaccines and masks rumble on, added to the politicians’/SAGE belief that ice rinks are seemingly a nuclear danger in terms of virus spread and risk, creating a bigger question mark over how soon a trigger would be pulled on a re-closure. A preference to use them as standby morgues has already been shown previously. And that is not all to consider.
Even after so called “Freedom day”, some UK ice rinks are open for business, yet have shut off changing rooms and showers for “Covid reasons”. A blanket phrase that has become a legacy of businesses making things up as they go along, in response to a government making things up as they go along.
Why is there a cloud of Lynx Africa coming from under the stands?
Oh don’t worry about that, its just the hockey players hosing themselves down like a 1990’s Estate agent heading to a house viewing. They can’t shower sadly.
Seems reasonable… Covid reasons is it? Yep.
Is that Lynx Africa coming from the concourse?
At this point it is tempting to include in this article, polling data or social media analysis on public confidence in attending sports fixtures, but given the contradictory attendances witnessed at football and gigs recently, it’s as accurate to stick a finger in the air and guess what the appetite will be of fans to get back in the stands of an ice rink.
The reality seems to be for other sports at least, that spectators want to return to normality and have done so in numbers. Yes, some will have medical concerns, but the vast majority will do what they want, even with minor barriers placed in their way.
Another thorny question that cannot be ignored is whether UK hockey can or indeed wants to ride out any future Covid spikes or bumps in the road?
Will lower league competitions descend into a farce again like they did prior to the first lockdown at the start of the pandemic back in 2020?
Teams and players deciding when and if to play games at the back end of an almost completed season, while ignoring governing body and government rulings, only to later compete in hastily arranged random mini leagues mid-pandemic when it suited them to do so.
Is it worth fans buying a season ticket or sponsoring a jersey knowing this level of sporting integrity exists, and therefore is it worth emotionally committing to follow a team and indeed the league for a whole season knowing that the plug could be pulled, not by the governing body or even government, but by random teams themselves!
So with those negatives out of the way, perhaps its time to start thinking back to Rohn’s quote, namely motivation. The pull factors are likely to be the same as ever.
It’s true that for many players, the first puck drop cannot come soon enough. They’ve had precious time on the ice denied to them and can finally whack pucks again playing the sport they love in front of a crowd. Those poor junior players denied the chance to represent their regional conference or country in age groups they no longer qualify for, can try and step up again, and of course the veterans who know time is not on their side, get the chance to squeeze out the extra playing time before retirement.
The fans who have formed friendships and bonds over the years with each other, can gather back inside their second home, munching overpriced hotdogs and yelling at the officials again. Enjoy a beer or a coffee at the bar to discuss the game and attend all the other socials arranged across the season.
The striped officials can once again look forward to enthusiastically dropping pucks, polishing their whistles, and be conscious once again that almost no one in the building on a game night knows the rules as well as they do – including the EIHA amendments. Goal judges can get back to flicking their light switches again and face the wrath of angry players through the plexi on occasion!
So many questions are of course still to be answered, but for now at least hockey appears to be coming back. To be a success, it will rely on everyone being suitably motivated to get back to old habits once again and for the pandemic not to spring any more surprises.
Sounds like a challenge!
Contact the author davidcarr_2@hotmail.com
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