LONDON, UK – It’s February 2021 and a man glides down a frozen Amsterdam canal on a pair of speed skates wearing only his underpants.
A crowd in masks gather on the nearby bridges to watch, armed with camera phones ready to engage their followers on social media with some delicious content.
Spray and lay as Swindon face Sheffield (Kat Medcroft)
Suddenly the high and low frequency sound bursts of cracking ice fill the air and the entertainer ploughs face first straight into the canal through the broken sheets.
Thankfully he survives, waves to the crowd and then is pulled out via a rope by friends. The footage is viewed by millions around the world.
In many ways his experience reflects British ice hockey’s plight over the last 12 months – albeit without the viewing numbers. From the quirky and historic backdrop, to the underpants, to the undignified crash and then the rope (of government funding), parallels could be drawn at every stage.
And so like the cold and wet Dutchman wearing soggy y-fronts, British hockey stood up out of the cold and began to skate towards a recovery last weekend.
The Spring Cup, complete with new logo and a helpful Wi-Fi symbol included, fired up on Saturday night with Swindon Wildcats and Sheffield Steeldogs facing off the first round of behind closed doors fixtures. The pair will be joined by Raiders IHC, the Bees (formerly of Bracknell) and Telford Tigers, with many of the teams littered with guest Brits and GB players from the Elite League and beyond. Own and loan jerseys has taken on a whole new meaning.
To give an idea of the kind of impact the guests might have, Sheffield’s Liam Kirk – recently icing with Peterborough Petes in the OHL, bagged five goals over the first two games.
A key aim of the tournament is to allow the GB players who aren’t already playing abroad in Europe, the chance to play some competitive hockey ahead of the World Championships. Secondary to that is to make sure as many players aspiring to reach that level don’t miss out on further crucial months of development. Will it make a difference? Anything is likely better than nothing, especially with the Elite league mothballed.
Less straightforward to explain with that rationale is the announcement this week of a four team mini-series in the North featuring teams from the third and fourth tier of British hockey. Sheffield Scimitars, Blackburn Hawks, Widnes Wild and Nottingham Lions will face off at the end of February in a competition that appears to be called “Streaming Moralee”, a name that only really works if you include the Wi-Fi sausages logo. Mental health of the players is cited as one of the drivers for launching this competition and its fair to say that many will be chomping at the bit to escape the tedium and feel that beautiful ice under skate.
Meanwhile however, much of the rest of the UK population continues to live as lockdown prisoners, passing the time by sniping at each other online on Twitter, getting vaccinated, and firing up the Wetherspoons app on smart phones now and again reminiscing about £2.99 pints of cold lager at the touch of a button. Glorious care-free times in hindsight.
Living at the rink, what about the stink?
Continuing the theme of wet underpants, it would be interesting to see how many British hockey players would be up for living at an ice rink for the entire season?
That is exactly what the Red Deer Rebels of the Western Hockey League are planning to do, as reported last week, to mitigate the risk of any Covid breaches. The team will sleep at the rink, eat at the rink and “play ping-pong” to ease the boredom!
Living in a stylish barn – photo by Red Deer Rebels
For some in the UK it would no doubt be a dream, but for others it might get a little too much in some less salubrious rinks. Waking up to a morning skate without the commute would be great, but a post-training tepid drizzle shower and egg bap from the rink café might become a little wearing after a while. Not to mention the stench of damp and crusty sweats at every turn. Extra hours of two touch football might go down well though and if a few Mario Bros arcade games could be sourced, players might never want to go back home.
It brings back memories of a tournament in Belgium a few years ago, where a team from Esjberg in Denmark lived on their deluxe bus in the rink car park for three days. Their laundry was ingeniously aired by DIY clothes rails on the roof and they (and the local neighbourhood) were thankfully spared with only light winds. A strong gust could have easily carried a mouldy cup into a nearby kids play area and caused a plethora of issues ranging from poisoning to concussion.
Time to boost the Bracknell Ozone
It’s a sad sign of the times that typing Bracknell Bees into some search engines brings up pest control as the first option to view. The team might be now in Slough and rebranded as “The Bees”, however former player and ex-GB and Nottingham Panthers star Danny Meyers built up the suspense this week as he posted a sneak preview of the soon to be open Ozone ice training facility in the town.
Behind the glass – the Ozone
Well that’s where he said he was, as he stood in an unbranded reception area describing the gym, main pad, sense arena for goalies and a practice room yet tantalisingly refused to open any of the doors. It gave everyone a brief taste of what it must be like to be a UN weapons inspector in a hostile country – left desperate to just peak through the glass.
All jokes aside, the facility will no doubt go down a storm with hockey players in the local area and beyond, and sounds very much a first step in the right direction of getting a replacement rink in a town that for many years was the location of the UK’s first Olympic sized ice pad.
Contact the author: davidcarr_2@hotmail.com
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