Ninh explains … Why Ice Hockey in the United Kingdom Sucks
You’d think that a country of almost 70 million people could field together a group
of guys that can play the sport of ice hockey.
A sport they technically invented.
Yes North Americans, ice hockey is actually a Scottish sport that was introduced into
Canada.
It was originally called ‘Shinty on Ice’ hence where the Canadians get their term ‘shinny’
from.
Look it up.
And it’s not as if they have never been good at it or had no history of it.
The UK have been playing ice hockey just as long as anyone else and are one of the founding
members of the IIHF.
They are actually former Winter Olympic Gold Medalists … but that was almost 100 years
ago.
So what’s the problem?
Why is ice hockey such a minority sport that’s barely played or watched by anybody here in
Britain.
Compare to most of Europe who have better leagues, systems and infinitely better players.
Is it the UK’s knack of inventing things that they’ll be bad at in the future?
Or is it just the fact that we Brits have other sports that we suck at less?
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Problem #1 – Facilities.
The city of Toronto has over 110 rinks that people can use.
The UK has 56 public rinks … in the entire country!
And not all of them play hockey.
Yes, we have less ice rinks here than a typical Canadian city!
If you do the quick maths, that’s 1.25 million people per rink!
And as you can imagine, because there’s so few rinks to use, you sometimes have to
travel some distance in order to use them.
The fact that ice time is expensive and the long distances that people have to travel
to use them, means that many people just don’t bother.
Which brings me to
Problem #2 – Lack of participation.
The distance between rinks and the limited (and expensive) ice time is a problem.
But the biggest problem is the lack of participation.
When it’s cheaper, easier and more popular to kick a ball around on grass, instead of
wearing armour and getting into fistfights – you know you’re fighting a losing battle.
Kids don’t want to play it, teenagers can’t afford to play it and adults don’t have
the time to drive across the country for some ice.
As you can imagine, this is a problem.
Problem #3 – Awareness.
Given that they invented the sport, it’s incredible that not a lot of people know what
it is.
Ask them how to play ice hockey, they’ll assume it’s just like field hockey … on
ice.
Ask them to name an NHL team, they’ll probably say the Chicago Bulls.
Famous hockey player?
Tom Brady, right?
Alright, let’s make it real simple.
Name a UK ice hockey team.
Ummm …. The Chicago Bulls?
The lack of awareness is pretty shocking, not helped by the British media that refuses
to cover the sport, it’s not in the newspapers, and they generally don’t show it on the
TV.
The awareness is so bad that even entire cities don’t even know that they have a professional
team.
Seriously!
Problem #4 – Terrible league structure.
In sensible countries such as Canada, they have a defined league structure.
And everyone can see the ladder you have to climb in order to reach the top.
Does that exist over here?
Not really.
There is a structure, but it’s forever changing.
Teams are added and drop out at a moments notice, and most of the time – the organisers
of these leagues don’t even know what’s happening themselves.
Is this team in the Elite League, or the National League, or The Scottish League, or are we
just going to kick them out their own rink and replace them with these guys?
Who knows?!
The predecessor of the Elite League (the Super League) was even more badly organized.
A league that started with 10 teams eventually dwindled to just 5, and if they’d carried
on, they would have ended up with just three teams for an entire league.
Mercifully, they pulled the plug before that even happened.
From the ashes of the Super League, the Elite League was formed, which brings me onto …
Problem #5 – Terrible top league.
The UK has it’s own version of the NHL – called the Elite League.
But it’s not exactly what I’d call ‘Elite’.
It runs on a strict salary cap budget and whilst $650,000 is the minimum salary for
one player in the NHL – that same money has to pay for your entire team in the Elite
League.
And your coaches.
And your staff.
And possible some pucks and a goalie stick.
Because the league offers so little in terms of salary, most professionals tend to play
in every other league except this one.
You’d have to be desperately trying to avoid retirement if you have to play over here.
As you can probably guess, the only ‘star’ players that the UK attracts are players that
are waaaay past their prime.
And why would you spend £20 of your hard-earned money watching second rate ice hockey played
by third rate players, where you can use that same money to watch the finest football in
the world.
It’s pretty much a no-brainer.
In fact, the highest regular season attendance in the Elite League … 9,403.
Woooooooooow!
And that number is actually pretty generous.
Manchester – the third biggest city in the UK, has a professional hockey team (that doesn’t
actually play in Manchester) that attracts an average crowd of just 900 people per game,
and they play in a facility that looks like this.
And this is our version of these guys.
Can you see where we’re going wrong here?
Problem #6 – Terrible national team.
Because of the serious lack of home-grown talent, a lot of the “British” national
team are actually Canadians who we’ve kindly given a passport to.
The Government’s stance on sports funding is simple - we’ll give you money only if
you win big.
That explains why they’re over-invested in sports such as football, rugby and cycling
and way under-invested in ice hockey, basketball, Quidditch and every other sport that they
seem to suck at.
The British national team rarely gets coverage and playing for your country doesn’t pay.
Quite literally, you get nothing.
This is a team, whilst they play in IIHF’s top division routinely loses to that giant
ice hockey superpower, known as Hungary.
And it’s not as if we’ve never had good players born on our shores.
Byron Dafoe, Steve Thomas, Owen Nolan – all British born … but chose to represent Canada,
you know due to the suckiness.
Liam Kirk is the sole British hope to crack the NHL at the moment, but hasn’t played
once for the team that drafted him.
That kinda says it all.
But despite all these problems, ice hockey isn’t a completely dead sport over here.
It still has a cult following of die-hard fans, albeit a small one.
I know I just ripped on them, but despite no interest, no money, no coverage and no
help whatsoever, Team GB are in the same league as the big boys and that doesn’t happen
by accident.
Okay, they’re going to get pummeled by the likes of Russia, Canada, Sweden etc.
But the point is that they’re there.
TV channels are starting to air British games now as well as the NHL.
And speaking of British teams, the ones that are popular and profitable have done so against
all the odds.
And some of them are even champions of Europe.
You’d have to be really well organized to turn a profit in this tiny market.
London is the now most likely destination for the KHL.
Yes, that KHL.
The Russian KHL who wants a team … in London, England?
As crazy as that sounds, watch this space, because it might be stupid enough to work.
But the overall point is that there’s hope.
Will better international performances and better British born players increase the media
coverage and funding from the government?
Will this result in a mini boom and ice facilities sprouting up everywhere?
If it does, one thing for sure … progress will be painfully slow.
Because it’s taken Britain over 150 years to get to this point.
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Ninh Ly - www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK