I was looking back through some old things of mine recently and amongst them I discovered a newspaper article about the Steelers from the Toronto Mail and Globe, dated April 9th 1994. It was very interesting reading the Candian’s comment on the standards of our game then and made me realise just how far we have come in only two years. In case many of you have forgotten that far back (and for Storm fans who were never there in the first place), here is a quick recap. Back in ’94, the Mail and Globe rated our hockey as being the equivalent of Senior A, a fairly low standard in Canada. Sheffield were playing their first season in the Premier Division (old not new), and were already near the top of the pile. That year also saw GB’s return to Pool A of the World Championships, after an absence of something like 60 years, going back to the glory days in the 30’s, when at one time GB was Olympic, European and World Champions. Admittedly we lost all of our games and were promptly relegated again, but it was an indication that we had arrived back on to the hockey scene. That year there were some NHL-ers, but most were players with only a handful of games, Doug Smail being the only player with a great experience in the NHL.
This season saw the inauguration of the Ice Hockey SuperLeague. It represented a breakaway by the leading clubs, who basically set up their own league, whether the BIHA agreed or not. It caused a great deal of resentment because it was formed on a monetary basis not on merit. The article is about the Steelers, as I have said, who play in the Sheffield Arena. Although, at 9,000 seats, it probably seemed small to most Canadians, it was absolutely MASSIVE to us, where the previous largest rink - that’s rink not arena - was 2,500. Since then another arena has been opened, hosting the Manchester Storm, with a 17,500 seat capacity, putting it on a par with the better North American arenas. Unfortunately Hockey is very much a minority sport in Britain, so often the arena is half full at best. It was the emergence of these new venues, and the plans for more (Birmingham NEC, Nottingham Super-stadium, Bracknell God-Knows-Where, etc.) that really forced the BIHA’s hand. They did not have the resources to run a league on the newer higher standards and so John Hall was forced onto us. The new league caused much resentment from the older, established teams, who did not have the financial clout to join the league. British Hockey has always been one of internal bitching, with the newer teams coming in for a lot of flak for being too American i.e. the atmosphere was considered worse. Many imports who come over are pleasantly surprised by British supporters. One once said that American fans are spectators, whilst British fans are supporters (which I quite liked, but then I just hate Yanks). Of course, you could say that the atmosphere was bad because these new rinks were cavernous, compared to the old rinks which were very compact, and the new rinks were full of new fans (another reason that the new teams were slated for). The Steelers fans have become known as the Whooo-Whooos, because they do not sing or chant during the game, but during stoppages, the arena will play a piece of music to which there are specific actions and noises (i.e. Whooo-Whooo or that bloody YMCA routine) whereas the older fans would generally make continuous noise unaided by the arena (rather like a football match). Personally, I say you pays your money, you takes your choice.
Any way the entire old system has been replaced by three separate leagues, the ISL, the Premier League (Southern Britain, or England as we generally call it) and the Northern Premier League (Northern Britain, i.e. Scotland and the north-east of England, and - for the first time ever - a team from Ulster). The increase of standards have seen (and, naturally, been caused by) a flood of better imports into Britain. The basic standard this year seems to be players from the IHL or AHL. And it is no longer a holiday, with daily training all week, followed by back-to-back games at the weekend. It had been hard on British players for the past few years anyway, because anybody with a British passport could not be restricted employment in the UK. And, as I'm sure you'll realise, their are a great number of Canadians who can get British passports. Now, thanks to the EC, all EC member-states passport holders can not be restricted employment (opening the tide to more North Americans, as well as Swedes, Finns and Italians, who recognise the money to be made here now. As you may know the Bracknell Bees have only one British born, raised and trained player, Andy Pickles. This has, of course, raised the standard of the game over here, but it has also driven up the wage-bills dramatically. In the 60s, the British game was driven out of business through paying wages that it could never hope to sustain. For nearly two decades all that remained was rec.-hockey, until a new league was formed on the new young, British talent coming through. Many people are worried that that will happen again. I personally think it won't because a) we should have learnt from previous mistakes b) the game really is taking off at the moment and c) it is being run by business men as a business not fans as a hobby.
And, of course, the national coach wants to utilise all this new-found, "British" talent. Many have criticised this policy, but it has to be admitted it has worked in the short-term. As well as our brief term in Pool A, we finished just outside the medals in last years Pool B (with an under-strength team) and we are also second in our Olympic Qualifier Group (which also includes Switzerland, Holland, Denmark and Slovenia), and with a very good chance of winning it. At club level, our champions, Sheffield, made the semi-finals of the European Cup but Manchester were destroyed in the new European League (mind you, they were only entered because of their arena, anyway!) Of course, whether in the long-term there will be any benefits still has to be seen. Personally, I don't mind the glut of imports so long as they put something back into the game. It is believed that the foreign players will coach the kids of today and so produce the stars of tomorrow (to paraphrase the ISL's PR department!). We shall have to see.
However the Northern Prem. League aren't so sure and have introduced a restriction on foreign-trained players through gentleman's-agreement (the only legal way to do it). They are only allowing three imports per team, thus ensuring British players somewhere to play, although at a lower level. We do have some talented British players though. Tony Hand has been the British top points scorer for the last decade, regularly scoring 200+ points. Of course his scoring will drop dramatically this year, with the rise in defensive standards, but he is still a great player. He was drafted by the NHL when still a youngster (can't remember who by, sorry) but chose not to leave Edinburgh. Then there is Stevie Lyle. Although still only 16, Stevie has been playing top-grade Hockey for two years (a product of Cardiff's great youth policy) and has also played (and been lauded) for the GB team. This summer he went to Canada to try to further his career, and won a place on the Detroit Whalers team after the summer camp. Unfortunately Hartford returned a Czech forward who failed to make the cut at Summer camp and the team already had a Russian defenceman signed. Under CHL rules, only two foreign players are allowed per team and, unfortunately, Stevie was the one to loose out (creating quite a bit of friction between the coaching staff apparently). However, he has been asked to return next year, and is currently Caprice's back-up at Cardiff. Ironic, isn't it!