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Apologies if there is an existing thread.

I went to my first Ice Hockey game this evening for Leeds Knights vs Peterborough Phantoms. Didn't understand some of it and Leeds lost, but I still had a really good time. Very reasonably priced too.

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4 hours ago, Wiltshire Rhino said:

Going to watch Swindon Wildcats v Basingstoke Bison on Saturday. First hockey game of the season for me. Yep, it's a great sport to watch! 😀 

I really enjoyed it (despite losing). Been meaning to go since they started up then covid happened and just getting the opportunity now. Will probably go again next Saturday too.

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I’ve never been to a live Ice Hockey game and it’s the only branch of the North American major sports that I’ve yet to tick off after luckily catching NFL, Baseball and NBA in the USA.

My main understanding of the rules has all been learned from playing old versions of EA NHL Ice Hockey games on the Sega Megadrive etc.  Like Madden that is not a bad way of finding out the rules and picking up the intricacies plus tactics of a sport initially.

I think I’d be up for a good standard of ice hockey, but there’s no real local team and no self respecting person from where I’m from supports a team with ‘Manchester’ in its title! 😃

Edited by Gerrumonside ref
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7 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I’ve never been to a live Ice Hockey game and it’s the only branch of the North American major sports that I’ve yet to tick off after luckily catching NFL, Baseball and NBA in the USA.

My main understanding of the rules has all been learned from playing old versions of EA NHL Ice Hockey games on the Sega Megadrive etc.  Like Madden that is not a bad way of finding out the rules and picking up the intricacies plus tactics of a sport initially.

I think I’d be up for a good standard of ice hockey, but there’s no real local team and no self respecting person from where I’m from supports a team with ‘Manchester’ in its title! 😃

My liking of NFL is purely down to an interest from video games at around 12. I played the original megadrive Madden and a random one on PC called Unneccesary Roughness. It wasn't great but allowed you to edit teams. I'm pretty sure it's the only time anywhere where a Widnes team have won the NFL.

I likewise played NHLPA 93 and loved it. I used to go as Detroit mainly because they had Bob Probert who was 99 for fighting. Interestingly, it was only the other week I found out why it was called NHLPA and therefore why I don't really know any of the NHL franchises despite playing it to death.

I moved away from video games at about 17 and as such was never really exposed to much NHL. It just doesn't have the presence of NFL or even NBA. However, I watched the recent All or Nothing (which was very good) and was amazed that from a game I played as a 10 year old, I could still remember some less obvious rules like not being able to pass over 2 lines and how they do offside etc.

Widnes got a team about 5 years back and I've always meant to go, just never got round to it.

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Ice Hockey's never gripped me, but if you like it you can get a ton of it with a Premier Sports subscription, as well as next season's Championship RL.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • 2 months later...

I used to watch the old Manchester Storm when they played at the Nynex. They were good days, but the best hockey was when I went to Detroit and saw the Red Wings. It was around 1996 in the year they went on to win the Stanley Cup. 

Rugby League would likely be far better if the RFL weren’t involved.

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On 13/11/2021 at 22:06, Tommygilf said:

Apologies if there is an existing thread.

I went to my first Ice Hockey game this evening for Leeds Knights vs Peterborough Phantoms. Didn't understand some of it and Leeds lost, but I still had a really good time. Very reasonably priced too.

I keep promising myself that I’ll get along to see the Knights but not made it yet 

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality" - Mikhail Bakunin

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17 minutes ago, Phil said:

I keep promising myself that I’ll get along to see the Knights but not made it yet 

Yeah I get that feeling often, it is worth making the journey though if you can in my limited experience.

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Company owner has season seats at Centre Ice at the ACC in Toronto, couple of years ago he and his mates couldn't get to a game so he offered them out and I got them.  The Maple Leafs even won that night too. LOL

No idea how much they cost, but there is one set of four (same as we had) available in the next block down from centre ice that is currently selling for $345,000!!

Great night out and though it's not Europe for stadium atmosphere, hockey is still well up there as a game to watch live.

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17 hours ago, devonhawk said:

I used to watch the old Manchester Storm when they played at the Nynex. They were good days, but the best hockey was when I went to Detroit and saw the Red Wings. It was around 1996 in the year they went on to win the Stanley Cup. 

Nothing like a hockey game at the Joe.  Sadly the stadium has gone and replaced by a sanitized cookie cutter stadium with no atmosphere.

 

See if you can find the TV movie NetWorth on the interweb. Based on Hall of Famer Terrible Ted Lindsays attempt to set up a players union and how his employer the redwings treated him.

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  • 2 months later...

A good article on the Belfast Giants and how they found their niche in Belfast. A small part of it below:

Belfast was a very different place when the Giants played their first match in December 2000. The Good Friday agreement was just two years old and the city had been scarred by a conflict that remained raw. There was peace on the streets but it was fragile, and the sporting landscape was as entrenched and traditional as ever.

Sports fans in Belfast largely lived on a limited diet of rugby, football and Gaelic games. The Ulster rugby team had just won the European Cup but they played in a rickety, windswept mausoleum of a ground in east Belfast that was mostly favoured by Protestant fans. The Antrim hurling team played in the heart of nationalist West Belfast at Casement Park, but their glory days were long gone. And the various Irish League sides across the city were tied to political tribes. Sectarian chanting was common and made attending a game a rotten experience for anyone who yearned for a brighter expression of local pride.

The city needed something new, but the foundations for a professional ice hockey in Belfast were flimsy at best. There was (and remains) only one ice rink in Ireland and the sport was barely known, never mind understood. Would thousands of fans pay to watch North American athletes play an alien sport in a new venue? The Millennium Commission had stumped up £45m to build a gleaming arena in the shadow of the city’s shipyard, but the thought that an ice hockey team would bring in thousands of spectators still felt far-fetched. Those shipyards were famous for building the Titanic, after all, and that had not lasted for long.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/behind-the-lines/2022/apr/09/belfast-giants-ice-hockey-team-captivated-changed-city

Edited by Damien
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1 hour ago, Damien said:

A good article on the Belfast Giants and how they found their niche in Belfast. A small part of it below:

Belfast was a very different place when the Giants played their first match in December 2000. The Good Friday agreement was just two years old and the city had been scarred by a conflict that remained raw. There was peace on the streets but it was fragile, and the sporting landscape was as entrenched and traditional as ever.

Sports fans in Belfast largely lived on a limited diet of rugby, football and Gaelic games. The Ulster rugby team had just won the European Cup but they played in a rickety, windswept mausoleum of a ground in east Belfast that was mostly favoured by Protestant fans. The Antrim hurling team played in the heart of nationalist West Belfast at Casement Park, but their glory days were long gone. And the various Irish League sides across the city were tied to political tribes. Sectarian chanting was common and made attending a game a rotten experience for anyone who yearned for a brighter expression of local pride.

The city needed something new, but the foundations for a professional ice hockey in Belfast were flimsy at best. There was (and remains) only one ice rink in Ireland and the sport was barely known, never mind understood. Would thousands of fans pay to watch North American athletes play an alien sport in a new venue? The Millennium Commission had stumped up £45m to build a gleaming arena in the shadow of the city’s shipyard, but the thought that an ice hockey team would bring in thousands of spectators still felt far-fetched. Those shipyards were famous for building the Titanic, after all, and that had not lasted for long.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/behind-the-lines/2022/apr/09/belfast-giants-ice-hockey-team-captivated-changed-city

It's a lovely article, but Christmas, the comments underneath are bitter.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

It's a lovely article, but Christmas, the comments underneath are bitter.

I hadn't even read them until you said. Yes they are, very tribal. Its a bit odd that people seem threatened. As I said Belfast Giants have a niche and I dont think anyone would suggest otherwise. They just offer something different and its odd that anyone could feel threatened by them. Sports like GAA and Soccer are way bigger and everyone knows that. However the  comments certainly illustrate, in the case of Soccer anyhow, why this isn't reflected in the domestic scene and why the Belfast Giants get bigger crowds.

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4 minutes ago, Damien said:

I hadn't even read them until you said. Yes they are, very tribal. Its a bit odd that people seem threatened. As I said Belfast Giants have a niche and I dont think anyone would suggest otherwise. They just offer something different and its odd that anyone could feel threatened by them. Sports like GAA and Soccer are way bigger and everyone knows that. However the  comments certainly illustrate, in the case of Soccer anyhow, why this isn't reflected in the domestic scene and why the Belfast Giants get bigger crowds.

I did like the one about how you 'hardly' hear any major sectarian chanting or comments at the games any more. And not that much racism, really.

And the equivalent GAA one which said they are very welcoming but also very 'tightknit'. Tightknit is a euphemism I'm aware of from some of the local non league clubs round here and their 'welcome'.

Ice hockey and basketball are two good sports in this country for getting past the sporting tribalism that not everyone particularly enjoys.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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7 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I did like the one about how you 'hardly' hear any major sectarian chanting or comments at the games any more. And not that much racism, really.

And the equivalent GAA one which said they are very welcoming but also very 'tightknit'. Tightknit is a euphemism I'm aware of from some of the local non league clubs round here and their 'welcome'.

Ice hockey and basketball are two good sports in this country for getting past the sporting tribalism that not everyone particularly enjoys.

I've never actually been to a Belfast Giants game, just never got round to it, but it seems a real family night out, akin to going bowling or the cinema. A nice warm indoor event with no trouble or hostility and with good amenities and entertainment around the actual game. I can certainly see why its very appealing.

Perhaps the closest I have seen in RL was what Toronto did.

Edited by Damien
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I never got round to contributing to this thread when it began.  This wasn't due to lack of interest; on the contrary, over the years, ice hockey is the sport which I have attended most as a spectator, primarily, though not exclusively, to watch and support the Durham Wasps (1968 to 1974, and 1988 to 1995) and the Basingstoke Bison (various times from 1995 onwards)  I haven't been to Basingstoke for a few years, probably for two reasons: first, once I got Sky Sports, I realised that there was a limit to the amount of the WWD domestic budget which I could reasonably purloin for my sporting pleasure; and second, I had a couple of bad 'double booked seats' experiences at Basingstoke in quick succession, which was irritating.

In other threads in previous discussions, I have sometimes alluded to sporting 'culture'.  I mean that in two senses, which are the predominant sporting 'culture' of a country and the 'culture' within a particular sport.  Sometimes, of course, they merge into one; I think that is probably the case with North American sporting culture and that, more specifically, of baseball.

In the case of ice hockey, that merging between the two is also apparent, because of how North American custom and practice dominate ice hockey thinking throughout much, if not all, the world, including here in the UK. 

It throws up some interesting comparisons with rugby league.  In no particular order, here are some of them.

Loop fixtures in SL seem to be frowned upon by the majority on here; you should play each team once at home and once away, the received wisdom goes.  I have been too lazy or too cowardly to express an opposing view, but, with my hockey background, let me do so now!  Basingstoke, like new boys Leeds Knights mentioned in posts above, currently play in the national division of the English Ice Hockey League (ie the second tier, that below the Elite League)  That competition has nine or ten teams in it; they play each other six times in the regular season - three at home and three away.  Boring and tedious?  Not a bit of it!  That is because, by limiting the size of the competition, and by having teams which have, broadly speaking, similar levels of resources, the competition is very even.  For the bottom team to beat the top would be just one of those things and not seen as the jaw-dropping achievement of Toulouse in ending the Saints' 100% winning start.  So, it must be the case that crowds drop when, for the seemingly umpteenth time in the season, such-and-such a team come into town.  Well, actually, no.  There is a high proportion of season tickets, but in any case, a chance to see another close game is always welcomed, even by the casual attender.

There is transparency on organisational matters.  It has already been announced how the 2022-23 season in the English National Division will be structured; Bristol will join, thus bringing the nine team league this season up to ten.  So, 54 games per club, with each team once more playing host to every other one on three occasions. (It's worth bearing in mind that the nature of how ice hockey is played means that each team will usually play twice each weekend - on both Saturday and Sunday.)

There is no automatic P+R in UK ice hockey (or indeed, as far as I know, in many other countries)  I like this (and am not a fan of P+R in RL).  This means that winning the the second tier competition has merit in its own right; in other words, it means something, other than being a tiresome but obligatory stepping-stone to a higher level, which is the debased level at which the RL championship seems to be perceived.  Teams can, of course, move up to the Elite League (or down from it, and there are examples of both), but that will be based on a number of factors, of which where they have just finished in on-ice competition is not one.  Put simply, I just like the idea of a lower tier competition that is worth winning in its own right!

We seem good in RL at explaining why certain attempts to spread the game succeed only briefly or not at all.  One example is Sheffield; it's not really an RL city, one hears.  True...but then it wasn't an ice hockey one either.  The Sheffield Steelers have had rocky moments in their history, but are still playing at the top UK level for ice hockey - the Elite League.  I am not sure what level of support they currently and routinely enjoy, but I suspect their crowds would make quite a few RL pro or semi-pro teams rather envious.   

Incidentally, a valid boast of the Elite League (though I don't think they tend to stress the point) is that they are truly UK-wide, with teams in each of the four home nations.  They also demonstrate how, with the advent of, inter alia, modern, computer-based, information spreading technology, and satellite sports channels, the notion that you need a London-based side, to attract the media and hence survive, now looks decidedly old-fashioned and no longer true.

Finally, in this ramble through aspects of British hockey, we come back to 'culture'.  Ice hockey loves play-offs...always has and, I fancy, always will.  So, after an English National league campaign in which each team played each of the others an equal number of times, both at home and away, we have play-offs.  Ridiculous...but bring them on, I love them!

Humble apologies - this has turned out to be something of an essay.  I hope, nevertheless, that there is something of interest in here for some of you.

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15 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

They also demonstrate how, with the advent of, inter alia, modern, computer-based, information spreading technology, and satellite sports channels, the notion that you need a London-based side, to attract the media and hence survive, now looks decidedly old-fashioned and no longer true.

With a good friend, many, many years ago we went to a fair few Guildford Flames games. He still goes occasionally but life and expense means not so often.

Smallish arena but great atmosphere and they did put on an event every time.

We once - note once - went to see London Knights. What a completely empty experience. Vast hangar of a arena, the action somewhere in the distance and the 'event' just not connecting with anyone at all.

I think having a London team is better than not having one but not if it's done so badly that you don't miss it when it's gone.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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59 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

With a good friend, many, many years ago we went to a fair few Guildford Flames games. He still goes occasionally but life and expense means not so often.

Smallish arena but great atmosphere and they did put on an event every time.

We once - note once - went to see London Knights. What a completely empty experience. Vast hangar of a arena, the action somewhere in the distance and the 'event' just not connecting with anyone at all.

I think having a London team is better than not having one but not if it's done so badly that you don't miss it when it's gone.

Guildford Flames are an interesting example of a team who have stepped up a level, to the Elite League.  Good luck to them if they can manage that, but they will have lost a number of local derby clashes by doing so, including against Basingstoke Bison.

Incidentally - and without looking it up - do you, or anybody else, know which famous goalkeeper is, whenever he is free, playing in goal for the Flames reserve team, who play in the English League (South)?  I think this has the makings of a good pub quiz question!

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