The Printed Word

It feels like only a matter of time before the first sport collapses completely. The longer society remains locked down, the bleaker the picture becomes, and the greater the threat grows. While the elite in football bathe in the riches of television cash, everyone else can only look out on empty stadia and wonder when the roar of the crowd will be heard again. This week's warning from British basketball that it might not survive was the first of what may be many as sports organisations weigh up the full impact of life in limbo. There are many fanciful notions of playing games in empty arenas, of bussing teams into one venue and streaming the action live. The reality is they all come with deep-rooted challenges. The practicalities of testing players, coaches, backroom staff, and stadium staff just to stage one single game are considerable. The reality, as spelled out by British basketball's chairman,  Sir Rodney Walker, was stark:  A sport without the ability to a...

I've eaten badly pretty much all of my adult life. Junk food, ready meals, take-aways, bread and carbs galore.  I know I could do with losing the proverbial "few pounds" ... if I could be bothered. But ... I work in an office. I sit down all day. I go home tired. Lunch is from Greggs. Excuses, excuses ... yup, got plenty of 'em I've never gone to a gym in my life, and have absolutely zero interest in starting now. Exercise? Okay, I go walking, but, that's it. If you ever see me clad in lycra and jogging, please shoot me. And yet, ...three weeks into lockdown, and things have changed in a way I didn't expect. In that time, I reckon I've had  two square meals in total.  Everything else has come via a juicer and blender, and I feel better. Much better. I'm  sleeping incredibly well, I've lost weight - not much, but a bit (that's as scientific as I get) -  and, in all honesty,  haven't missed the crisps, beer 'n' ...

Cities are noisy places. Sirens wail, tourist chatter, buses screech to a halt, groups gather. It's strange how quickly you get used to the silence.  It is as if someone has pressed the mute button on all sound.  The temporary lull of lockdown has also slowed the pace at which we move. It has deleted almost everything from our calendars except for one daily burst of exercise, and one trip to the shops. To walk round Edinburgh is to experience the city in a way that was unimaginable just a month or so ago. A bike on the side of a pub in Leith The capitals roads, which cause so many drivers to seethe with rage as they crash into another pothole or contend with yet another changed lay-out, are virtually empty. Buses run with barely a handful of passengers. The trams are like ghost vessels. It's possible to stand in the middle of Princes Street or George Street and take a photo without a horn blaring in anger. Perhaps the most vivid illustration com...

If all goes to plan, ice hockey fans will converge on Nottingham for the Magic5 weekend on October 3-4. In putting the dates into the publ ic domain, the EIHL added a hefty caveat - they were "very provisional" and subject to the Government lifting the ban on mass gatherings. You could sense the hesitancy in the PR. There's little else the league can do now but cross its fingers - and hope. The state of suspension continues for it and every sport around the globe, and the final decision on when it ends is outwith its control. Planning continues as normal with weekly conference calls of all ten teams.  That way, in the event of lockdown and all restrictions ending, ice hockey is, hopefully, ready to roll. The Magic5 would see the ten teams play derby games for league points across the two days on the one ice pad. That makes for a busy and fun weekend of hockey and, of equal importance, a chance for fans to meet up and have a few beers.  Those frie...

Sport is facing the most uncertain future as we start to look ahead to emerging from lockdown. There is every prospect it won't re-start until 2021, and -worst case scenario - the 2020-21 season could be lost in its entirety. Sport needs an audience, and that means mass crowds. That cannot happen until the coronavirus pandemic has subsided and we can be confident of lifting all social distancing measures. In the middle of April, with at least three more weeks in lockdown, that still feels like a point on the horizon. The new ice hockey season is slated for a late August start, and some clubs have started talking about season tickets, but that simply raises one question: what exactly are they selling? The desire to carry on as normal is compelling and wholly understandable - and there needs to be a degree of pre-planning right now.  The summer recess is a busy time for coaches trying to build teams and recruit, while administrators have much to organise before a puck i...

The #MeAt20 hashtag has had everyone digging out photos of themselves from years - decades - ago. The images of our younger self may reveal dodgy haircuts and questionable tastes in clothing, but they are more than just snapshots from the past. What would the 20-year old me make of the 56-year old version currently trying to find a sane way through a pandemic which has changed every single aspect of how we live today? At 20, I was a trainee/junior reporter on the Cumnock Chronicle in Ayrshire - a mining town that became my home for five years. I was living in digs in a room on the top floor of an old house which overlooked the town square, while waiting on a place of my own getting sorted. Weekends were spent travelling back to Edinburgh, or nights out in Ayr or Kilmarnock, with the occasional swally in the Dumfries Arms. Each week, after the paper appeared, we had the Thursday Club where the staff decamped to the Royal Hotel for a drink. Sometimes two, occasion...

As long as there is social distancing, the doors to any new season cannot re-open There was a sobering article published by Sports Illustrated on attempts to re-start big time sport in North America. The bottom line was surely a wake-up call to every league in every country. When society does return to normal, events which attract large crowds - which depend upon them for revenue and atmosphere - will be at the very tail of  a very long queue. As long as there is social distancing, the doors to any new season cannot re-open, and, even when they do, we may have to make radical adjustments. There has to be an orderly return to everyday life, and places where people congregate - bars, restaurants, arenas, concert halls -  may have to adapt to very different operating models, possibly forever. It's now mid-April. The 2019-20 ice hockey season should just have finished on a high with the play-off finals weekend in Nottingham. The rumour mill should be flowing like a w...

Wembley, 80,000 fans, 3.5 hours on stage  Two weeks into lockdown, and Western Stars remains my go-to soundtrack while working from home, and the perfect excuse to mix things up with a delve into Springsteen's back catalogue. In truth, 15 songs could have been 25, 35 or even 50, and I still wouldn't have scratched the surface in a lifelong love of his music. It's 39 years since I first saw him live on the original River tour when he played two nights at the Edinburgh Playhouse. The ticket stub and programme are framed alongside the 2016 tour souvenir of four gigs in four cities in 12 days. So, my lockdown lowdown on the Boss - 15 songs to put on repeat: 1 Born To Run From the split second Max Weinberg's drums crash out of the speakers to the very last chord, this song sends your spirits soaring. It's his defining moment- a song of epic ambition and with the cojones to pull it off; a bona fide rock anthem which never sounds tired whether blasting out...

“People want to have hope, and to plan for the future.” Todd Dutiaume’s observation chimed much wider than just ice hockey. Finding the ‘new’ normal when life as we know it as effectively ceased isn’t easy, but there has to be an end in sight. Sport stopped almost overnight in March, and those initial postponements have now become cancellations. Seasons ended prematurely will remain incomplete; an asterix noting the reason why stats stalled, and no-one was conferred as champions. As for the 2020-21 campaigns, when they start remains unknown, but for coaches such as Dutiaume and Omar Pacha at Dundee Stars, the groundwork has to be done now. They go into summer unsure whether players will cross the Atlantic and, if they do, what sort of EIHL they will be part of. It’s entirely possible import numbers could be cut to absorb costs, and a delayed start could mean a curtailed season. Indeed, will all ten clubs make it to the starting line? Pacha’s inter...