The Printed Word

With the 2020-21 ice hockey seasons delayed until the end of the year, it’s more important than ever for clubs to stay in touch with their fan base. And that means thinking out the box. While 50-50 raffles and ‘shirt off the back' draws are vital, and well established ways of generating income at a time when revenue streams have all been turned off,  clubs need to get creative and funky if they are to bridge the yawning gap from lockdown to  puck drop. And it isn't just about hard cash. The sport has to engage if it is to keep its fan base involved, enthused and willing to hang on until the rink doors re-open. Some have worked incredibly hard - but the rest need to look at what they have done, how they have done it, and fully grasp that clinging to the old ways is utterly invalid this side of lockdown restrictions easing. Cardiff Devils output has been as sharp and professional as ever - as you’d expect from a club that leads the way in so many aspects of its organis...

Garry Tallent, Oran Mor, Glasgow My diary for August 2020 is almost blank. Every gig and show is ripped out - apart from one. Compare that to August 2019 and 75 shows shoehorned into three weeks of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, haring across the city from venue to venue, trying to catch four, sometimes five shows every day. The cost was ludicrous, but the memories and experiences priceless. Coronavirus has come perilously close to destroying the arts sector in the UK. Theatres are entering redundancy talks with staff amid fears they will close permanently, the summer festival season has been lost in its entirety, and shows rescheduled once will, almost certainly, be kicked further into the long grass as the entire industry hunkers down. March 2021 is the date many have ringed in their calendars for a possible return to gigging and live stage shows, and that may be too late to save many venues. A full calendar year without revenue is a horrific prospect. We are in serio...

Start date? Check. Structure? Check.  Direction of travel? Check Three out of three from one clear statement - exactly what  ice hockey fans needed after waiting patiently for news on the 2020-21 EIHL season. But there’s still a mighty long way to go before we’re all rinkside to see the puck drop on opening night - and there remain more questions than definitive answers. The EIHL has effectively put the entire schedule on wheels and rolled it down the track. August pre-season is now November. The new Magic5 weekend gathering goes from October to December. The regular season start date moves from September to December. Play-offs go from March to May. But, a giant asterix remains next to everything, and that uncertainty is unlikely to recede anytime soon. So much of what happens next is entirely outwith the control of the league or its clubs. The positives from yesterday’s announcement? Well, there are many: It means things can now move forward. It has given clarity...

You have to scroll back to April 22 for the latest news update from the Elite League. We were one month into lockdown, our streets were empty and silent, and life had simply stopped. The announcement of “very provisional dates” for the new Magic5 weekend to herald the start of the 2020-21 season were formally unveiled just as we were adjusting to bewilderingly different daily lives. But the news gave us something tangible to shoot for, even if October 3-4, felt like a world away. The irony is, in mid-July, it feels not one millimetre closer. Some would say it’s now a smaller dot on the horizon. Ask anyone when they think the new hockey season will start, and the best you’ll get is a vague “end of the year” guesstimate before we’re all back rinkside, face masks or no face masks - and even that is said more in hope than expectation. This is a sport dangling in limbo looking down into a vast, empty canyon. As lockdown restrictions ease, it is clear that indoor venues, such as ic...

Cobbinshaw House, 12 storeys high. I don't remember the place being so green. The places we played and hung out were made of concrete slabs. Today they are scrubland - overgrown grassy carpets, and trees everywhere - but much of the fabric of the Calders hasn't changed. I moved into Wester Hailes as a young kid. We were allocated a flat seven floors up in Cobbinshaw House, one of three multi-storey blocks which still dominate the Calders skyline. From the kitchen we watched the traffic as if they were toy cars, and saw the shifts clocking in and out of Burtons' biscuit factory. From the living room we looked across the entire estate, over the roof of Sighthill Primary, and on past Arthur's Seat The building had two lifts, one with what looked like space for luggage at the back. Locals claimed it was to slide coffins in after folk died, otherwise they had to be carted out at a 45-degree angle until they reached the ground floor. I so want that story to be t...

The small stone angel is easy to miss. It sits against one of the perimeter walls of the graveyard at Abbotshall Church, its arms clasped, perched on the most modest of plinths. It is memory of a Christina Johnson, who died on March 26, 1927, aged just  aged just 6 years and seven months, but the angel could easily represent the resting places of children which can be found across our historic graveyards.  They are reminders of a time when families retired into grief, the curtains drawn, and mourning clothes looked out once again for a life that only just begun. At Abbotshall, child graves are placed regularly among the merchants, the great and the good, and those killed in war. A simple stone marks the lives of Nellie and Robert Brown, who both died in infancy, while you can only wonder at the sense of grief which descended on the Windsor house where Colin and Agnes lost three children in four years - Agnes, aged three in 1879; Jane, aged six, in 1880 and then Maggie,...

It sits in the shadows of three multi-storey tower blocks, and cars roar past just yards away but the old cemetery on Nether Street remains a place of forgotten tranquility. Turn away from the traffic and you have the most glorious view over the stone wall to the tower Ravenscraig Castle and out across the Forth, and an open invitation to step into Kirkcaldy’s past. The headstones date back to the 1800s, and give the most slender of glimpses into previous generations of Langtonians. Some have fallen, others have faded so badly the inscriptions are impossible to read, but they all mark the final resting spot of someone who left a footprint on this town.  Every headstone  offers a glimpse into a life lived - even if it is simply their date of death and a formal roll call of their loved ones who share their burial space. Many still mourn the loss of infants - children barely making it beyond their third of fourth birthday, and some contains eulogies to those who have pa...

Cash Back in Fife - Dean Owens & Rab Noakes The launch of  #LetTheMusicPlay has sparked memories of great gigs, amazing venues - and how much live music means to so many people. The snapshots are all from the very last gig people saw before lockdown saw the lights switched off and the doors locked. Three months into lockdown, and with it becoming worryingly apparent the Government has little interest in acting to rescue the arts sector from potential ruin, it is fantastic to see the industry rallying support. The hashstag brings together artists, promoters, agents, venues and fans in asking the  UK government to protect the live music industry. Launched by UK Music, the organisation which represents the country’s commercial music sector, it wants a clear timeline for re-opening venues and  an immediate and comprehensive business and employment support package. That covers rent breaks for venues which now have zero income, and help for the self-employ...

It took just one sentence to deliver a hefty reality check to ice hockey and its hopes for the 2020-21 season. “Let me reaffirm that with social distancing, sport at our level is simply not viable.” If that doesn’t stop every fan in their tracks, nothing will. As chief operating officer at Glasgow Clan, Gareth Chalmers is better placed than most to deliver a view on the bigger picture as the sport prepares for an extended period in limbo. He also said more of substance in one interview with The Herald than the league has revealed across the whole of summer. You have to rewind to April 22 to find the latest update from the EIHL when it announced provisional dates for the new Magic 5 weekend in Nottingham involving all ten teams. Since then, it has fallen silent. While clubs are announcing signings and building teams - and that work has to continue in readiness for any potential re-start -  fans remain no further informed about the 2020-21 season.  You can kiss good...