Ice hockey in search of a route map and direction of travel

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 ice rinks, theatres, nightclubs and so on, are still some way from re-starting, so it seems strange that the league hasn’t taken the Magic5 off the table.

There is talk of Sheffield’s arena being mothballed - a fate which could easily see Nottingham put into limbo too.

They are built to host large scale events. Right now, they simply can’t happen.

The Hydro in Glasgow - a 14,000-seat live venue - is effectively in hiatus until next Spring or until someone comes up with a vaccine. Major gigs rescheduled once will, almost certainly ,get knocked further back, if not completely scrapped.

Right now, hockey fans are living off the heady fumes of (very recent) nostalgia, but there’s only so many times you can re-run games online and chuck in all the whistles and bells - 50/50 raffles, shirt off the back, and old interviews - before attention, and interest, start to drift.


And it has to be said, not every fan follows club or league social media pages. There is a life beyond Facebook and Twitter which keeps many of us quite occupied.

The online engagement is now focussed on fantasy play-offs.

It’s all  fun stuff, but it’s also froth.  I fear the chit chat  over which teams might have played each other in the championship finals that never happened, will only keep people involved for all the time it takes to click and vote.

Somewhere in that mix, fans need real info, and an insight into what the league is thinking as a collective unit right now.

Some teams are announcing players as if the puck is about to drop, while others have gone into deep hibernation with a clear “do not disturb” sign hanging from the entrance to the dressing room and board room. No surprises for guessing which summer  berth Fife Flyers have chosen to occupy once again ...

Those limited arrivals and departures are the closest thing right now to a build-up, but is it just me who wonders what exactly they are signing up to?

Any hockey player travelling from North America will want a solid contract which stipulates ‘X’ pay for ‘Y’ number of  games over ‘Z’ number of weeks.

It’s hard to see how that can be negotiated, let along guaranteed, when the league has no start date or definitive structure. 

Every club will also want an opt out clause in the event of a second wave shutting down the league, or, even worse, outbreaks prompting local lockdowns which then isolate specific  weekend fixtures but also throw the entire  schedules into utter chaos.

Imagine if the 2020-21 season started and a team flew in 15-16 imports, housed them, gave them cars and agreed bonuses, and then the whole campaign was stopped after eight weeks? What happens next? 

Who pays and houses the guys if they cannot get home because of travel restrictions? 

And where does that money come from to cover a  potentially long stay while all revenue streams have, once again, been spiked? Life in limbo, and many miles from home cannot be good for anyone’s mental health.

I get the ‘we need to build a team and be ready’ approach - doing nothing isn’t actually an option - but how solid are those signings unveiled with great fanfare?  The fact the vast majority of players have yet to confirm their plans perhaps speaks volumes.

Guys back home will be watching the UK’s progress out of COVID-19 and comparing that with elsewhere in Europe, Scandinavia, and North America. They have to weigh up their options, and do what is best for them at a  time of global uncertainty. 

We are starting to see a return to a very different normal, but while people adapt, we still only have a limited understanding of what lies ahead.

We know things will be different. The challenge is to adjust our expectations - not just lower them.

Right now, we have nothing by way of a comparison other than the past, and using that when trying to imagine sitting rinkside with social distancing in place  is a tough stretch.

So, keeping people informed right now, as well as entertained,  is crucial - perhaps more so than ever, and I say that as someone who looks on in bewilderment at Fife Flyers’ miserably  thrawn approach to releasing information. Any information at all…

The road ahead for the EIHL is worryingly vague right now. So much is out of their control that no hockey remains a very real possibility.

But, that doesn’t mean they can’t speak about their hopes and ambitions, and their preferred direction of travel. In fact, right now it’s more important than ever.

A Magic5 in Nottingham in October is clearly non-starter, so let’s formally cull it. Might as well start the fantasy “who would have qualified and won it” online poll right now.