The Printed Word

It takes something, or someone,  special to transform a barn like Wembley Arena into a village hall. Bruce Springsteen did just that when he brought his Seeger Sessions tour to London, and delivered a gig that remains - almost 15 years on - one of the most joyful I have ever witnessed.  It probably wasn’t surpassed until I saw Paul Simon perform the whole of Graceland with the original musicians at Hyde Park, and 45,000 folk danced with utter glee to You Can Call Me Al. Wembley Arena is a pretty bog standard venue - four sided, grey, minimal character, banks of seats and with an in-built ability to smother the atmosphere of any event it hosts. I knew it well as it was British ice hockey’s ‘home’ where fans from every club gathered for glorious championship final weekends, all fuelled by the nectar of main  sponsors, Heineken, which often rolled late into the night. This was the first time I’d been to a live gig there, and the first time I’d seen Springsteen perform indoor...

  T here cannot be a final resting place in Edinburgh with a more dramatic, or contrasting, backdrop. The rows of headstones across the graveyard at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church either lie next to the tranquility of Princes Street Gardens or the bustle of Lothian Road. They are also dissected by the main rail line out of the city, but all are overlooked by the imposing outline of Edinburgh Castle. To follow its muddy, leaf-covered paths is to step back centuries into the world of the privileged professionals who shaped the city. As with many historic cemeteries, St Cuthbert’s is dominated by the great and the good; men of influence and position, whose character and morality are lauded in rousing tributes etched into stone. Women are remembered as wives and mothers - and, in the case of Margaret Grant, who died in her 80th year in ‘Porto-bello’ all that is recalled is “having distinguished and adorned her long widowhood by the habitual exercise of charity, hospitality and generous fr...

Pic: Steve Gunn We’re hurtling towards mid January and the proposed Elite League mini season seems so remote the ice rinks may as well be on Mars. If we haven’t reached the point of no return, then it surely must be a substantial shadow on the horizon. With the country locking down ever tighter, it still feels like mission impossible to see a puck dropped at all. Only one team, Sheffield Steelers, has continually banged the drum for it. The club never does knowingly under-sell anything, to be fair. The other four English clubs seem to have gone to sleep. Nottingham Panthers appear content re-running old games online, Coventry Blaze have an anniversary raffle, Guildford have yet to emerge from their festive break, and Manchester Storm are so up to date, their website is still wishing folk a Merry Christmas. So the only cheerleader in town is the one clad in orange -  but it’s hard to see what it has actually got to sell, other than hope. False hope? Listening to coach Aaron Fox talk...

Five weeks have lapsed since the potential return of ice hockey was first mooted. The talk was off a condensed 2020-21 season involving five, maybe six of the ten EIHL teams. Five weeks on, and hopes of a January start must surely now be off the table. The league was allocated £4m Sport England’s Winter Survival Pack age, but it could only be accessed if the sport actually got blades hitting the ice. No play, no pay was the bottom line, hence the talk of a shortened season with fewer clubs and imports. With the country now living under heightened restrictions and travel severely limited across regions - let alone borders - it seems unfeasible to even think about dropping the puck right now. Since the EIHL’s statement of November 27 outlining s tentative return, the only sound has been that of silence. That sole PR was soaked in caveats - “we still have to be cautious and can't promise anything concrete” were Tony Smith’s exact words. Only Sheffield have kept up talk of any competit...