Before the Covid 19 pandemic swept across the world, British hockey was in a strong position compared to previous years, with the immediate future looking rosy.
Attendances on the rise:
Approximately 950,000 spectators attended through the 2018-19 season and a very crude assessment of 2019-20 numbers it appears that number was set to rise again.
Competition:
It was never truer than through the 2019-20 campaign that there were no freebies and any team could beat another despite what the standings might say. The top five in the Elite League were split by just six points before play was brought to an abrupt halt and all those teams held some kind of chance of winning the title.
Belfast and Cardiff may not have made it through the qualification stages of the Champions Hockey League but both were competitive with just one result going the other way meaning they could have made it to the knockout phase.
In the last two Continental Cup competitions, Belfast and Nottingham have been runners-up as teams from the UK have shown they can compete with the rest of Europe.
International growth:
The national team broke records and received worldwide acclaim.
Never had a nation won consecutive promotions and then remained in the top tier of World Championship. Great Britain’s incredible comeback against France in 2019 put the team on a pedestal never seen before.
That allied with Liam Kirk continuing to turn heads in North America meant that the hockey world was looking at the UK as a legitimate hockey nation for the first time.
British players were genuinely being scouted and seen as assets for European clubs.
Players such as Ben Bowns, Robert Farmer, Mike Hammond and Brett Perlini all courted by teams outside of the UK.
In one fell swoop, a worldwide pandemic has left the state of UK hockey and fate of Team GB very much up in the air.
The UK’s Elite League was brought to an abrupt halt and the 2019-20 campaign was left uncompleted.
The prospects of a 2020-21 season looked somewhat promising in December with the proposal of a ‘bubble set-up’ to begin sometime between January and March.
With the United Kingdom now suffering almost worse than any other nation in the world as regards the pandemic, any possibility of hockey returning for a shortened season looks hopeful at best.
Even an August start for the 2021-22 season at this moment in time is very much in doubt. Could hockey in the UK survive without teams competing for two consecutive seasons?
Even if the sport can return at some point, will the sponsors be able to plough in the same level of investment as before?
If the league’s and teams incomes reduce does that mean the standard of the league will drop with far fewer imports? Will that as a result turn away fans who won’t feel inclined to spend their hard-earned wages on an inferior product to what they were previously watching in increasing numbers?
As for the national team, if a 2021 World Championships does take place then there is the solace that there will be no relegation. Depending on what kind of roster Head Coach Pete Russell would be able to piece together, it is unlikely GB would be able to put up anything like the showing they did in 2019.
Let’s not forget that many of the heroes from 2019 have barely played a competitive game since the spring of 2020.
If there isn’t an Elite League season in 2021-22 or a contrived version, what state will the national team be in heading in the 2022 worlds?
The future for ice hockey in the UK feels very uneasy at this time and any return to normality is many, many months, not weeks, away.
No organisation within the sport is to blame and in fact, many have been working overtime to try and plan to bring back the sport when allowed by the authorities.
The NIHL Streaming series was an excellent example of just that.
With no heroes to watch on the ice, no hometown team to cheer and nowhere to skate, how many children and young people might be lost to the sport between now and a time when hockey returns? Rinks have already been forced to close during the pandemic and there’s no guarantee that more won’t suffer the same fate.
The above, perhaps, is the most worrying factor of anything I have mentioned here.
In no way is this intended to be a fear-mongering article but merely point out that the future is very uncertain and there are many unanswered questions that at some point will have to be addressed.
After making such great strides before the pandemic, UK hockey will have to find a way, and a will, to work it’s way back.
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UK Hockey Blog 
Hi Mark, apologies long reply to follow, it is indeed a worrying time for British hockey. You’re spot on in what you say while we should have been riding high and looking forward to GB trying to secure another year in the top flight there is just uncertainty and it’s quite hard to see any positives. I do think however there might be a couple of potentially good things hiding amongst the general mayhem. The removal of Belarus as a host nation helps GB’s chance of survival a little bit as they will no longer have home ice advantage and their vociferous support behind them it makes our game against them just slightly easier as they would be the team we’d most likely target to try and get a result.
My thoughts on number of imports playing in the EIHL & NIHL possibly goes against others but I actually think it might not be a bad thing to have less imports as inevitably that will increase the ice time for our home grown players. It’s all well and good saying that X imports improves the quality of the league but if a home grown prospect is only seeing 5-10 min toi then is he really benefitting from playing in that league ? When I think back to the 3 import era we used to see some absolutely top class players whether it had been guys who had just missed being drafted for whatever reason ( I believe Scott Morrison was a victim of the too small for the NHL mentality , take a look at the OHL scoring stats for 82-83 and 83-84 and see the names he outscored) or guys like Gary Unger , Mike Blaisdell who had vast NHL experience to pass onto younger players (more on that to follow) . I believe that if teams temporarily went down the NHL vet looking for a cushy retirement number option that it could be more beneficial than filling the roster with guys that nobody but the most dedicated hockey geeks have heard of . A brief look at Belfast’s 2019-20 roster shows me that there was only 7 GB born players and a couple of dual nationals , 10 Canadians , 6 USA , 1 Pole , 1 Swede. Out of all that there’s only 185 games of NHL experience , granted there’s also 2,000 + games of AHL experience .
More worrying though is only 1 of the British players being under 25 and only another 2 under 30 . There’s clearly not a lot of opportunities for young GB players . Cardiff again only 8 GB players and only 2 under 30 .
If you look at the GB roster from the last WC only 9 from the 25 are under 30 . In my eyes this is the perfect chance to give the guys who are in the GB U20 squad a chance to step up and play in the EIHL rather than the NIHL so that the step up to the GB senior squad isn’t as steep.
Following on from a brief discussion we had on twitter I also believe that this year might spur more players into exploring the chance to play out of GB and try to get ice time in Europe or further afield which will also help development, If GB coaches and others who have coached here are also willing to take Brits out to their respective teams give our guys further exposure to Euro leagues and scouts we might see more interest in our game from abroad and potentially attract a higher standard of import.
Cheers . Paul , ManxRavens19