Growing hockey in the United Kingdom
Hundreds of Scots jammed into a theatre in the city of Fife last month to mark the 40th anniversary of a historic event in the Scottish city.
It wasn’t a battlefield victory. Nor a soccer match. It was a hockey title – spurred by Kingston’s Ron Plumb, who shaped a ragtag group of Canadian and local players into fan favourites and coached them to the British Hockey League championship.
In the summer of 1984, Plumb was an aging player who was back in Kingston after skating in the WHA, NHL, Germany and Japan. He was wondering what to do next when he was offered a position in Fife.
At the same time, the people of Fife were desperate for some good news. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was closing the coal mines that the region relied on to keep people employed and pay cheques flowing.
After agreeing to take the job as player/coach, Plumb realized that there was much more to the role. He needed to sell tickets – urgently. The Fife Flyers had been skating since 1938, but the fan base was dwindling and the club was running out of money.
The Canadian took to the task with gusto, going into schools and allowing students to take shots with a ball at a volunteer goalie. He gave out one hundred free tickets at each school. Soon, the arena was packed with screaming fans.
On the ice, Plumb demonstrated that he still had plenty to give to the sport, collecting 80 points in a 36-game season. He was joined by fellow Canadians Danny Brown, father of Edmonton Oilers star Connor Brown, and Dave Stoyanovich, who would win the league scoring title that year. The team was rounded out by a cast of local British players.
That year, the Fife Flyers went on to win the British hockey title, the first and only time that the team has captured that honour. This year, Plumb, Brown and the British players all traveled to Fife for the anniversary celebration.
“I can’t figure out why the city is obsessed with a championship that happened 40 years ago,” Plumb says after returning to Kingston from Scotland last month. “Maybe it’s like the Leafs – the fans may never experience another Stanley Cup championship.”
Of course, Scots love sports, including soccer and golf. But hockey?
“Being a sports fan is ingrained in folks there,” Plumb says. “We set the town on fire, giving them something to believe in and cheer for. It was a feel-good story.”
Allan Crow is a Scottish journalist who moved to Fife a few years after the stunning championship.
“When I arrived here, there were kids playing roller hockey in the street,” he recalls. He had never seen that anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
“I thought ‘what’s going on here’? That’s all thanks to Ron Plumb.”
“Now, hockey is a big part of this town,” Crow says. In recent years, the Flyers have struggled. Last season they won just five games in a 54-game schedule. Nevertheless, they are still drawing 1,700 fans a night, comparable to some of the crowds that the Kingston Frontenacs were attracting during their lean years.
Still, across the United Kingdom, hockey is not well known. In the NHL, there is only one British player, Nathan Walker of the St. Louis Blues. Compare that to Finland, which has more than 50 nationals skating in the league, including standouts like Roope Hintz and Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars.
The dearth of British stars shows up in the world hockey rankings. While Canada and Finland top the list, Great Britain ranks 17th, ahead of Italy but behind Kazakhstan. In women’s hockey, dominated every year by Canada and the United States, the UK ranks 20th.
The NHL and Olympic organizers desperately want to see more countries take up the game and become competitive. That would mean more worldwide interest from fans and more dollars flowing in.
“Ice hockey in Britain is a boom and bust roller coaster ride,” says Crow. Teams like Fife know that there’s a balancing act. Fans want to see local players, but they may not have the dazzling skating and shooting skills that foreigners bring to generate entertaining hockey each evening.
“Hundred of kids in Fife play hockey every week,” Crow says. “But the challenge is that the gate into the senior team is now very, very narrow.”
Scottish parents face the same difficulties that their Canadian counterparts are familiar with – the exorbitant cost of playing the game, with expensive equipment and ice time.
“If your kid is going to take up a new sport, I tell parents not to enroll them in hockey,” Crow jokes. In addition to gear, families must invest a lot of time traveling between cities so that their kids can get competitive matches.
Plumb regards the British hockey title as the pinnacle of his career, more exciting that playing in the WHA or NHL.
“We were treated like rock stars in Fife,” he says. “Returning 40 years later and having a huge celebration was unbelievable.”