Ice Hockey: The Sport That Never Really Left Me

From Bracknell to Widnes, with a Few Detours Along the Way

There are sports you watch.

There are sports you play.

And then there are the ones that somehow become part of your life.

For me, that's ice hockey.

My relationship with hockey started when I was young in Bracknell, growing up around the rink, going through Bracknell's youth development system and watching some of the players who would become part of one of the most memorable periods of British ice hockey.

Hockey wasn't something I'd discovered on television from thousands of miles away.

It was right there in front of me.

The cold rink. The sound of skates carving through the ice. Pucks smashing against the boards. The speed. The physicality. The noise.

I was hooked.

Growing Up With Bracknell

Growing up around Bracknell meant I was fortunate enough to watch some fantastic players.

PC Drouin. Brian Greer. Matt Cote. Brad Wingfield. Dennis Chase.

Along with all the other players from that incredible Superleague-winning team, these were the people I grew up watching.

As a kid, they weren't simply names on a roster.

They were the hockey players.

You'd watch what happened on the ice and then want to recreate it yourself.

Although trying to recreate Brad Wingfield probably wasn't always the wisest approach to youth hockey.

There was something about that era of British ice hockey that captured me. The personalities were huge, the hockey was fast, physical and exciting, and the atmosphere inside the rink made everything feel enormous when you were a kid watching from the stands.

Bracknell gave me my introduction to that world.

And once hockey gets its hooks into you, apparently there's no known cure.

A Connection Across the Atlantic

My hockey story wasn't exclusively British.

I have family in Calgary, which naturally created a connection with the Calgary Flames and introduced another dimension to the sport I already loved.

The NHL felt enormous compared with the British game I'd grown up watching, but it was still recognisably the same sport.

Through that family connection, Calgary became part of my hockey world.

But then there's Boston.

Over the years, I've developed a real love for the Boston Bruins.

There's something about the history, identity and culture surrounding the Bruins that has always appealed to me.

Having an affection for both Calgary and Boston can occasionally make the NHL slightly complicated.

But that's sport.

Eventually You Have to Put the Skates On

Watching hockey was only part of it.

I wanted to play.

Growing up through Bracknell's youth development system gave me that opportunity and began a playing journey that would eventually take me through several rinks and several different stages of my life.

I went on to play hockey in Slough and Basingstoke.

And hockey is a peculiar sport to play.

From outside the rink, the objective appears reasonably straightforward.

Then you step onto the ice and discover you're expected to control a small piece of vulcanised rubber with a stick while balancing on two pieces of sharpened steel as several other people attempt to stop you doing precisely that.

It's brilliant.

Then Life Happened

Like a lot of things you love when you're younger, hockey eventually had to compete with adulthood.

Work.

Family.

Responsibilities.

Life.

There was a hiatus from playing.

But I never really stopped loving the sport.

That's one of the strange things about hockey for me.

Even when I wasn't playing, I was still a hockey person.

I'd still follow the sport. I'd still watch games. I'd still be interested in what was happening.

The equipment might have been sitting unused, but the interest never disappeared.

Eventually, the skates came back out.

Back on the Ice

My return to playing came with Chester Road Reapers.

After being away from playing for so long, getting back onto the ice reminded me exactly why I'd loved doing it in the first place.

The equipment had changed.

I had changed.

My knees had certainly developed some opinions on the matter.

But hockey was still hockey.

My time with the Reapers also became about more than simply playing.

I became involved with the wider club, including social media, its website and creative work around the team.

It was where another part of my life began colliding with hockey.

Design and technology.

I realised I didn't just enjoy being part of a hockey team.

I enjoyed helping create the identity and community around one.

Riverside Raiders

That journey has now brought me to the Riverside Raiders, playing out of Widnes.

Raiders feels like another evolution of my relationship with hockey.

I'm back playing the sport I grew up loving, but I'm also able to contribute creatively to the team through its website, social media, graphics and wider digital identity.

Two things I've loved for years have collided rather nicely.

Hockey and making things.

I've been able to experiment with retro website design, player graphics, sponsorship ideas, merchandise concepts and an increasingly strange digital world inspired by Windows 98, early internet culture and hockey nostalgia.

It means hockey isn't simply somewhere I go to play anymore.

It's somewhere I get to create as well.

And When I'm Not Playing…

There's also a considerable difference between playing recreational hockey and watching people who are significantly better at it.

These days, I love going to watch the Sheffield Steelers.

There's still something special about walking into an arena for a hockey game.

You can watch almost any sport from home now on an enormous television, in perfect quality, sitting on a comfortable sofa with considerably cheaper food.

But hockey needs a rink.

You need to hear the puck hit the boards.

You need the sound of the skates.

You need the crowd reacting before you've completely processed what happened.

And you need that blast of cold air that reminds you you've voluntarily paid money to spend several hours sitting next to a giant sheet of ice.

From Bracknell to Widnes

When I look back at my relationship with hockey, there's a long line connecting everything together.

Bracknell.

Youth development.

Watching PC Drouin, Brian Greer, Matt Cote, Brad Wingfield, Dennis Chase and the rest of that memorable Superleague era.

Family in Calgary and an affection for the Flames.

My love for the Bruins.

Playing in Slough.

Playing in Basingstoke.

Walking away from playing for a while.

Coming back with Chester Road Reapers.

Finding Riverside Raiders in Widnes.

Travelling to Sheffield to watch the Steelers.

The teams have changed.

The rinks have changed.

I've certainly changed.

But the sport hasn't.

More Than a Hobby

Hockey has given me competition, friendships, memories and community.

It's also followed me through completely different stages of my life.

As a kid, I wanted to be one of the players I was watching.

As an adult, I appreciate the game differently.

I still love playing.

I still love watching.

But now I also appreciate everything that exists around the ice.

The teammates.

The coaches.

The volunteers.

The people organising games.

The person running the clock.

The sponsors keeping teams going.

The families sitting in freezing rinks.

The people designing graphics at ridiculous hours.

The communities that somehow form around a sheet of frozen water.

That's probably why I keep finding myself doing more than simply turning up with my kit.

Hockey has been part of my life since I was a kid in Bracknell.

There have been different teams.

Different rinks.

And quite a few years where the skates stayed in the bag.

But I've always found my way back to the ice.

And I suspect I always will. 🏒