Ice Hockey in the UK | backupthere

Back Up There is set in a fictional version of the English Premier Ice Hockey League. The structure of the league and competitions is based on the way the league was structured when I first started writing these stories in the 2014/2015 season. The real league underwent a number of changes after that time, and was disbanded at the end of the 2016/2017 season, however the Back Up There version has continued without changes.

The teams and players in Back Up There are absolutely 100% fictional - the team names, the guys themselves, I made them all up. The league they play in is a fictional version of the English Premier Ice Hockey League, which I know pretty well.

Most of the online ice hockey fan community is focused on the NHL, and the leagues which feed into the NHL. This page is about ice hockey in the UK which is a bit different.

Wait, they play hockey in the UK?

Yes, we do! Ice hockey is a minority sport in the UK, but we have four tiers of domestic hockey and an international team.

GB's international squad, much to everybody's surprise (including their own) managed to get promoted to the top level of international hockey and got to play against the likes of Canada and the USA at Worlds 2019. To our further surprise, they didn't get relegated and were due to play at this level again in 2020. Following the cancellation of pretty much everything due to the Coronavirus pandemic, team GB get another 12 months at the top.

Hockey in the UK

League structure

The Elite League is the UK’s top hockey league - good enough to attract a couple of NHL players during the last lockout, not good enough for many people from traditional hockey-playing countries to take seriously.

Below the Elite League, ice hockey is run by the English Ice Hockey Association (EIHA) and the Scottish Ice Hockey Association (SIHA) – teams from Wales play in the EIHA.

The English Premier Ice Hockey League (officially the EPIHL, also known as the EPL) was the second ice hockey league in the UK at the time when I started writing Back Up There. As of the end of the 2016/17 season, a combination of financial problems and teams applying to go up to the Elite League meant that the EPL was unable to carry on. Instead, the seven remaining teams were absorbed into the upper divisions of the next league down, the National Ice Hockey League.

When the EPL folded I was already working on stories set in the 2016/17 season, and they didn’t contain any of the drama that was tearing the real league apart. I also already had plans for at least one story in the 2017/18 season, and so in the Back Up There universe the EPL survived and carries on. Any recent rule changes that the current leagues now follow have not been reflected in the Back Up There world to avoid making things any more complicated than they already are.

The lower tiers are the National Ice Hockey League Divisions 1 and 2 (which we have to call the NIHL like there’s any danger at all of people getting it confused with the NHL…). Both divisions have North and South conferences, mostly because the teams make very little money and can’t afford to travel very far. As of the 2019/20 season, a "National" division was added to the league, sitting above the level 1 North and South conferences and effectively replacing the old EPL. (Yes, that's the National Ice Hockey League National Division. No, I don’t know why they thought that was a good name...)

The development structure in British hockey is a bit hit and miss. There are a couple of decent systems which run through from junior to Elite, but the structure of a farm team with obvious movement up through the franchise just isn’t there. Players in Sheffield or Cardiff can get all the way through, but pretty much anywhere else the guys are going to shuttle around between teams that have a friendly agreement rather than any kind of formal contract, or they just have to play hard and hope to get noticed by a better team.

The EPL was a development league, which mostly means that there are restrictions on the number of non-British trained (or “import”) players each team can have. No more than five can dress for a game, and only three are allowed on the ice at any one time - that is, at least three of the players on the ice have to be British trained, so when you’re playing smaller teams, such as special teams or in overtime, the number of imports allowed on the ice drops, and if you’ve got an import player in the penalty box you have to take that into account. Some teams have an extra import for injury cover, but most teams would prefer to spend their money on additional British-trained players.

I’ve only ever seen penalties called for “too many imports” twice. Both occasions were by the same referee.

The National League has similar rules but with a lower number of imports. Although the current NIHL National League is very similar to the old EPL (including many of the same teams) they still follow the NIHL restrictions and can only dress two non-British trained players for a game.

There were ten teams in the EPL. There was usually a lot of political drama going on, and money was a real issue for the league. Teams have folded or had to drop out of the league and apply to play in the lower leagues instead. It’s not unusual for crowdfunding to be set up to allow a UK team to complete a season.

The UK hockey season runs from early September to late March, with playoffs completed in April. EPL/NIHL National teams generally play two games a week, almost exclusively at weekends. The occasional midweek game will happen due to rink scheduling conflicts, but generally this will be a couple of times per season for most teams.

EPL teams played three home and three away games against each of the other teams. NIHL scheduling is slightly more complex to keep travel costs down.

Even the furthest apart teams in the UK (below the Elite League) are close enough together that teams don’t stay over at away games. The longer journeys may mean that the guys get back to their home rink in the early hours of the morning on a bad day, but they will always come home the same night except in very rare circumstances.

Players

British hockey is poorly paid. Most players in the EPL/NIHL don’t earn enough to live on, and have a day job as well. It’s completely normal for the younger guys not to get paid at all.

The teams contain a mix of types of players - younger guys getting experience with the intention of going up to the Elite League or over to Europe, guys who are happy at the lower levels, who maybe have another business as their day job and need to split their time, and guys who have previously played at a higher level and are working towards retirement, who might either not be up to Elite standards any more or who want to have more time to concentrate on building up the day job as they ease out of professional hockey.

I did some research about the minimum age to play in the EPL and NIHL, and I couldn’t find any restrictions. Some teams have full time players who are as young as 16, and younger players might play occasional games when teams are short. There is a rule that states very clearly that women ARE permitted to play in the NIHL men’s leagues, but men can’t play in the women’s leagues – however, apart from the occasional third-string netminder, there aren’t any women on the rosters.

When young players are signed on two-way contracts the team in the lower league has priority rights on the player. This prevents the higher-league team from taking all the two-way players for injury cover if both teams have a game on the same night.

It’s common for a team to rent a couple of houses, and charge players a very low rent for a room, as the younger guys move around year to year and can’t afford to commute from their parents’ homes. Some guys with families might travel long distances to practice and games rather than move their families, and might stay in the team houses a couple of nights a week. Depending on the guys who live in them, these houses could well be just as disgusting as your imagination suggests - these guys can’t afford cleaners or meal services.

There may be a limited budget for equipment, and the teams all have supporters’ clubs who raise funds.

Contracts are also much shorter - most guys currently get signed for one or two years at a time, and the notice period can be as short as two weeks. NHL teams seem to own their players, but if a player in the UK gets a call from the coach of another team, he can pretty much just up and quit and be playing in a different jersey straight away.

Likewise, if a player’s not playing as well as he should be, he can find himself released and with no team at all.

Some coaches in the league also play on the team. This role is referred to as “Player-Coach” and where you see this it’s safe to assume that they’re the head coach for the team.

The EPL/NIHL has pretty much no media presence. Most teams have a volunteer photographer and maybe a film crew, contacts on the local newspaper and occasionally a friend in the local TV news, but there’s no such thing as a media scrum. Nobody wants to interview the guys after a game, except maybe the local paper’s sports reporter or a private blogger.

Chances are that pretty much all of the staff will be volunteers as well - the equipment guys, the medical staff, the off-ice officials… I saw somebody post once that they wanted to know how you got a job as the guy who runs the penalty box - in the UK, try turning up early to a game and saying “hey, do you need a hand?”

Match night

Match night differences

There are things that I take for granted as being the normal way to organise a match, and gradual exposure to the NHL way of doing things suggests that this is not the way that everybody works.

A full price adult match night ticket at most UK hockey games will cost you no more than around $25 US at the most expensive rinks, and often less than that, so it’s perfectly plausible for somebody with an ordinary job to attend all the home games and about half of the away games. (I mean, you might not be able to afford a social life outside hockey, but you won’t need one, because you will always be at hockey…)

The National Anthem is played at the start of every game, which doesn’t happen in a lot of other UK sports. The entire team will be on the ice for this, not just the starting lineup. Crowd participation in the anthem varies, as English fans don’t have the same attachment to the anthem at domestic games as you see in some other countries. (They will give it 100% at international fixtures.) It’s incredibly rare to have somebody brought on to sing - I’ve only ever seen this done once.

Scottish and Welsh fans - particularly the Welsh - are much prouder of their regional anthems. If a Scottish or Welsh team is involved in the game their regional anthem may be played in addition to the National Anthem, although the English anthem won't also be played.

The officials at EPL games were usually one referee and two linesmen. There are various female officials working for the English Ice Hockey Association. Typically games are now run by two referees and two linesmen, but if something goes wrong, i.e. one of the officials gets injured or stuck in traffic, the game can be run by two refs.

There’s a handshake line at the end of every single game – unless there’s been a bench clearing brawl at the end of the game and the officials don’t think the guys can be trusted to shake hands, which happens occasionally. The handshake line involves all players on both teams, the officials and the bench staff - and the mascots.

The mascots - it’s quite common for the home team to have a kid or two from the juniors on the ice during warm up (although they do their own thing on the centre line and stay out of the way!). The kids help with any of the intermission games and come back for the handshake at the end.

Following the handshake line, the teams stay on the ice and there will be a series of presentations - man of the match for the away team, after which they’ll do a lap to thank the fans and get off the ice; then any other awards such as Shirt Off The Back (a raffle to win a game worn shirt from that match) and then the home team man of the match. The man of the match usually wins a crate of beer.

There’s no ice team, and none of the games below EIHA are televised so there are no commercial breaks. The ice gets redone every intermission, but nothing gets cleared during the periods unless there’s a problem like a hole or blood on the ice. There will be a couple of stewards, usually rink employees rather than team employees, who handle these kind of repairs.

There’s no video replay. Some teams have dedicated fan-run tv channels online, but there’s no consistency so even if video footage is available for that game, even if it’s available for instant replay, they won’t use it because it’s not standard to all games. Teams will use the video footage to appeal penalties when necessary, but generally this happens after the game.

It's really easy to get to the players. There are usually kids hanging around the point where the players go onto the ice, like in any league, but instead of having to hang over the railings from the stands they are likely to be able to get right up to the players’ gate during warm up and possibly at the end of the game. In many teams the players will use the rink bar after the game and you can just walk right up to them and have a conversation. There's no concept of security specific to the players (i.e. other than general rink or bar security) and no team staff running interference. The players are just a bunch of guys with no media training and often no concept of what is and is not appropriate to say on social media...