How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Giants

A short piece about UK ice hockey

The biting Mancunian air always caught my breath walking up the steps of the M.E.N. Arena. I remember the Winter nights well where my parents, driven on by my brother who showed me this sport, would have managed to get tickets to see the Manchester Storm play at home to a packed out crowd. Only a few years before, the Storm had broken the UK record for the biggest home attendance in their league: 17,000+ fans watched the Storm beat local rivals the Sheffield Steelers 6-2 on an unforgettable night. Their position in the Ice Hockey Superleague never seemed to deter the masses from piling into the arena so long as they got to see the likes of Brad Rubachuk and Hilton Ruggles. They were legends in their own right at the time and it fascinated me to watch their style of play, knowing Manchester was the home to one of the UK's best ice hockey teams who had inspired a generation in a city reknowned worldwide for its contribution football.

I was still young when I heard the news. In 2002, the Manchester Storm - a team I had learned to love - had folded due a shortage of income linked to a main sponsor pulling out of the league. It was to be devasting blow for UK ice hockey which signalled the decline in its popularity before teams such as the Ayr Scottish Eagles followed suit.

For years I tried to the fill the void. I turned to my local football club, I refound my love for the Dallas Stars in the NHL and even tried cricket for a period. No matter what I did, it was just never the Storm. In around 2007, I remember hearing a group of fans previously dedicated to the Storm had formed a new ice hockey club to try a revive the spirit that died at the M.E.N. Arena: the Manchester Phoenix. As much as I loved the sport, I just couldn't. Like many fans, I felt the Phoenix was just another club not associated to the Storm trying to breath life back into the a dead corpse. I just couldn't.

But life goes on. My next contact with ice hockey wouldn't come around until mid-late 2013. At the time I was living in Berlin, Germany and a friend had offered me 2 free tickets to watch the Eisbären Berlin play at the newly-built O2 Arena only a stone's throw away from the infamous Berlin Wall. My biggest regret is that I had learned to shrug off any interest to the sport at the time. Everything related to the sport I had seen was second class if it wasn't the Storm or the Dallas Stars. That said, it sparked a small flame in me that night. The atmosphere was electric and the play was skillfull and fast-paced - something I had never witnessed before back home due to the import-tainted style of play. I realised that I was genuinely enjoying myself and what I was witnessing was a personal revival. Perhaps it was time....

Time passed, I changed, I moved. This time I landed in Northern Ireland towards the start of 2014. It was a big change for me personally but I was back on familiar soil, even it wasn't quite England. Just before Christmas, my brother - again, always the influence who opened the sport up to me - suggested we watch the Belfast Giants. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it. I hadn't seen a UK ice hockey match in years and the idea of supporting another team in that league seemed blasphemous. Nevertheless I happily accepted the offer and we headed to the Odyssey Arena as the Giants would take on a familiar name in a battle for the top of the table: the Sheffield Steelers.

Sat only rows away from the ice, the atmosphere brought back a sea of memories. For once, after so many years, I felt like I was home. Two teams who had been shut away in my head were playing in front of me once again. Not only that but I realised the league had developed. It was now called the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), it had strong teams and well-developed players. As sponsors abandoned the sport in the early 2000s, it had bred a new type of fan determined to keep the spirit of ice hockey alive on these islands.

Adam Keefe, Darryl Lloyd, Kevin Westgarth. These were huge names. The crowd roared when Westgarth, the enforcer and Stanley Cup winner with the NHL's LA Kings, would flattend any opponent willing enough to hold onto the puck for too long. The vision of Lloyd, determination of Keefe and skill of replacement goaltender Carsen Chubak had grabbed me by both hands - I was hooked right then and there. To top it off, the Giants sealed a victory against the Steelers, a team who I had once hated due to their heated rivalry with the Storm all those years ago.

As soon as I got home I realised what had happened: I had found my love for the sport again. It had taken 12 years to realise what I had missed as well as find a team I could call my own. It then clicked: I was a Giant.