Just a quick shout out for the one sport that this fine Yorkshire city, home of Britain’s finest university as some blokes at some newspaper have finally realised, can claim to be number one in. With United and Wednesday challenging at the top of…League One, it’s time for the light to be shown on one particularly excellent Saturday night-out: ice hockey.
Sheffield Steelers are current British champions, and look to have the manpower to challenge strongly once again this year. Their attempts at a European campaign might have gone as well as Manchester United’s, but on a domestic front, the men from the Motorpoint Arena are right in the title pack, alongside deadly rivals Nottingham Panthers, current leaders Belfast Giants, and Coventry Blaze, who currently hold a record four league titles.
The games themselves are a totally different experience to any other sport you are likely to have experienced – thumping music accompanies the twisting events on the ice, fights are actively encouraged in order to settle tensions, and the games are played at a pace enough to make the eyes bleed. Yet at the same time it is incredibly family friendly, with drinks imbibed by sensible yet passionate fans, and abuse, save a little chastisement towards the referee, is limited and non-sweary. It’s also incredibly cheap – kids for a fiver, students for a tenner, and that’s for the best seats, central and closest to the action.
I cannot for the life of me understand how this sport, so loved across the Atlantic, has no reputation here. There is plenty of home grown talent on show, more than at Bramall Lane or Hillsborough perhaps – we should be prouder of our champions, and they deserve more backing from our University, who they honoured with announcements and applause after the University of the Year award last week.