Ice Hockey in the UK?

Massive NHL fan here. As for playing ice hockey, there are some universities that offer it as a sport, judging by this page here: http://www.buiha.org.uk/

But for the most part, it's definitely the least well known of the 4 sports here, since in PE in schools you usually play a bit of baseball and basketball, and then universities have popular teams for basketball and American Football is growing. This applies to the actual professional leagues too, the NFL/NBA get a lot more exposure than the NHL does.

For the most part, us NHL fans here just have to make do with watching the games ourselves at odd hours

Me too! Whats your favorite team? Go Bruins and/or Wings!

Looks awesome. Are there women's teams as well?

Aw, that sucks. I stream a good amount of games through British channels since I don't have cable. You guys do have weird ads though...:P

Haha, I can live with that!

I know Oxford has a women's team. But I think most of the UK university teams are mixed. Be warned that the standard of skill is generally pretty low.

I don't have cable either but I have that NHL network thing where you can watch most games over the internet.



Go Cats!

Thats cool! I'm find with mixed. Is it checking or no checking? How low is the skill level?

Cats? The Florida Panthers?

Me too! Whats your favorite team? Go Bruins and/or Wings!

Looks awesome. Are there women's teams as well?

Aw, that sucks. I stream a good amount of games through British channels since I don't have cable. You guys do have weird ads though...:P

It was all no checking when I played but I think I saw something on my facebook feed about there possibly being a checking team now. Don't quote me on that though. As for skill level, there are a few north Americans who pull it up substantially but otherwise really not great. The Elite league (professional uk one) is probably less than US college level skill wise.

Yep, Panthers. Doing awesomely this season

Sharks are my team. If I had to pick a 2nd I'd say the Leafs

As Sabertooth said, it's not very high quality, and I believe for the most part they're mixed team. Again, simply cause there's not enough interest in the game to warrant investment into women teams. And on the page I linked there, seems like there's a Checking and Non Checking league.

The same can be said for American ads! Of which for a start, there's a ridiculous amount.

Interesting. I've played both and prefer checking. No checking is annoying because I am one of the taller players so I can't really use my size to my advantage and moving your feet while trying to take the puck and impede their position is harder as well. Thats good to know. Are most players North American or Scandinavian? Really? Interesting. I didn't know there was a professional league.

You are literally the first panthers fan I've met...everyone here just makes fun of them :P They are my 4th favorite and are doing well this year though!

I'm not very big (5'9) and have not played in a checking league before, but I feel like I'd probably get crushed if I did (though I have got penalties from "accidentally" bumping into other players a few times)

I think there were 2 Canadians on the team I played on and one guy from Finland I think it was. Their skill-level completely dwarfed pretty much all the British players.

And yeah, the professional league is fun to watch so long as you don't expect too much

I live in the US too. I agree, the Panthers are somewhat lacking in support but hopefully people might take more notice once they win the Stanley cup make the playoffs.

NHL.tv is pretty OK, I just bought it for the rest of the season for under £20. Kind of frustrating how bad some of it is compared to NFL GamePass on things that are totally correctable like editing out the "we are in a commercial" screen. But I can watch games on my phone in decent quality which is cool.

You can definitely play here, Nottingham is probably the best place because everywhere else teams have to compete for ice time with public skating. I'm trying to join a recreational team in Coventry but they all train at dumb times and half of them don't even have contact details on their sites

I've seen recreational teams play and there are players ranging from not that bad to not being able to stand up.

Played a lot of roller hockey through school and uni - ice rinks are hard to come by - but did dabble in ice hockey on occasion. Was fun, but I was nowhere near physical enough to enjoy it.

I haven't played it in years, but definitely miss skating.

Sounds good then! I have NHL gamecenter which is similar.

Good to know. Sounds annoying though. What time do they train at?

haha, nice. They have teams like that here too. Are there a lot of North Americans playing?

The only team whose email I found trains at like 9pm on a Sunday, which isn't great for work. But I'll go and see what they're about if they get back to me.

I don't really know who plays for recreational teams. The North Americans I know don't play, but I don't know many other players since I'm not on a team.