“It’s difficult for a young boy or girl to play hockey in Ireland.”
“There’s a lot of driving involved, there’s only one rink and anyone who’s not close by has to drive there. It’s like that in parts of Canada too but it’s hard right now to be a hockey player in Ireland.”
Hard. Some of them are travelling the length of the country to find a plot of ice.
The country doesn’t exactly lend itself to aspiring NHL stars but, as President of Hockey Operations for the Calgary Flames Brian Burke visits the island of his family, he can see that changing.
Right now, it’s got pretty big competition but there’s a future for ice hockey in Ireland.
“If you look at where hockey has grown up around the globe, wherever you put an ice facility, kids will play. Because it’s a great game,” Brian Burke spoke with SportsJOE ahead of his trip to Belfast to visit the Celtic Clovers team.
“It’s a game that’s almost tailor-made for Irish kids I think, in terms of the components of it. Our goal, our challenge, is to get an ice rink built back up here, they’ve had one in the past – and then more than one – and then get more kids to play it.”
At the moment, inline skates are the most feasible way for Irish youngsters to learn the sport but Burke doesn’t think there’s any real problem with that. It’s the culture shift they’re trying to change.
“Inline hockey is big and it is very similar in terms of developing yourself as a skater and the muscles you use, the balance and acceleration. It’s very similar. It’s almost identical to skating – stopping is the only thing that’s different, you can’t stop on inline skates the way you do with hockey skates.
“The kids learn conceptually how to play the game, how the geometry of the rink works, how to attack, three-on-two, all those things are the same in inline and it’s a great development for them.”
With an illustrious list of NHL success stories behind him, Brian Burke has a vested interest in taking ice hockey in Ireland to another level. He’s been speaking with government people, the media and the players and the national body has his support.
Paul O’Connell
And he doesn’t believe it isn’t something that Irish natives could excel at.
“Take Paul O’Connell,” he said. “I think, really, elite athletes like Paul O’Connell could play any sport. But it’s all about what’s the first thing they picked up when they were a kid. If Michael Jordan had picked up a hockey stick instead of a basketball, I think Michael Jordan would be in the Hall of Fame right now. If Wayne Gretzky had picked up a baseball bat, he’d be in the Hall of Fame in baseball.
“Those top guys, I think their athletic ability translates across the board. It’s all a question of what they pick up. We have to give Irish kids a chance that the first thing they pick up instead of a hurl or a rugby ball, it’s a hockey stick.
“Because obviously we’ve got elite athletes here and this is a sport that would fit right in with the national culture here. So let’s build a rink and then you’ll see a rapid explosion of kids playing hockey in Ireland. Then we’ll build another rink and we’ll see the same thing happening again.
“It’s no different to places like Texas where, historically, they didn’t have hockey, every one of those small communities where they built a couple of rinks, they’ve got hundreds of kids playing there.”
So could a hurler make the transfer?
“There’s no quick anything in hockey because of the skating component. But a really great athlete could pick up another sport and at least be operational in a really short time. Even if he’s never played baseball before, give a top athlete a glove and a ball and he can throw and catch in minutes. Skating I think is the hard part so there’s no quick conversion to hockey but, yes, I think they can make that conversion.”
It’s changing a mindset though. And that won’t be without its difficulties. But Burke believes that the product will sell itself.
“I played football through high school. I played baseball. But hockey was my first love,” he explained. “It’s the first game that I fell in love with. I moved to Minnesota when I was 12 and we were stuck in a hotel waiting for the moving truck and the Minnesota State high school hockey tournament was on TV. 15,000 people watching high school hockey and I just fell in love with it.
“Our theory is, if we can get you to come to one game, we’ve got you hooked for life. That’s how good the game is live and how fast it is. It’s not the same impact watching it on TV but it’s still a really cool game. I think if we could show more games here, we could develop quite a following here in Ireland. We have a following now but we could have a bigger one.”
The blanket defence
When you still have suggestions that things like the League of Ireland is struggling, that it’s not enticing the fans or gripes that the GAA is losing its value and so on, there’s always a special buzz around American sports that the Irish would do well to replicate.
People like Brian Burke have entertainment at the front and centre of their philosophy. Even at the risk of results.
“Before you’re successful, you can still fill the building,” he said.
“Okay, you come to a game in Calgary, you’re not going to meet me on a game night. You’re not going to meet any of the players. So our goal is, as soon as you hand your tickets to the ticket-taker, we want your experience to be positive the whole time you’re there. We want you greeted cheerfully, we want the usher to show you to your seat and say hello and enjoy the game and, when the game starts, we want to put a good product on the ice.
“But with all the breaks and stoppages in play, we want to fill those with entertainment. Whether it’s contests, kiss cam, the music we play, we want to make sure that the whole three hours you’re in the building that it’s special for you.
“The game is the centrepiece but we try to fill in all the down time too.
“The number one thing, the reason people like the way my teams play – you could play a really boring style of hockey. There are teams that do it on purpose, they try to keep the games close. They’d rather lose 2-1 than 5-2. I’ve never thought that, I want to entertain. When you come in to my building, I want you to walk out thinking, ‘man, that was fun.’
“Whether we win or lose. We’re not going to win every night, we know that. We play an attacking style, my team is very physical, my team fight, so that’s why people like coming to see our team on the road, too.
“So the one piece of advice that I give people when they say ‘what can we do to fill the building?’ Well, number one is that you need to play an exciting brand of hockey.”
Excitement, eh? That’s definitely something people in Ireland could use and, with Burke joining in putting his shoulder to the wheel, we could see a rise in this sport in the near future.
“It’s a slow build. You’re chasing sports that are really deeply ingrained in Irish history, culture and tradition. We have to start a new one.”
