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Ice Hockey: Solitaire on ice for Hunt

Paul Trow talks to the lone Briton on the prowl for the Panthers

Paul Trow
Sunday 29 November 1998 00:02 GMT
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NOT so very long ago Nottingham was the ice capital of the world. All roads led to the council-owned rink in the East Midlands where the queen and king of ice dance, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, held court.

These days, Nottingham's ice stars are a more prosaic lot. Simon Hunt had his first taste on blades as a six-year-old after his parents took him along to watch both T & D and the Nottingham Panthers ice hockey team.

He particularly liked what he saw of the Panthers and switched from football and cricket (the sports at which he excelled at school), joined the club's junior team when it was formed in the Eighties, graduated to the senior side at just 15 and went on to become a Great Britain international.

While it is nigh impossible for a Brit to become a world beater in a sport which is dominated by North Americans, east Europeans and Scandinavians Hunt, now 25, is widely respected as a bustling wing. But when the Panthers line up against the Ayr Scottish Eagles, the holders, in the Benson & Hedges Cup final at Sheffield Arena on Saturday, he will be the lone British representative among 36 players on display.

"When I first started playing for the Panthers all the players were British apart from the three `imports' which the rules allowed us, so I grew up playing largely with local lads," he says. "But the rules have changed to such an extent that there are now a few teams who don't have any British players at all. Thanks to TV, though, a few kids are taking it up and playing in the junior sides. The problem is the amount of ice time that's available. Here, they can only get on once or twice a week whereas in Canada they're on it most days. We only get two hours a day at lunchtime and we're professionals. Ice hockey is a full-time job and I suppose I'm paid reasonably well - above the average wage for the sport anyway."

Given that the average wage is between pounds 25,000 and pounds 30,000 (how else could they entice all those foreigners to come over?) for a season which might encompass 60 matches, and that clubs each spend around pounds 80,000 on equipment, it is clear ice hockey needs revenue beyond the crowds of 2,000- plus which the Panthers usually attract. "Sticks cost pounds 15 each, skates are pounds 250 a pair, gloves pounds 100 a pair," said Hunt, whose father Peter is the club's equipment manager. Add the cost of renting the rink from the council, and one can see why ice hockey needs sponsors like B & H and John Smiths, who support the Panthers.

Then there are the insurance premiums to cover players in a dangerous and physically demanding sport. Hunt's Canadian team-mate Steve Roberts has just had surgery on a serious shoulder injury which will sideline him for a year. "It's a very tiring sport," adds Hunt. "That's why there are 18 on a side even though only six can be on the ice at one time."

The Panthers coach Mike Blaisdell, who hails from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, says Hunt is no stranger to the physical side of the game even though at 5ft 6in he is the shortest man in the Superleague. "Simon's a small man who plays with a big heart," he says. "He weighs only 150lb but thinks nothing of running into men who weigh 200lb or more. And he sure is tough. He played in our semi-final win over Manchester Storm with a broken thumb."

Hunt has twice won the B & H Cup - in 1994 and 1996. He believes his time will come again on Saturday. "Ayr may have won all four domestic titles last year, but Panthers are favourites," he says.

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