The phrase ‘British hockey legend’ might seem like a contradiction in terms to anyone who isn’t old enough to recall Great Britain’s pre-war heyday at the 1936 Olympics. Competing for attention on an island obsessed with football, cricket, rugby and horse-racing, hockey in the UK has rarely assumed much prominence. But Tony Hand, who retired from playing last week after an incredible 34 seasons on the ice, richly deserves that accolade after a career that was far more than just ‘not bad for a Brit’.
Hand made his debut for his local team, Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Racers, as a tender 14-year-old way back in 1981. To put that into some kind of context, Britain didn’t actually have a national hockey championship until the following year: Hand’s first foray onto the ice came in the Northern League, a competition for a group of teams in Scotland and North-East England.
The quality of the contest can be judged by the fact that Hand was not the only schoolboy sent into action in this competition – Murrayfield’s big rival, the Fife Flyers, was also unafraid to blood them young with the likes of Les Millie and Stephen Murphy getting the nod at an age when others were delivering newspapers for their pocket money.
As the years passed and Hand matured, he became a key scorer for Murrayfield and a powerful presence in the GB scoring race year after year. Even allowing for the cricket scores that players could rack up in the league at that time – in the 1980s it was common to see teams score double figures in games and the first time I saw Hand in the flesh was a notably low-scoring encounter as my local team, Durham Wasps, took an 8-4 victory in a top-of-the-table showdown. Relief at the win was enhanced by admiration for Hand, a player who sent panic through the defence every time he stepped on the ice.
That became something of a theme when watching the Anglo-Scottish rivalry that Durham and Murrayfield played out in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. A trip to Wembley for the 1988 play-off semi-final saw Durham win 11-8, but Hand took the individual honours with a record-breaking seven points in the game. Our fans took an unsubtle view of most opponents, assuming that a crunching check from popular D-man Mike O’Connor was the simplest solution to any problem, but Hand was afforded greater respect at Durham – and elsewhere in the league – for three reasons: his talent, as opposing players complained that stopping him was like trying to check a ghost; his longevity, not just with 34 seasons in the game, but remaining a top player in the competition throughout that team, even as he aged and the standard of the league improved; and finally, crucially, the fact that he was, even when in an opposition jersey, one of us.
When Hand started, British hockey was at a desperately low level. The first season of the national league was dominated by Canadian imports, many of whom were working in the UK in a full-time job and still found the time to strut around the ice racking up dozens of points. Before long genuine hockey imports found their way across the Atlantic, plundering at a rate of around four a game against local fall-guy defencemen. And, in the middle of it all was Tony Hand. The Brit. The guy who didn’t look like someone’s kid brother on the ice. Here, in the red, white and blue colours of the Racers rather than in some black-and-white photos from 1936, was evidence that Britain could be part of the hockey world.
We weren’t the only ones who thought so. In 1986 Hand became the first British-trained player to be drafted by an NHL team, heading to Edmonton where he famously played on the same line as the great Wayne Gretzky at camp. His North American career was brief – perhaps too brief – lasting just three games (and eight points) with Victoria Cougars in the WHL.
There was an option to stay on, and later there was an offer to play with the Oilers’ farm club in Nova Scotia, but the young Hand, homesick and disconcerted by the glare of local media attention, chose to stay in Edinburgh. What might have been? Well, in the words of Edmonton coach Glen Sather: “At the training camp I could see that he had a great ability to read the ice and he was the smartest player there other than Wayne Gretzky. He skated well: his intelligence on the ice stood out. He was a real prospect.”
Today it matters little whether the NHL was denied a potential superstar or another journeyman. The boost for British hockey was incalculable. Hand went on to scoop up honours by the bucketload – player of the year on six occasions, top scorer five times, a stack of tournament wins and finally a richly deserved MBE for his services to the sport.
The bulk of his success came in his home town, Edinburgh, with the Racers and later as player-coach with the Capitals, the Elite League franchise formed after the Racers went bust. He also played with distinction for the Sheffield Steelers and the Ayr Scottish Eagles, as well as player-coaching the Belfast Giants and the Dundee Stars. His final season in the top level of UK hockey, the 2008-09 campaign with Manchester Phoenix, saw Hand celebrate his 42nd birthday while coming eighth in the league scoring charts. All seven of those ahead of him had played pro hockey in North America. Five were more than a decade his junior. After leaving the top league, Hand continued to be a player coach for the team for six more years until the age of 47.
In a GB jersey he helped the national team to the top level of the World Championship in 1994, a high-water mark in post-war British hockey. He represented Great Britain in the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program as a player at various levels in 11 seasons, most recently in 2007. He later coached the national team, leading it to the Final Olympic Qualification for the 2014 Sochi Olympics played in Riga along the way.
Hockey in the UK is still a minority sport, but the game has made enormous strides on and off the ice in the past decades and it is not fanciful to suggest that Hand’s example and his loyalty to the game in his native country has played a big part in that.
For British hockey fans, last week’s announcement is a time to say a heartfelt thank you to one of the greatest players we’ve have the privilege of seeing... and to hope that Hand’s legacy will continue as he helps to polish a new generation of local talent as a non-playing head coach with the Phoenix in the English Premier League.
ANDY POTTS