The local hockey scene

Yeah, long time no update. Blame real life and that lousy NHL lockout. This Autumn and Winter have been pretty painful without having Ducks games to look forward to every other night.

But where would a UK based NHL fan such as myself be without a local team to watch and get my hockey fix on a regular basis? Probably very lost. And during a lockout such as this, probably insane. Lucky for me, I have two teams within driving distance of where I live. And I happen to live smack bang in the middle of both rinks. Not that I can actually drive yet but that's besides the point.

I probably shouldn't need to tell you the names of the two teams as pictured above they both insisted on going the classic minor league way of displaying the team name as part of their logo. But anyway. Both of these teams are the Chelmsford Chieftains and the Romford Raiders. They were both founded the same year in 1987 and since then there's naturally been a great rivalry - or a derby, as my fellow Brits insist on calling it - between these two Essex-based ice hockey teams. The games are fun to watch but there really is some bad blood between the two, moreso than any of either teams' rivals that I've ever seen. I can't tell you much of either of their success stories as neither of them seem to publicise this information much except for when they've won something recently.We're always having the fact that the Montreal Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cups over their 100+ year existence rubbed in our faces, yet I have no idea if either of these teams have ever won anything major - although the Chieftains did win their second straight Division Championship last season, and against Romford of all teams.

As far as this 25 year long rivalry is concerned, there's also some personal business involved for me as a fan: both Romford and Chelmsford have been important places to me in my life, and at some point or another I switched from one team's fanbase to the other for personal reasons, which arguably has made games between these two teams among the ones I enjoy going to the most. But anyway, I'll go into some more detail on both of these teams and how I came across them.

I'll start off with the Romford Raiders as they were the first team whose existence I learned of. Back when I started getting interested in ice hockey, with this being my local team at the time they were also the first that I heard of. Although I didn't actually see a game at Romford until the 2005-06 season, around the same time as the NHL season started and, of course, I started following the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim properly. I felt that, in order to learn the game better, I'd need more than NHL Hitz which had no rules whatsoever, and with hockey being hard to come by on UK television, it only made sense to go and see this team play. Right from the very first puck drop, I was hooked.

Now where did the Raiders name come from? The logo, which by the way is a blatant ripoff of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, features a campy pirate. Pirates have nothing to do with Romford. Havering borough, in which the town is located and also from which the team derived its blue and yellow colour scheme from, is known historically for its role in aviation and in both the first and second World Wars with the airfields in Hornchurch. So, all of the teams that play in Romford are named after different aircraft types, and in the case of this team, the name was derived from the Northrop YC-125 Raider. Which is strange as this is an American manufactured plane and operated by the USAF, and has nothing to do with Britain, let alone Havering. Oh well.

Since they were founded the Raiders have called the Romford Ice Arena their home. Like many UK rinks it's not a very big building, but does manage to cram in a good few hundred fans for games. The rink has however seen better days - although I'm not even sure of that - and it's one of the very few if not the only rink that uses a large safety net instead of plexiglass around the boards. While there doesn't seem to have been any accidents caused as a result, it does obscure the view somewhat and gives us watching the game a slightly yellow/beige tint, not to mention it makes the puck a bit harder to track. That said, this building is soon to be demolished and replaced by a new leisure centre as a result of a land swapping deal with supermarket chain Morrisons. It'll be pretty much in the town centre, a two minute walk from the train station, and it'll be a nice shiny new place for the Raiders to play their hockey. That is, if the rink is even added to this proposed leisure centre.

After only a year of going to Raiders games, I recalled there being a rival team that Romford played and was also fairly local, so I went to one of their games for a change of scenery. The Riverside Ice and Leisure Centre was based in the very same town (now city) that I would later go to for my University degree. That one weekend I went, the Chelmsford Chieftains were playing against the Bracknell Bees - ironically, the very same opponents I witnessed at my first Romford game - and lost 7-2. Granted, not the best first impression from this team, but there was something about the fan experience and the atmosphere that felt a lot better than Romford, and I felt great just being there. It was less obnoxious for starters. After going to one last Raiders game, I decided there and then that I was switching teams. From my perspective, it was almost like switching from the Kings to the Ducks or something like that. Either way, I'm a Chieftains fan nowadays, and when they play against Romford is when I cheer the loudest.

The name and logo of Chelmsford's team is even more of an oddity than Romford's. The Chieftains chose to go the way of a Native American based identity, something that's considered either honourable or politically incorrect in North America, and the generic American sports team identity everywhere else. Yet, last time I checked, Native Americans did not live in England. About the closest relevant thing is a totem pole that was put up in one of Chelmsford's parks. Apparently the story behind the Chieftains name goes like this: when the team was founded and still trying to come up with a name - because apparently they weren't able to draw anything from the 800 year history of the town - the team had a player coach who at the time was nicknamed "Chief". And so, it stuck, and the Chelmsford Chieftains were born. Not the most exciting origin story, but there we go.

Like the Raiders, the Chieftains have called their rink home for their entire 25 year existence. The seats all around are quite low compared to those of other rinks, although you do still get a decent, close up view of the rink assuming somebody's head doesn't get in the way. A couple of years back, the Riverside saw a £1 million refurbishment which caused most of the earlier games of the Chieftains' schedule to be postponed due to delays in the refurbishment and the ice occasionally melting. In the end, the refurbishments seemed to be worth it and the Chieftains were back in action right away. Although I would like some backs added to the seats sometime soon.

 With my beloved Anaheim Ducks being so far away from where I live, I'm grateful for the existence of these two teams. I get both my regular hockey fix from the Chieftains, and a Ducks-Kings esque rivalry between the Chieftains and Raiders. While it's not Elite League level hockey, these two teams are among the best in the English National Ice Hockey League, and their games are certainly action packed and fun to watch.

While I'm at it, I'm gonna give a shout out to Chelmsford's lower level team, the Warriors. You guys rock, too.