Men’s first team in favour of yes vote for IHL says skipper Magee

Banbridge captain Eugene Magee has backed up his Coachs calls for the full IHL season to be given the go-ahead. Pic: Rowland White / Presseye.

Ireland’s most capped player says the proposals would inject a ‘buzz’ back into Irish hockey.

“I know that, from a players’ point of view, we are in favour of it,” he said.

“It’s something that needs to happen if hockey in Ireland is to grow. If we keep the same structure as we have at the minute, regional hockey in Ulster will stagnate. We need something new and exciting to shake things up and create a buzz about hockey again.

“If you get a buzz, that will lead to more enjoyment for the players and more participation because people will be able to see their hockey role-models playing in better games.

“Then, if you get more participation, you get more excitement and more enjoyment, which will all lead to more funding and more sponsorship.

“We can’t lose the enjoyment and competitive sides of things. Those are critical in sport.”

Magee does concede that the decision facing clubs is not so straight forward. Ulster Hockey are against the proposals after claiming the Irish Hockey Association failed to reply to a letter they had sent, outlining their concerns, in June.

“Ulster Hockey have to take views from all of Ulster and the smaller clubs and schools have their opinion on it but we can’t focus solely on negative opinions,” said Magee.

“If there are solutions to these opinions, we need to focus on the solutions rather than the problems in order for us to go forward as hockey in Ireland.

“There are a lot of pros and cons to this and it has been debated an awful lot. A lot has been focused on the cons but I think we don’t want to be afraid to go forward with development.

“You want to be brave enough to go forward with development if you need to do that and generally, hockey in Ireland needs to make a step forward.

“It’s a hard one because people are worried about the funding for the smaller clubs but in doing that, it’s taking a lot away from the bigger clubs and hockey in general. It’s a tough one to say about that whole side of things.

“If a person from an area with a smaller club in it goes to one of these games, maybe they will want to play for their own local club.”