PAISLEY PANTHERS ICE HOCKEY CLUB - (GLASGOW, )

THE PAISLEY PANTHERS - A SHORT HISTORY

The history of any Paisley Ice Hockey team has to be seen as an integral part of the overall history of the sport in that town.
Ice Hockey to Paisley is like lightning is to thunder. The two are inseparable and that goes way back to the post war days when the "Paisley Pirates" were the epitome of the game in Scotland. In season 1953-4 the Pirates, who were mostly imported Canadians in those days, won the Autumn Cup, the Scottish Cup and the Canada Cup, successes that helped to launch them into the British League. At that level, they had wavering fortunes over the following years, playing to large crowds of vociferous, home fans at the old Paisley Ice Rink in East Lane. However, this all ended at the start of the 1960s when professional ice hockey in Paisley burned out.

The phoenix which rose from the ashes, at that time, was the Paisley Mohawks. They were an amateur team which, under the dynamic leadership of well known ‘Hall of Fame appointee’ and head coach, Billy Brennan, laid claim to the Paisley ice pad in 1961.The Mohawks carried the torch for another decade keeping the fans happy and bringing many a piece of silverware to the show-cases of ‘the old rink’. The names of many Mohawk players, from that time, still resound from energetic conversations at matches today – Alastair Brennan, Billy Miller, Alistair McRae and the late Jackson McBride, to name but a few. In 1971, just 31 years after it was first laid down, the ice pad in East Lane was melted for the last time and the flash of the hockey skate was not seen in Paisley for another twenty years. The old rink was demolished in 1973.

1991 heralded the opening of the new Paisley Ice Rink within the confines of The Lagoon Leisure Centre, located at 11 Christie Street, Paisley. In no time at all, the smouldering embers of ‘hockey’ fervour were quickly fanned and the flame burst into life again. Initially it took time to get a truly home side together and, consequently the first professional team to grace the hallowed ice was the Ayr Raiders. Although foreigners from ‘doon the watter’ they kept the crowd on their feet, for one season, with games in the Autumn Cup and the Heineken Premier League.

1993 saw Paisley come into it’s own again as a newly formed home team burst out of the dressing room and onto the ice to the strains of Tina Turners’ ‘Simply the Best’. The ‘Paisley Pirates’ were reborn. Starting off in Scottish Division One and progressing in the following seasons to play in the Benson & Hedges Cup and the British League Division One.

During the interim years between the old rink closing and the advent of the new rink, another level of ice hockey had come into being and grown in stature in Scotland. That was - Recreational Ice Hockey. This was based on the rules of Canadian, old-timer hockey and was a forum for all those wobblers and hopefuls, who fancied having a go at the game that they loved. As the name implies, it was supposed to be for fun and recreation and not to be taken too seriously. It wasn’t to be a League, and Challenge matches were the order of the day.

As could be expected, in a hockey town like Paisley, there were vast numbers of enthusiastic, non professionals who were desperate to ‘give it a go’ – old, young, male, female, tall, those that were vertically challenged, thin and those that were a bit rounder and heavier than the rest of us. As a result more than one ‘reccy’ team was formed at the new rink and challenge matches ensued, at home and away, with other Scottish reccy teams, some of whom were well established and could play at a reasonable standard.

Because of the numbers who wanted to play at Paisley, reccy clubs sprung up like cones at a road works. One of the more notorious of these was the Paisley Sharks. They blazed onto the scene, complete with impressive logo, two sets of strips and John Cameron – a player manager whose confident team publicity would have had you thinking that The Stanley Cup, itself, was well within their grasp. They even had a bus at their disposal, provided by one of their latter sponsors - The Eagle Taverns. One of the requirements, however, that The Eagle Taverns set down was that the team name be changed from The Paisley Sharks to The Paisley Eagles. And so, ‘The Eagles’ took flight and had varying successes in the reccy scene both north and south of the border, including winning the Scottish Cup. They attracted a number of capable players as, by now, retiring ex-professionals and a nucleus of old timers had joined the wobblers and hopefuls on the reccy benches.

The ranks of the Eagle Tavern Worthies grew to such an extent that considerable discontent began to grow amongst the lesser players, whose bum prints were becoming well and truly embossed on the bench and whose skates didn’t need sharpened from January till December! A meeting was held in the Todholm Inn to thrash out a solution to the problem and quench the rising discontent. It emerged, that the team should split in two, with the more accomplished players remaining as The Paisley Eagles and the ‘also rans’ forming a ‘B’ team. The Eagles remained as such for about a year, but when new sponsors came on the scene, the name changed, once more, to one that, today, draws considerable respect and admiration – The Paisley Blackhawks! – They have developed into a team of excellent skill and quality - Regular winners of the Scottish Cup and just about every other tournament that they enter.

After the Todholm meeting, the ‘also rans’ toyed with various names, one of which was The Paisley Porkers. That received about as much enthusiasm as finding a bluebottle in your custard but, ultimately, the name ‘Panthers’ came up and quickly became the accepted choice and thus The Paisley Panthers sprang (or possibly stumbled) into the Scottish Recreational arena. It was 1996 when the club entered that arena in the true spirit of recreational hockey. Although the initial players were deemed, in the opinion of others, to be the lesser half of the Paisley Eagles split, they have trained hard, played hard and, excluding the ‘big four’ at the top of the SRIHC, are now comparable to any of the twenty six recreational teams in Scotland today. Over the years since their advent, they have played regular challenge matches in Scotland and occasionally venturing over the border, to take on English reccy teams in venues like Durham, Newcastle and Hull. In so doing the Panthers have, twice, been runners up in the Scottish Plate, runners up in the Edinburgh spring Tournament and also brought home a trophy from the Michelin Summer Cup in 2004. The Team Squad of 2007/8 is somewhat different from those stalwarts who left that meeting in the Todhom Inn as ‘cubs’ in 1996, to nurture themselves into fully fledged ‘Panthers’, but one or two of the originals are still on the roster – Ian Beattie, Dougie Mathews and Michael Daly(Snr).

In recent years, the Scottish Recreational Ice Hockey Conference (SRIHC), which administers the amateur game in Scotland, has, itself, become more organised and effective. They have produced a more structured season by introducing the upgraded Scottish Cup/Scottish Plate Tournament which is proceeded through-out the season by a series of qualifying, play-off matches, culminating, in the spring, with a Finals weekend for each trophy. Paisley Panthers welcome this competition and will compete in it with enthusiasm and a determination to consistently skate off with some of the Silverware.

At the start of the 2006/2007 season, the Panthers, along with every other ice user at Paisley, suffered a massive blow when their hallowed ice rink, at the Lagoon Centre, was forced to close indefinitely, due to major difficulties with the ice pad. For a time everything looked bleak but, the Panthers joined forces with the other dejected ice users and formed the Paisley Ice Users Action Group (PIUAG). The aim of the group was to put pressure on Renfrewshire Leisure to find alternative ice for all concerned.

Renfrewshire Leisure did not pursue a solution with the urgency that was required to prevent member clubs within PIUAG from facing imminent closure and disbandment. Panthers, determined not to dissolve, sought their own solution and were fortunate to secure ice at the Galleon Centre in Kilmarnock. This was not ideal and numbers attending training, at 10.15 on a Thursday night, were pitifully low. Fortunately, the PIUAG had detached themselves from Renfrewshire Leisure and were, independently, negotiating with the management of Braehead Arena, in Renfrew. This paid off big-time with Braehead agreeing to open its doors to all Paisley ice users, including the Panthers. Therefore, since the 10^th of February 2007, the Panthers, along with the Paisley Pirates (SNL), the Paisley Blackhawks and Paisley Junior Development have enjoyed training and playing out of this magnificent 4,000 seater arena and all the facilities that go with it!

The future for the Panthers is bright. It’s a friendly, happy club with a squad of players who will gladly take on any challenge. It has a conscientious administrative committee and it plays out of fantastic home ice which, hopefully, will resound to the shouts and banter of enthusiastic hockey players for many years to come!

RMCC

16th November, 2005
Amended - 6th June, 2007