History

Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 December 2009 18:05 Written by RNIHA

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TEAM HISTORY

There are records of a RN ice hockey team dating as far back as the 1930s.  More recently, Navy players played as part of the Gosport based Sentinels in the early 1990s, but the primarily civilian team disbanded in the mid-90s.  The team was re-started by Kevin Cave and Stephen Knightley in 2006 when the RN entered a team in the Tri-Service Command Championships for the very first time.  Despite most of the players meeting for the first time outside the rink on the first day of competition, the sailors and marines impressed with a 3rd place out of the 8 competing teams.

The next year, the Navy hosted the competition and expanded the format to include the first ever Inter-Services where the best players of from the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and British Army would be selected from the competing unit teams to determine the HM Forces Champions.  Under Navy leadership, the Combined Tri-Service Command and Inter-Services Championships have become one of the largest ice hockey competitions in the UK, with over 60 hours of hockey spread over 3 days.  The team is now almost entirely made up of military personnel and although civilians are welcome to join and train, priority will always be given to military members when selecting players for fixtures.  In addition, only full-time service members are eligible to be selected to represent the Navy against the RAF and Army in Inter-Service competition.

Players from the Navy have also been selected to represent the Combined Services against a few professional teams in a number of charity events.  From humble beginnings when players guested at other services' training sessions, the Navy eventually started up its own training at Swindon in 2007 chosen for being almost equidistant between the 2 main naval bases in the South of the UK.  The home ice was moved to Gosport in 2009 and the fixture schedule increased to include 2 games a month.