I see they have changed their name from Redskins since I watched them in the early 80's. Is that not to offend the many local Cherokee and Apache ethnics in SW16?

I love a bit of ice hockey, and used to watch Romford raiders until the rink closed and they now play at lea valley , however the brand new rink in the central Romford is coming along nicely, so the raiders should be back home next season.

I used to go yonks ago. Mac dees at the top of the hill and down to the rink. Chose the Washington Redskins when everyone chose an American football team for that reason.

Ouzo, fill me in on the history. I thought the rink was being closed down. I saw on BBC London programs it was falling to bits upstairs. I also thought it was a go kart track now although there are a few buildings the same size along there.

I was pretty quick and agile on the ice, forwards and back, dodging the impressive local older and huge black lads on the ice. They used to have a packed disco there on Fridays but I preferred daytimes where you could get speed up.

The old rink was knocked down a few years back, it really needed bulldozing about 20 years earlier, if you think the piss in the toilets at selhurst is bad walking into the loo's at the old rink would shock you, the smell of rancid piss would near knock you out and leave the smell on your clothes, if you survive that theres a good chance the ceiling could collapse on you mid piss and kill you.
I still loved the old girl though, its where I learnt to skate & where I first fell in love with Hockey me & mates would pretend to be Gretzky, Roenick, Yzerman, Jagr etc & were skating there atleast once a week & later where I took girls on dates.

For a time it looked like Streatham would just disappear Tesco (who own the land) wanted to build a facility without a rink were convinced by the local council and protests to include a rink in the new build.
Tesco backed down & the rink got the green light. Streatham moved to a temporary rink in Brixton which was actually nicer than a lot of permanent rinks we have in the UK.

We then moved to the new rink and to be honest I love it, its a great place to watch hockey & go for a skate.

As for the league this year, the division above us collapsed so there has been quite a big reshuffle and Streatham find themselves up against some much tougher opponents this time round however I am absolutely convinced they will more than hold their own and I am calling a 4th place finish.

We have assembled a great team.