D REW BANNISTER heaves a train of shopping trollies aside and hauls boxes piled with merchandise out of the way, stooping to avoid the industrial pipes that hang from the ceiling as he clears a space amid the organised chaos of the Braehead Clan office.
Concealed behind an unmarked door, jammed in a niche between the lifts and the multi-story car park adjacent to Braehead Shopping Centre, it is an unlikely place for a former NHL defenceman to begin his coaching career.
However, the 37-year-old seems content as he takes a seat, charts and maps decorating the wall behind him and his Canadian passport discarded on his desk. “I’d been here last season, so I knew what to expect,” Bannister says, his Ontario drawl not diminished by spending the previous 12 months in Hull.
He probably did not expect to be evicted to accommodate Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler, mind you. With the Braehead Arena hosting the musicians on consecutive nights at the weekend, the Clan were excluded from their home rink as they prepared for yesterday’s 3-0 defeat at the hands of the Nottingham Panthers, but Bannister has become used to inconveniences over the past few weeks.
Having only been appointed at the end of July, months of work have been crammed into a few frantic weeks. The Clan roster needed to be filled, scouting reports had to be compiled and training schedules set out; the player/coach had to sharpen his own game, too, as well as ensuring he and his family were settled in their new home. That they have won two of their opening three games in such circ*mstances is remarkable.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised given the little time we had to prepare,” Bannister explains. “Not every job can be easy and, in a strange way, I think it’s made us better prepared because we’ve had to focus immediately in a difficult situation. It could have gone the other way but it’s credit to the guys that it hasn’t.”
Having been one of “the guys” as recently as last season, Bannister understands how a locker room operates. With that in mind, The Canadian’s dual role adds a further layer of complexity to what is an already demanding task; during the week he is the dominant voice, however, on game day he becomes just another player. “I like to step back and let the leaders in the team take control because I want them to be able to relax and not worry about the coach being on the ice” he says.
“Some things pass through my ears that I probably shouldn’t hear and I understand that, but I don’t want the guys not to be able to live their lives away from the rink; as long as they are professional and whatever they are doing doesn’t hurt or embarrass the team or affect their performance they I don’t mind.”
Adapting to a new environment is nothing new to Bannister, though, given that he has played in most of the world’s top ice hockey leagues. After a stellar junior career, during which he won world gold with Canada, he was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992, but struggled with injuries, moving between the NHL and minor leagues for several seasons and enjoying ice time with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Edmonton Oilers, and New York Rangers as well as Tampa.
In 2002, realising his NHL career was coming to an end, he refused to wallow in self-pity, instead accepting a contract in Finland and going on to enjoy successful stints in Russia and Germany, returning to north America with the Ottawa Senators for a year before alighting at the Hull Stingrays as an assistant.
“I just wasn’t big enough for the NHL at 6ft 2in and 190lb,” he admits. “I was playing against forwards who were 6ft 4in, 240lb and fast with it and I just didn’t have the size to compete. It’s more my game now and there are always ifs and buts but I had the privilege of playing in the best league in the world against the best players and there’s a lot of people who would give their right arm or leg for the chance of just one game.
“I’ve won championships around the world and there’s guys in the NHL who’ve never done that and would give up a lot just to say they were the best at their level.”
Such successes also make him an ideal candidate to spread the gospel of ice hockey in Scotland. A core of around 2000 fans regularly attend Clan home matches but, with thousands of shoppers milling around beside the Clan’s home rink every day -- “just go past the escalators, left through the food court and turn left again at the ice rink” -- their unusual location could be used to swell that number but there remains scant suggestion that any sport other than bargain hunting is held at Braehead.
Signposts are scarce, while the handful of sports shops in the vicinity favour football shirts and layabout chic over pucks and sticks. “We’re in a football environment with Rangers and Celtic and we know we can’t compete with them. But I think there is a base of fans and we need to get the word out to them,” insists Bannister, who visits local schools with his players to promote the sport. “It is a tough sell because they don’t get to see the best players in the world on TV regularly but there are some very good players in this league who do a lot of amazing things at high speeds and with high contact; these are tough guys and there’s not a lot of rolling about.
“The problem is, we need to attract as many people as we can because, ultimately, they pay the bills. If there is nobody in the stands, we can’t afford to have people on the ice.”
