11/9/2023 0 Comments Nottingham panthers igNottingham’s opponents in these matches were teams made up of Canadian troops, and at least some of the Panthers men went to war too-some of them soon after playing for the club. That, in turn, makes it difficult to know what ultimately happened to the first men to don a Nottingham Panthers uniform, and to the men they faced. There’s little information available about them, and what material there is does not give us many clues about who took part. The Ice Stadium would soon be requisitioned by the government to aid the war effort, but not before a series of three matches were played by teams using the Nottingham Panthers banner. That was not the end of ice hockey in the city for seven years. The plans were scrapped, and the players sent home (apparently without ever even reaching Nottingham). It was during this time that the Panthers nickname was first devised, and a team was put together in Canada. Plans were made to launch a professional ice hockey team in September 1939. The Harringay Greyhounds and Harringay Racers, two of the game’s powerhouses in the 1930s, entertained a crowd which the Evening Post estimated exceeded 5,000. The old Ice Stadium first opened its doors on 10 April 1939, and the first match to be played in the city took place a few days later. In actual fact, the story of Nottingham ice hockey goes back a little further, and would have looked very different but for the intervention of World War II. The club’s founding date is often given as 22 November 1946, when the Panthers defeated Wembley Monarchs 3–2. The Nottingham Panthers usually chart their history from the first season of competitive hockey in 1946–47. The hidden (and tragic) wartime history of the Nottingham Panthers
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