2007

97 Scott Neil

Now the owner, coach and manager of Edinburgh Capitals, in his playing days Scott Neil was one of our leading forwards with Sheffield Steelers and the various Edinburgh teams. Between 1979-80 and 2001-02 he piled up nearly 1,300 points and was capped 37 times for his country for which he debuted when he was only 17.

In recent years, he has almost single-handedly kept the game alive in his home city while increasing the crowds.

Andrew Scott Neil was born in Edinburgh on 1 August 1962 into a family who have a share in the ownership of the Murrayfield Ice Rink. He played a lot of sport as a youngster, mainly football and rugby, and came late to skating at the age of 14.

But he took to ice hockey quickly and by the age of 16 he had scored his first goal for Murrayfield Racers, at the Billingham Forum in April 1979, a feat he clearly remembers

Two years later the precocious teenager made his World Championship debut for the GB senior team in China, after earning his first international cap in 1980 in the European under-18 tournament when he netted an astonishing five goals in GB’s victory over Belgium.

Through a contact of Alex Dampier, the Racers’ Canadian coach, Neil attended university in Canada. As in his boyhood, he played more football than hockey while he completed a business course. On his return to Edinburgh he found the sport starting to take off with the Heineken sponsorship and live television coverage.

In his seven seasons with the Racers he scored over 100 league points four times and helped the team to win the Heineken League twice, an Autumn Cup once, and reach the British Championship finals weekend at Wembley in every year bar one.

He then decided to join his former team-mate Ronnie Wood in the new Sheffield Arena and spent five years as a Steeler. This included their Grand Slam season and their first in the Superleague. In the Superleague’s opening campaign, Scott’s cousin, Tony Hand, and Welshman Nicky Chinn were the only other Brits on the Steelers.

In 1997, aged 35, Scott headed back to his native city where he has since worked tirelessly to keep his team going through several changes of ownership and names.

He is a strong believer in promoting local talent and, under his jurisdiction, the Edinburgh club includes players of all age groups, with Scott himself coaching the under-12s.

But he is also aware that the economics of the sport requires the leading teams to use overseas players. He was the first to appreciate that Eastern European players gave the best value and in season 2002-03 he signed, among others, defenceman Jan Krajicek, forward Martin Cingel and goalie Laidislav Kudrna who went on to play several seasons here.

By the end of his career, Scott Neil had played in 687 official games, scoring 694 goals and 1,282 points, with only 329 penalty minutes. Internationally, he appeared in six senior World Championships and an Olympic Qualifying competition, scoring 23 goals and 35 points.

With grateful acknowledgments to David Gordon’s book ‘Scotch On Ice’

Compiled with research,provided by Stewart Roberts April 2007.