Bobad,

There isn't a single national newspaper in the UK which features daily coverage of ice hockey (and, believe me, some of them desperately try to fill 16 and more pages on sport every day). In other words, the sport has no 'popularity' here.

I wonder how much the brother of your next door neighbour is actually being paid and how that equates to the average footballer in the Premier League (from £20,000 to £150,000 per week). Even an ex-test cricketer could well be on £60,000 for just six months of the year.