bobad,

I toured England and Scotland in the eighties with a Senior team of Canadians from the Toronto area. Hockey had a small but devoted fan base. For some reason, it was most popular in Nottingham, apparently they sold out pretty much every game. But it was also quite popular in London (Streatham Redskins), Durham and Billingham. It seemed to be even more popular Scotland. At that time, there were import rules, no team could have more than three imports. That has changed. They formed what they call the Superleague. From what I have heard the calibre of hockey is much better than it was when I was there. There are several ex-NHLer's playing as well as North Americans who played Junior A and/or University hockey. It seems that they have a number of Europeans from the same places that the NHL get Europeans. I understand that there are very nice new arenas in Nottingham and Sheffield. I think that it's popularity is still minimal compared to Soccer etc., but growing.