League: EIHL
Home Ice: Dundee Ice Arena, Dundee, Scotland
Colours: Red, White and Blue
Founded: 2001
The Dundee Stars are one the UK’s new breed of growing teams. This is because that whilst the Stars may only be ten years old they, like Edinburgh, Coventry and Manchester follow in the footsteps of famous teams before them.
Ice Hockey in Dundee has a long history with the Dundee Tigers and the Dundee Rockets and in 2001 the Dundee Stars arrived and brought British league ice back to the Ice Arena. This was in the second tier British National League that they dewily won in their first season and followed it up with a win in the playoffs. Before the BNL was disbanded in 2005 the Stars would make several cup final appearances as well winning the playoffs again in 2005.
Following the disbanding of the BNL the Stars refused to enter the EIHL due to fears about being competitive and the lack of Scottish opponents with the Fife Flyers also not being admitted into the EIHL. This let the Stars with a problem. Their fellow BNL members either made the jump to the EIHL or stepped down to the English Premier League but the latter does not have a Scottish equivalent and the so the Stars were forced to drop effectively 2 tiers to the Scottish National League along with the Flyers.
In 2010 though the Stars did join the EIHL and made a successful first campaign. The team made the playoffs and narrowly lost to the league champions in the first round. Their second year in the EIHL has been less successful so far with the team struggling for home form and sacking their Head Coach Dan Ceman in early December.
Ice hockey in Dundee has survived through many phases and changes both in league structure and owner ship. In many ways this is typical of teams in Scotland and will continue to be the case as long as there is a rink.
Neil Tucker
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