Photo: A selection of Hockey Digest’s from The Hockey Museum archives.
The 2023/2024 hockey season would be the 50th anniversary of the creation of the long-running magazine collectively known as Hockey Digest, arguably the most recognisable men’s hockey magazine of the 20th century.
The magazine was founded by Nevill Miroy as Indoor Hockey News in September 1973 and was re-named Hockey Digest two years later as it moved to also cover the outdoor game. In its final re-brand, Hockey Digest became Hockey Sport in 1996 after its merger with the august women’s hockey magazine Hockey Field and the involvement of hockey-loving pizza magnate Peter Boizot, the founder of Pizza Express.
All that makes this current season – the 2023/2024 hockey season – Hockey Digest magazine’s 50th birthday!
Hockey Digest: A Timeline of Editors
Indoor Hockey News | Nevill Miroy | September 1973 – May 1975
Hockey Digest | Nevill Miroy | October 1975 – August 1985
Hockey Digest | Peter Luck | September 1985 – February 1996
Hockey Sport | Peter Luck | March 1996 – December 2005
Issue 185, published in 1998, saw editor Peter Luck reflect on 25 years of the magazine’s evolution: his acquisition of the magazine from Miroy; the involvement of Bill Colwill and Boizot, and its merger with Hockey Field. A further 25 years on, his article is reproduced here in full.
Hockey Field editor Pat Ward gave her account of the merger during her 2015 oral history interview with The Hockey Museum (THM). See the section beginning 00:37:38.
Our Magazines
The Hockey Museum’s (THM) library holds many different magazines which collectively span the entirety of the 20th century, several even back into the 1890s. Some were short-lived publications while others like Hockey Digest, Ladies’ Hockey Field, Hockey World, and Hockey News cover decades of British and world hockey evolution and history. A mine of information and detail, they are truly a window into hockey’s past – an incredible resource for THM and for researchers.
Gronia Morley conducts research among the magazines in THM library. Gronia is currently studying for her MPhil at St Mary’s College.
Hockey’s magazines were almost always run and edited by philanthropic individuals for the greater good of hockey. Theirs was a labour of love which leads us to ask: did anybody ever make money from publishing hockey magazines in the heyday of print media?
