Show Hockey Becomes Popular Sport in Great Britain S By PAUL GALLICO LONDON Feb 8 We We are always so eager to discover how backward our neighbors on this side of the ocean are when it comes to sports or efficiency or central heating that it always comes as s a considerable considerable consider consider- able shock to discover that they know how to do things in certain cases in a much more handsome manner than ever we dreamed of I There is for Cor instance ice hockey at the Empire pool and sports arena at Wembley There they have constructed constructed con con- a great hall that seats scats some for hocke hockey and there isn't a apost apost apost post or pillar in the place And mind you they only have amateur hockey in England The professional game Jame has not yet established itself It is is however an amateur game that is twice a as fast as that played by our own amateurs in New York and still several grades below the worst professional hockey team that we have in the United States or Can Can- ada But the customers love it just th the same They pack the place and they behave exactly in the same roaring roar roar- hag ing hysterical manner as do our fans at home But what I was getting to was the convenience of oC the arena restaurant where here you may give a dinner party sit comfortably a and d eat a delicious meal and as you do so watch the athletes athletes athletes ath ath- letes skate skate- up and down and thwack cne one another lovingly loving over the skulls with their mallets No one ever thought of oC that at home Th The side arena seats rise and slant backward right from a row rw of boxes below On one side a large section of these arena arena seats scats has b been n cut away from the center of the rin ring to the end about twenty tiers up and on the balcony a restaurant has been built builL Behind it the seats seals continue on up to the roof No need then to miss supper or turn up late at the game because of dinn dinner r. r No need i if you do n not nat t wish to even to buy seats in the arena You buy 00 your our seats at your dinner t table You may come early enough to finish dinner before the match begins or you OU may dally daily through your meal while the game Is going or and gaze at the whizzing figures I through the yellow green of ot a glass of good wine vine It cost them probably 1500 to put that restaurant in there at the rink rink- side No American promoter would think of ot sacrificing that much possible pos poSe sible r revenue venue for the sake of oC a meal to be enjoyed by his patrons But that's how they do it here The English teams defeated the French Stars All 2 to 1 1 marking the first defeat of the French team on its entire English tour and the crowd went wild I would say that the two nations are about ready for class A professional hotkey hokey and whoever starts it will make himself a small fortune artune |