4000 And Counting

4000 And Counting is a British ice hockey podcast presented by Nicky Watt, with Mark as co-host and Graham Hamilton producing. Watt opens each episode as Wotty, and the recent run is built one guest at a time. The format is plain: a welcome, a quick word on why this person is here, then a loose conversation that goes wherever the guest takes it. What a listener gets is access to people who actually run and shape the UK game. Jamie Thomson explains the move from assistant coach to interim and then full-time general manager at the Solway Sharks, and what it means when experienced players who have been at the club before come back to it. Flyers head coach Jamie Russell goes further back, from growing up in Western Canada to a long collegiate coaching career and a hockey operations role where the ECHL fed the American League and, with luck, the NHL. Kirk McKnight comes on to talk about The Voices of Hockey, a book of broadcasters reflecting on the sport, and the show puts copies up for listeners through its social media. The returning guests are where the ongoing arguments live. Sam Cheema, making what Watt calls a hat trick appearance, takes on how British hockey could be improved, citing Slovakia and Denmark as countries whose leagues develop local talent and Liam Kirk's early chances at Sheffield as a case for letting young players play through mistakes. Dr Victoria Silverwood, a friend of the show on roughly a fourth visit, is called in when slashes to the face, cross-checks and cheap shots spread across the NIHL and the SNL. That conversation lands on player safety as the thing that comes before everything else, and on face cages and protective gear becoming standard outside the EIHL. Former co-host Alastair Band returns for a catch-up that covers the season getting under way in France and a blunt review of specific suspensions, including whether a five-year ban and a rest-of-season ban were proportionate. A few threads keep resurfacing across these episodes: dangerous play and discipline, how young British players are developed, and the daily reality of running a club. The register is pub table rather than press box. Guests are mates and buddies, big hits are admired as well as scrutinised, and swearing is common enough that Watt announces on one occasion that this episode will be kept cleaner so kids can watch. Clubs and leagues are named without explanation, so the show assumes a listener who already knows the Steelers from the Blades. Watt asks the questions a fan in the stands would ask, then gets out of the way. Episodes close identically, with a farewell to the ladies and gents and a promise of another one very soon. There is a YouTube channel and a Patreon behind it. Several hundred episodes deep, it is a long-running conversation among people who want UK hockey to be better and are willing to say out loud where it falls short.