So, your club fave left. Here’s your survival guide.

There are few things more frustrating in ice hockey than waiting. Waiting for the playoff weekend, waiting 12 years for Clan to make the final 4, waiting for your penalties to elapse but you have Heard playing for you, so you’ve still got 22 minutes to go. But one type of waiting is more arduous and tense than any other; waiting to learn which players get re-signed.

I’ve been through this stress recently. I found myself desperately refreshing social media feeds, rumour threads, and group chats, desperate for any inkling of Clan news. When they finally started to slowly drip through, I could feel my whole body relax. I read the announcements with bated breath, as a couple ol’ faithfuls promised another 12 months, a few young guns joined from overseas and even got to enjoy a coup signing from a rival. Everything was going swimmingly. Then the dread crept in. News of Sami Aittokallio, one of the fanbase’s favourite players, was worryingly conspicuous by its absence.

The days of silence stretched on, turning into agonising weeks. Until disaster. The post flashed in front of me. An action shot or two with him emblazoned in Clan colours, the post praising the fans and speaking of the great time he had playing for you, before talking about how sad he is to be leaving. Everywhere, supporter’s hearts broke.

After the group anguish following Glasgow Clan decision not to re-sign Sami, I want you to learn from our experience. So, here is my guide of what to do when your club fave leaves and how to carry on.

Plough through the seven stages of grief

The relationship between sports stars and their fans is usually weird, almost parasocial. We don’t really know them – beyond what we see on the ice – and so we go off snippets we see online, at club events, and their attitude on the bench. But with club favourites, we often know far more about them. Sami’s whole family would take part in public skates, and they worked hard to ingratiate them to the city, the fans, and the culture.

And so, through Ice Hockey Gals group chats, we could see the full 7 stages of grief.

Shock – “Wait, they’re letting SAMI go?!” (followed by 18 minutes of utter silence as we processed the news)

Denial – “I do not believe this. It makes no sense?”

Anger – “Zach Vinnell better have a ******* plan.”

Bargaining – “Reckon if we email enough…?”

Depression – “I’m honestly gutted. I can’t believe we did this to him.”

Acceptance – “Apparently his agent asked for too much. It sucks, but I get it.”

Processing – “We’ve signed a goalie from the ICEHL! I bet he’s no Sami, but he looks mad.”

Amazingly, we went through those 7 stages in about 3 hours. It was beautiful.

Embrace the power of the compilation

It took about 12 minutes from the announcement that Sami was leaving Glasgow to stumbling across the first TikTok compilation with sad music as a backing track. Was it morbid? Yes. But it was also a lovely summation of why he was so beloved by the fans. It didn’t just look at his performances on the ice, but also how joyful he was off it.

Search up your fave’s name on any of the apps we doomscroll on when you’re supposed to be working and you’ll soon enough come across a compilation to bring all the good times back, even if you have to endure them with some brainrot audio in the background occasionally.

I offer this advice with a warning, however. One can have too much of a good thing, and before long your feed will just be full of people moaning about your club’s failure to re-sign them. And this will just make you bitter.

Don’t be creepy

Back to the parasocial nature of supporting a club. You can mourn the loss of your favourite player, but there are always boundaries you shouldn’t cross. Sami, for instance, was in Glasgow with his family. His wife has a public, professional Instagram account (it’s worth a follow if you’re looking for a copywriter). The day after he announced he wasn’t staying I was worried looking at her page and stories, terrified that fans would have been weird, aggressive, or creepy in her comments.

This is the sort of thing that happens to the family of footballers, sadly. Happily, I couldn’t find any evidence of fandom creepiness, but the fact I was worried says so much about how low my expectations are when it comes to social media interactions.

Find a new fave

I know that this is probably the most difficult part of getting over your favourite player leaving, but it’s the best bit. You have to find a new player to get oddly attached to.

Choosing a new club favourite is difficult. With so many new players coming in during the off season, there might be someone who ticks all your boxes, but you’ve not found yet.

I asked the Glasgow Clan gals for who they’re new favourite player would be now Sami ‘s gone off to play in Poland, and why. The answer came back quickly and unanimously:

Cade Neilson. GB international with a goofy smile. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Ultimately, I’ll always feel a bit sorry for whoever replaces your favourite player, because you’ll be forever a little bit resentful that your fave left. You’ll bring it up constantly, especially when their replacement makes a mistake. I already know that the thing I’ll say most next season will be “Sami would have saved that”.

At least for the first few weeks.