10:25am Friday 9th October 2009
WYCOMBE’S last two MPs have secret pasts as Canadian ice hockey stars, Backchat can exclusively reveal today.
I came across the amazing revelation by sheer accident while checking facts about these politicians on the internet.
First, I went online and put Paul Goodman, the current MP, into a Google search engine.
He has always told the world he is a former monk and an ex-Telegraph journalist.
But Wikipedia, the web encyclopedia, has a biography of Paul Goodman, saying he was: a Canadian ice hockey goaltender who played three seasons in the NHL with the Chicago Black Hawks.
Naturally, I assumed this must have been a name coincidence, and thought nothing much more about it until last Monday when I did a Google search on Mr Goodman’s predecessor, Ray Whitney.
His name had come up on a Midweek nostalgia page and, although I knew Ray well, I wanted to reassure myself of his spelling.
But, lo and behold, the first thing to come up on Wikepedia was: “Ray Whitney is a Canadian professional ice hockey player and alternate captain currently with the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League.”
I was now certain there was something going on and immediately wrote to the Wycombe Conser-vative Association and Paul Goodman demanding an explanation.
But MP Goodman’s response was even more staggering.
“That’s nothing - our predecessor bought an entire ice hockey team,” he told me directing me to the Wikipedia entry for Sir John Hall.
Now I knew John Hall was one time Wycombe MP many years ago, and I even knew they named a road in the town after him – John Hall Way.
What I didn’t know was he purchased the Durham Wasps, according to Wikipedia.
I am sure you so-called experts out there will tell me that it’s all a big coincidence and it’s the other Sir John Hall, the bloke who used to run Newcastle United.
But I find it deeply odd that our last three MPs have been involved so deeply in this strange sport.
Mr Goodman has, as most of you know, announced he is standing down at the next General Election, and the Tories are trying to pick his successor.
So will ice-skating be one of the prerequisites for the job? I think we should be told.
But then I suppose skating on thin ice is a necessary quality for an MP these days in the scandal-plagued House of Commons?
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