Ashley Tait
Pro-Chancellor, distinguished friends, colleagues, graduands and guests.
With a career in professional ice hockey spanning nearly 20 years, Ashley Tait is one of the most experienced British players in the game today. After playing with Coventry Blaze, our local team, for nearly 15 years and holding the title of longest standing capped captain, it is with great pleasure that we today award Ashley with an Honorary Master of Arts.
Born in Toronto, Canada in 1975, to ice hockey loving parents, Ashley was soon introduced to the game when he moved to Nottingham in the UK with his family aged three. The ice rink in Nottingham soon became a second home when he started playing for a junior team aged five. Although football also held an interest for Ashley, it was ice hockey that was his first love and the sport he chose to focus his full attention on when he turned 13.
Ashley chose to stay close to home for his education, and after attending Good Shepherd Catholic School and Christ the King Secondary School, he attended Nottingham Trent University where he gained a 2:1 Degree in Business, Leisure and Sports Management.
Ashley has gone on to have an incredibly distinguished ice hockey career, playing for numerous teams including Nottingham Panthers, Kingston Hawks, Sheffield Steelers, Ritten Renon Tigers and Hull Sting Rays, and of course, Coventry Blaze. He has recently joined Milton Keynes Lightning where he continues to play exceptionally.
Ashley has also had the honour of captaining Great Britain in the World Championships and Olympic Qualifiers, and remains the most capped player ever in the GB national team, with 102 caps.
In addition to his outstanding ice hockey career, Ashley has continued with his personal development by successfully completing an Ice Hockey Level 1 Coaching Certificate. In his spare time he has taught hockey in schools and has led on a number of work led local and national community initiatives all surrounding hockey.
He has consistently applied his talent and knowledge with school children of all ages, such is his passion of ice hockey and his desire to share the importance of good health through sport. This has covered talks on life choices including education, drugs and diet during school visits, and he regularly coaches, mentors and talks to groups of all ages and sizes
Raised by his father who worked in finance and his mother a security officer, Ashley attributes his love of ice hockey to his father, who introduced him to the game and has always supported him throughout his career.
Ashley is engaged to Lesley and they have one daughter Afabia who is eight months old. Away from the world of ice hockey Ashley enjoys travelling reading and going to the gym.
In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the world of sport and his work in local and national community sporting initiatives, Coventry University, by decision of the Academic Board has the privilege of conferring the Degree of Arts, honoris causa, on Ashley Tait.