The IIHA are pleased to announce the appointment of the following three officers:
Mark Bowes – Public Relations Officer
Aaron Cuskeran – Northern Ireland Officer
Martin Grant – Editor
All three have already commenced work in their respective areas and the Executive Committee is delighted to have them all involved. We welcome Mark, Aaron and Martin to the IIHA as officers and wish them good luck in the positions.
Mark Bowes – Public Relations Officer
Former General Secretary and Director of the association, Mark Bowes takes up the position of Public Relations Officer for the first time and it is hoped that he will bring much experience to the position. Mark has been involved in Irish ice hockey for nearly thirty years starting out with the Rialto Rockets in Dolphin’s Barn back in the late eighties and early nineties. From there Mark was involved in forming the Dublin Flyers when the Rockets amalgamated with the Phibsborough Flyers. Soon after, the Irish Ice Hockey Association came into existence and from 1996 Mark served as the General Secretary up until 2008 and as a Director up until 2009.
Throughout the years, Mark has had extensive involvement with the Irish and International media. Most recently Mark was instrumental in the coverage which the Senior Irish National Team received after winning its Gold Medal in Luxembourg back in March. Mark set up a variety of interviews for players and coaches and the sport received coverage in newspapers, internet based media, radio and even on tv. The highlights were two of the Gold Medal winning players appearing on “The Den” on RTE 2 and a news story celebrating Ireland’s Gold Medal appearing on www.rte.ie. This were all thanks to Mark.
The IIHA are pleased to have Mark on board and we wish him every success in getting Irish ice hockey’s image into the media.
Aaron Cuskeran – Northern Ireland Officer
Aaron Cuskeran joins the IIHA as an officer of the association for the first time in the newly created position of Northern Ireland Officer. In this position, Aaron will have a primary responsibility in securing the use of facilities in Northern Ireland, assisting in the organising of activities in Northern Ireland and liaising with all clubs based in Northern Ireland to ensure that issues relevant and specific to those clubs based in Northern Ireland remain on the agenda of the IIHA.
Although this is Aaron’s first time as an officer with the IIHA, he has been thoroughly involved in ice hockey in Ireland over the past twenty five years and since the Dundalk Ice Dome opened in December 2006, he has been an ever present in the Dublin Rams line-up. With the Rams, Aaron has been a player and one of their most persistent forwards chipping in with a goal every other game. He has also helped the team in organising itself often by securing travel and accommodation for their trips to Dundalk and Scotland. In addition, Aaron has also provided league based content for the IIHA’s use on www.iiha.org. It is these organisational skills which the IIHA know Aaron will bring to the position.
The IIHA are again pleased to have Aaron on board and we wish his every success in his position.
Martin Grant – Editor
The final appointment by the Executive Committee is for the position of Editor and this will be filled by Martin Grant who is another officer of the association for the first time. Martin will take on the responsibility of processing and approving all content made available and for the use of the IIHA in its publications. Martin will also source and provide regular content to be used by the IIHA as well as maintaining the association’s social media pages. Martin has been one of the most ever present individuals around Irish ice hockey since the opening of the Dundalk Ice Dome. Always doing something, if Martin is not helping out with either the music or statistics on game days then he is taking notes for game reports he will later be submitting to the local papers. More often than not, he is doing all of them at the same time!
Martin brings much experience to his position as he is currently the weekly ice hockey contributor with The Dundalk Democrat. At the Democrat, he has provided content every week that has been published and has seen his submissions grow from just a quarter-page to a regular full page on just ice hockey. His success with the newspaper has been tremendous and on some occasions, the ice hockey section in the paper has been two full pages. On top of this, Martin also covers general news interest stories with the Dundalk Leader and he has also seen some of his work published in the Irish News of the World, The Sunday World and the Evening Herald. In addition, Martin has also been a regular provider of content for the IIHA’s website, www.iiha.org.
We welcome Martin on board and wish him every success in his new position which we are all sure he will thrive in.