In the past I have been shy and retiring when it came to promoting my sporting talents. Art McRory used to call at our house every Sunday morning begging me to come and parade my Gaelic football skills for Tyrone but I would hide behind the sofa until the team bus had disappeared down the road. When Billy Bingham phoned repeatedly pestering me to come and play with his Northern Ireland team during the 1980s I had to persuade my mother to tell him I wasn't in. And as for Harry Williams, he could not take no for an answer as he pleaded with me to show off my finely tuned rugby brain and blistering turn of pace on the wing for Ulster. A chronic lack of talent aside, low self-confidence has been the only reason my career in representative sport has never really taken off.

But those diffident days are gone forever and my light will no longer be hidden under the nearest bushel. This radical change of heart has been prompted by last week's news that this city's first ice-hockey team, the Belfast Giants, is looking for players as it prepares for the start of its first season in the British Super League this autumn. The team will be coached by one Dave Whistle and this is an unashamed unilateral appeal to him. I'm yours, if you want me.

Of course, this has not been an easy decision to make and a number of significant reservations remain. The prospect of ice hockey in Belfast may be as ridiculous as beach volleyball in Ballymena, pelota in Pomeroy or skiing in Silverbridge but we are prepared to give it a chance.

Another niggling little doubt is who exactly will turn up to watch me and the rest of the guys as we skate and strike to our hearts' content up there at the new Odyssey complex along the banks of the River Lagan. After a few weeks of initial curiosity, there is every prospect that the dwindling crowds will make men's hockey or senior league cricket here look well-supported. But nothing ventured, nothing gained and when ice hockey eventually supplants Gaelic football and soccer in the country's sporting affections there will be a smugness in our voices as we remember how we were in there right at the very bottom.

But I am not so vain as to think I will just waltz straight on to this new team. From Belfast to Belcoo, men in pubs, women on the streets and children in playgrounds can speak of nothing else but the ice-hockey revolution that is set to sweep the country. Never mind your replica Peter Canavan shirts or your David Beckham short back and sides, this summer's craze is the full ice-hockey regalia complete with helmet and face-guard. Sports shops already have orders stretching right up to Christmas.

So competition for places is likely to be fierce. One player has already been signed. Mark Cavallin, a Canadian goalkeeper, has the undoubted honour of being Belfast's first ice-hockey player and already plans for the erection of a bronze bust of the burly goalkeeper outside the City Hall are at an advanced stage. Like Christopher Columbus entering the New World, Mr Cavallin is a trailblazer and a man worthy of our admiration and our respect.

Mark Cavallin is certainly under no illusions about the worth of what he is doing. "The way I look at it is you're making sporting history, you're going into the unknown," said the first Belfast Giant, without even a trace of self-importance or pomposity, after putting pen to paper. In years to come he is someone to whom other ice-hockey apprentices like myself will look for inspiration and encouragement. He is the man.

The terrifically named coach, Whistle, has also intimated to the Belfast media, which waits with bated breath for just a snippet of news that can be rushed out to a salivating public, that he has verbal agreements with six other players. Deals with these players, he says, will be finalised over the next few weeks. The new coach remained tight-lipped about who he had been talking to but it is understood that he has targeted a number of prominent local inter-county hurlers. Nothing has yet been confirmed, but one name that does crop up repeatedly is that of Derry's Geoffrey McGonigle who is currently on something of an enforced break from the game. Coach Whistle clearly feels that Geoffrey has the stickwork and the physique to take him to the very top of the ice-hockey tree.

As regards my own prospects, time spent on the ice could be a problem. Negotiating frozen footpaths for a few mornings every winter and one school skiing holiday in Bulgaria 20 years ago may not seem like the most impressive CV but surely boundless enthusiasm and a willingness to learn should be enough to fill in the gaps. This new sporting revolution should value love for the great game of ice hockey above technical competence because apart from the big salaries, the sponsorship, the endorsements and the television revenue, we all want to be involved for the pure love of the sport.

Ice hockey is Belfast's sporting future. Coach Whistle and the rest of his merry band should ignore the begrudgers who see investment in his team as a colossal waste of money at a time when the rest of the sporting infrastructure here is so chronically under-funded. We say their home at the Odyssey complex will not be a white elephant and that when thousands flock there every weekend for thrilling encounters with teams like the Bradford Blizzards and the Torquay Thunderstorms, all those who doubted the wisdom of this entire venture will be eating large slices of humble pie.

This project needs its champions and its activists and nobody who cares about sport here should be found wanting. When it comes to the future of Irish ice hockey, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye when they ask what I did during the early days of the great icehockey revolution. Come and get me, Coach Whistle, I can do a job for you.