Still over a point-per-game scorer deep into his forties, Hand retired after the 2015 EPIHL league finals, after his Manchester Phoenix team lost.

[1] Hand served as the head coach of the Great Britain national team, a position he assumed in 2011 and resigned from in 2013.

He started his ice hockey career with the Edinburgh-based Murrayfield Racers, playing for their junior team the Raiders and working part-time at the rink.

He made his senior debut on 20 September 1981, at the age of fourteen against the Fife Flyers when the Murrayfield Racers had a player shortage.

He reached his first Championship Playoff Final with Murrayfield but despite Hand scoring 10 goals and 5 assists in 6 games, the Racers lost 5–4 to Dundee Rockets.

Representing Great Britain at the Pool C European Championships in Feltre in Italy, he played 3 games and scored 4 points.

Hand was the first of only three British-born and trained players ever to have been drafted by an NHL team (the second being Colin Shields and the third being Liam Kirk).

Before returning home to Scotland, Hand played briefly for the junior Western Hockey League's Victoria Cougars, with whom he had trained before the Edmonton camp, and scored eight points in only three games.

After beating Murrayfield 11–5 in the final of the Autumn Cup competition, Durham also knocked them out of the Wembley Semi-final 11–8 despite Hand scoring a Championship record 7 points in the match.

Having won the Scottish league and cup double with Murrayfield, Hand was selected for the GB senior team for the first time, making his debut in the World Championships Pool D competition in Belgium.

In March 1990, he won a Gold medal and the MVP award during Great Britain's Pool D promotion campaign in Cardiff scoring 5 goals and 8 assists in 4 one-sided games against Australia and Spain.

The following season was a disappointing one for Hand as Murrayfield won only one trophy, the Capital Foods Scottish Cup and Great Britain could only finish fifth in the Pool C competition in Denmark.

On a personal front, Hand scored his 600th league goal against Durham Wasps and a record 11 assists against Trafford Metros in the quarter-final stage of the Norwich Union Cup.

1991–92 started badly for Hand with an eight-game ban for a drug offence when a cold remedy gave a positive result for traces of ephedrine.

However, after a single season with the Edinburgh Racers who also went bankrupt, Hand finally moved to the Sheffield Steelers, in the Superleague.

In the 2004 New Year Honours, Hand was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to ice hockey.