Great Britain: EIHL discussion thread

[Siamese Dream]

Tennis, badminton, squash, snooker, darts, athletics, boxing... all which achieve more recognition than hockey does in the UK media.

Real tennis that people actually watch isn't played indoors.

Badminton and squash only ever get recognition when it's the Olympics, and indoor athletics when it's the world championships but nobody pays any attention anyway.

Snooker and darts are played on small surfaces so it's hard to get many people in, how many people can they fit in the Crucible Theatre for example? Otherwise their attendances would trump ice hockey.

Boxing? Come on. The biggest fight of the year so far was outdoors in Wembley, and they sold it out. I'd like to see some real statistics but the only reason I'd imagine ice hockey beats boxing is because there's more games and they're more regular.

This "most watched indoor sport" rubbish is just a false way for the sport to big itself up and sound more popular than it is. All these sports you've mentioned as examples are only relevant during one-off events and don't have a regular weekly showing that ice hockey does.

 

[Kimi]

Do you not get coverage of ice hockey on your local news? During basketball season our team is always talked about during the sport segments.

 

[Rigafan]

Do you not get coverage of ice hockey on your local news? During basketball season our team is always talked about during the sport segments.

Some do and some don't it seems.

Manchester just signed a deal with the local radio station for example. I actually asked why the Manchester Evening News has a dedicated basketball but not hockey section and they said there wasn't demand

 

[glesga]

Bump.

Never really posted on here, shame that there's not much of an EIHL discussion. Can we get one going? Are there even many EIHL fans out there?

Nottingham and Cardiff both getting beat pretty heavily so far in tonight's opening CHL games.

 

[Rigafan]

Bump.

Never really posted on here, shame that there's not much of an EIHL discussion. Can we get one going? Are there even many EIHL fans out there?

Nottingham and Cardiff both getting beat pretty heavily so far in tonight's opening CHL games.

http://www.thehockeyforum.co.uk/forum/index.php - is where UK fans like to hang out the most.

Cardiff really sucked didn't they in the CHL. Current EIHL champions and saying they are 'in the CHL to win not to make up numbers' and totally fell apart. Sure its tough when the top 3 guys from the competition are on more money than the whole Cardiff operation but come on!

Nottingham was abit better but disappointed in Michael Garnetts performance

 

[glesga]

http://www.thehockeyforum.co.uk/forum/index.php - is where UK fans like to hang out the most.

Cardiff really sucked didn't they in the CHL. Current EIHL champions and saying they are 'in the CHL to win not to make up numbers' and totally fell apart. Sure its tough when the top 3 guys from the competition are on more money than the whole Cardiff operation but come on!

Nottingham was abit better but disappointed in Michael Garnetts performance

Yeah I do post occasionally on there. Always find the big discussions are more about EPIHL stuff.

Cardiff's results just show how far the league still has to go if it wants to compete with those of other European nations.

I watched Nottingham's game against Bern and yeah, Garnett didn't look great - very rigid in net and slow to put up the glove. I'm sure he'll do well though, his numbers in previous seasons look decent.

Went to see the Clan's first game against Frankfurt on Saturday. Pretty impressed with the style of play and compete level, despite being 6 imports short. Ended up winning 5-4. Looks like Tripp will have us playing a fast forechecking game. Pretty impressed with the application of the players as well.

 

[glesga]

Superb back to back wins for the Panthers in the CHL.

They actually have a chance at making it past the group stages now Nosebleed territory.

 

[1865]

And Panthers actually beat Bern! Absolutely unbelievable. That has to be the best result in UK hockey history?!

 

[Rigafan]

And Panthers actually beat Bern! Absolutely unbelievable. That has to be the best result in UK hockey history?!

I'd say so!

 

[Tribec]

Add to the Nottingham win, the Cardiff win on Sunday, it was quite the weekend for British hockey. Nottingham are a lot more Euro savvy having done so well last season, I expected them to do better than the Devils this year. Europe is a huge step up for our teams, but the more experience we get the better equipped we'll be in the future.

The sad part of this though is that it's got little to no national coverage in the print media or main broadcasters. Shocking really, if we could get a foothold it would help the sport so much.

 

[glesga]

Decent media coverage would make so much of a difference. I genuinely believe that if we had moderate coverage in the sports media, attendances would see a hefty boost (and attendances are generally decent in the EIHL!)

 

[Rigafan]

Decent media coverage would make so much of a difference. I genuinely believe that if we had moderate coverage in the sports media, attendances would see a hefty boost (and attendances are generally decent in the EIHL!)

One reason I've seen, said by Todd Kelman, at one of the fan fourms was the EIHL isn't the NHL - obviously. We don't have that franchise player effect that you can sell to the whole country. Why would people in Cardiff care what happened in Edinburgh? Its very much local the EIHL isn't it.

Where as in the big leagues you'll see it billed as 'Crosby and Pittsburgh take on X and X city'

It'd help first if teams actually did some decent marketing and started to try promote themselvs to their own areas. Nottingham, Sheffield, Cardiff and Belfast seem to do a good job, ok Braehead too but what about say Manchester? Its unknown outside of the rink. Same with Edinburgh.

 

[nadera78]

It's difficult for most sports to get media traction in this country, even rugby league which has a long and proud history, gets excellent attendances, and is easily in the top 5 sports in England gets very little coverage. It's all football, football, football, then a little bit for the establishment favourites (cricket, tennis, rugby union) when something big is happening. So the staring point for hockey is a very difficult one.

But, you still have to come back to the point that we've had years and years of incompetent management of the game at every level - club, league and governing body. It's shambolic.

 

[Tribec]

We started to go downhill with the advent of the Super League, till then we were steadily building up crowds, TV wasn't huge, but we had regular national coverage of the play off weekend on the BBC and the GB team were developing really well.

Then it was lost on the whim of John Hall, he sold us out to SKY and rather than continuing the legacy we were building we built a fire under our own sport, one which we are starting to rebuild from.

One organisation to manage hockey in the UK would be a start, get rid of the franchise systems in place, bring back a traditional league structure that allows for ups and downs. Give teams the incentive to improve, to build good junior programs and we'll start to see the benefit.

Taking away all the allegations that have come about of late, hockey need to follow the cycling team. They built on the success of Chris Boardman way back in 92, and that eventually led to where it is today a hugely popular sport spawning it's own tour, making stars of the cyclists. Get GB to the 2022 games and build on from the publicity that would generate.

 

[Kimi]

The thing with cycling is that it got funding as we wanted to win medals in 2012. It was seen as a weak sport that had a lot of medals available, so we essentially bought them with funding the program as the cost per medal was really low. And importantly was a solo sport that you can build around a couple of stars.

Ice hockey offers none of that, and is massively more expensive. There's no external incentive to invest in it, so no one will.

 

[Beville]

One organisation to manage hockey in the UK would be a start, get rid of the franchise systems in place, bring back a traditional league structure that allows for ups and downs. Give teams the incentive to improve, to build good junior programs and we'll start to see the benefit.

Well everything’s under the Ice Hockey UK banner now

 

[ukyote]

Not EIHL, but I caught a great 4-3 home OT win for Streatham against the MK Thunder on Saturday. Great atmosphere and a close, exciting physical and fast game.

 

[mkev400]

Maybe a week or so late, but after a long time residency in Dublin I finally managed to make the trip up to Belfast to watch a Giants game. Giants win over Sheffield, and the Steelers racked up more than a games worth of Penalty minutes (more than I'm used to seeing, but hey Belfast scored 3 PP goals, so who am I to complain). It was the first match I attended in some 5 years since I last went to a DEL game in Cologne (used to regular-ish go to games in Cologne, Dusseldorf and sometimes Hamburg). The atmosphere in the arena reminded me a lot of the German league. All though I must say, the different promotions and price raffles all gave me a feel of those stereotypical US-minor league animation stereotype you see in Movies. But they market themselves really rather well, and they have some interesting ways to get fans animated and invested into the whole show as well as the hockey (The shirt of a players back raffle, and skating with the team in the arena post game).
It was a really cool experience, and especially in a "contentious place" like Belfast/Northern Ireland they really seem to have carved out a nice niche for themselves.

 

[Chris OKeeffe]

Great to see the league has finally got some sort of TV deal again, with Free Sports channel. The rebuild of GB hockey has started since the gold medal in the world championships. Let's not waste this chance!

 

[Albatros]

 

[JayX]

Oh yay, this thread reminded me to check if Cardiff were playing at home when I visit the family this December and right in the middle of a sea of away games we have a Saturday game I should be able to get to. And luckily it's not against Nottingham, or I might get some stares when I likely wear my Florida Panthers jersey. (In fairness, I repped my wifes Cardiff Devils jersey at a Florida game the weekend they won the playoffs, so it's a fair trade!)

 

[GBHockey]

Oh yay, this thread reminded me to check if Cardiff were playing at home when I visit the family this December and right in the middle of a sea of away games we have a Saturday game I should be able to get to. And luckily it's not against Nottingham, or I might get some stares when I likely wear my Florida Panthers jersey. (In fairness, I repped my wifes Cardiff Devils jersey at a Florida game the weekend they won the playoffs, so it's a fair trade!)

You wouldn't get any stares or negative responses!

With Nottingham's main rivals being Sheffield, with their awful bright orange jersey, there are a small number of Nottingham fans who are also Philadelphia Flyers fans and whilst their choice of team is highly questionable, they never see any negative reactions!

There are occasions where there'll be fans of other EIHL teams at games where their own team isn't playing, and still usually repping their team's jersey and there's never anything besides banter really.

Hope you have a great trip over!

 

[JayX]

Yeah it was more jest than anything, I've never had a bad experience wearing an away/irrelevant jersey anywhere. Had some good banter in NYC when I wore a Penguins jersey to the game prior to moving to Florida, so having Jagr play for the Panthers was a dream and essentially converted me to a fulltime Panthers fan almost instantly.

Looking forward to coming home for a bit, although I'll need to dig out some warm clothes as it's been 40c over here for a few months! Looking forward to seeing the new rink in Cardiff too, can't believe it's finally finished ha.

 

[Danmark]

How is Samuel Duggan doing?

His stats is not impressive.

 

[GBHockey]

How is Samuel Duggan doing?

His stats is not impressive.

I believe he's 4th line in Cardiff and plays a more defensive forward role. I think his deal in Cardiff is at least 2 years, possibly 3. I don't think he's done enough to warrant a call up to the national team but he may make the long list.