Theokritos
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Great Britain: EIHL 2020-2021
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Theokritos
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As much as I dislike the Manchester Storm, he is correct.
IF the EIHL goes ahead, signs all their guys ect and the government pull a second lockdown with no notice (which they are likely to do) the league would basically collapse overnight - then again how will the league survive with no revenue if they don't run the league at all this year? It will be interesting times, again, for UK hockey.
Theokritos
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Theokritos
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"I’ve known Ben for a few years and coached against him when I was with the Dutch national team and watched him at the World Championships in Belfast. I’ve seen him in with the big boys in the Worlds as well and I’ve always had the thought he’s a very talented goalie (...) He also made a good impression on us in the Champions Hockey League last year when we played against Cardiff and they got the two victories against us."
I wish him the best, UK need more good players to go abroad and level up, so to speak, or they will stagnate badly.
Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
Look for an announcement sometime in the next 10 days about this season. Governments and Elite league not on the same page with how many seats they can sell per game. Some talks about moving the start of the season to January but not all teams are in favour of that
Theokritos
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Theokritos
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Theokritos
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Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
Nearly all my connections behind the scenes in the British elite leagues jumped ship inthe last 48 hours. Players have been given permission to sign with other clubs.
September 15th is now just a formality. D3vils won't be in the CHL this season
September 15th is now just a formality. D3vils won't be in the CHL this season
Theokritos
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Theokritos
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Some more departures today.
Evan Mosey has moved to GAP in France.
Adam Deutsch is believed to be heading back to Scandinavia
George Golovkovs is also believed to be heading to Scandinavia
Josh Tetlow also heading to Scandinavia
Joe Hazeldine joined Lausitzer's (DEL2) u23 set up a few days ago too.
I'm sure there will be more to come over the next few weeks. I have been wondering though, the market must be extremely inundated at the moment with players looking for spots in Europe with hockey in North America unlikely to restart this season.
Evan Mosey has moved to GAP in France.
Adam Deutsch is believed to be heading back to Scandinavia
George Golovkovs is also believed to be heading to Scandinavia
Josh Tetlow also heading to Scandinavia
Joe Hazeldine joined Lausitzer's (DEL2) u23 set up a few days ago too.
I'm sure there will be more to come over the next few weeks. I have been wondering though, the market must be extremely inundated at the moment with players looking for spots in Europe with hockey in North America unlikely to restart this season.
Theokritos
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Yes, a lot of clubs from various leagues are happy that so many players are available at this stage of the preseason.
Theokritos
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Theokritos
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Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
I did a fan zoom meeting with several long term season ticket holders. Feeling is that the league wont come back looking like it did when we last saw it
Devils, panthers and sheffield and belfast are viewed as being the safest. The Scottish fans have concerns with both Dundee and Fife being able to bounce back to operate.
A few of the owners of the teams have had their main business hit hard and unlike other sports, not all owners in the league are multi millionaires.
Fans are not panicking but they are prepared for some trouble waters a head as the league sorts itself out
Devils, panthers and sheffield and belfast are viewed as being the safest. The Scottish fans have concerns with both Dundee and Fife being able to bounce back to operate.
A few of the owners of the teams have had their main business hit hard and unlike other sports, not all owners in the league are multi millionaires.
Fans are not panicking but they are prepared for some trouble waters a head as the league sorts itself out
It would be a good thing if the league is affected. The currently model is terrible and only favors the few bigger team stated, the rest just make up numbers and lose money.
Theokritos
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How much time do you have? Ha!
Well first we have a very different set of owner and you can see the clear gap between the 'top' or 'arena' teams:
Sheffield
Belfast
Nottingham
Cardiff
and then you have the rest who basically scrape by each year, looking for a decent run (like Manchester the other season) to keep the hardcore fan base they rely on happy enough to keep comming. A blog by some lady who runs the website 'cat's whiskers' Bums on Seats – The 2020 Instalment does a decent job at highlighting the worrying numbers for some teams. Now sure, 1000/2000 fans per game is great, but when we are looking at the costs involved in EIHL hockey it starts getting scary.
How are teams like Manchester, Dundee ect surviving when they have to pay for up to 14 import players, their house, car, expenses and then their actual inflated wages! It must be the finest of fine lines - yet in other compareable countries like France for example the teams seems to be much more stable and the league as a whole is MUCH better organisned.
Which then brings me to the age old debate about development. We all know that the National Ice Hockey League or the previous English Premier League are not true development leagues, they are only in name. Plus the gap between your average guy paying to play for his local NIHL team and the EIHL (imports who have had years of training in the best hockey countries on earth) is far to big and then you end up with your token Local Brit player who has to sit on the bench and waste away at any talent he might have had to begin with. So then you have the actual 'development league' saying "hey! we don't want the EIHL to just take these players we've worked all these years on for free!" and then you get the EIHL saying "development is nothing to do with us, there aren't enough good local players so we need to keep bringing in more and more foreign ones" and the cycle continues.
Personally I don't blame the EIHL for the development hell the UK hockey world is in, they consider themselves an 'entertainment league' and have stated many times so, that's great, but only a handful of teams can actually provide 'entertainment'. Some teams ask for £18 per ticket - that is not cheap when you consider traveling to and from, food, drink, merchandise for what is effectively a very very average level of US Minor league hockey on display!
My opinion is let the 'top/arena' teams do as they want, let them make a 4 team full import 'entertainment' league to keep the fans happy, fill their arenas and 'improve' the product on display and let the others drop their, what I consider the UK hockeys natural level, and go to the NIHL or whatever league is going to fill the gap for the eventual fall out from the EIHL.
My thoughts are my own.
Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
Just a point of order about having the Devils on that list. Both Glasgow and Fife have bigger arenas. When I talked to one of the owners this season, what makes the Devils profitable is that they got a sweet heart deal on arena costs due to the hatred Cardiff had for the previous owner. The Devils make only a small profit each year and what really helps them is the fact that nearly all their home games are sold out
