Summer Tuesday Thoughts-Bolshy Brits and more...

As promised, here comes another post. There's been a few more signings in the past few days, not least the return of Dan Carlson to Coventry (universally welcomed by Blaze fans) and Peter Campbell leaving Belfast to sign in Denmark (universally welcomed by defencemen and goalies on the nine other EIHL teams). For once, however, we're going to move away from the formulaic "this player has signed here" nonsense which forms the backbone of summer hockey news, and consider one of the thorniest issues in British hockey. Yes, it's Brits v Imports, Part 973.

Don't switch off just yet, though...this will not be an EIHL-fan rant of "imports are cool cause they play better and we want to watch good hockey, which we can't do in the EPL cause it's rubbish", nor will it be an EPL-fan one of "you greedy EIHL fans are killing development in this country and you're all going to go bust eventually anyway, so ha!".

Especially as it's the EPL who are the ones with the money problems with at least two clubs (Bracknell and Chelmsford, anyone?). So much for the "at least we know all the teams are going to playing each season in the EPL" arguments...

Anyway, returning back to the original question. There was a thread on THF recently questioning which Brits were overpaid-to which the first reply was "all of them!". While somewhat radical, let's think about this for a second...

British hockey has an (artificially imposed) limit on the number of non-British players in the system (in the EIHL it's 106 spread over ten teams, in the EPL it's 4 per team). This allows for a maximum of ten/eleven per team. However, hockey rosters typically contain eighteen, nineteen or twenty players. Automatically, there are spaces created for eighty British players in the EIHL and double that number in the EPL. Without these players, you simply can't have a team.

Follow me here. The need for these players is artificially created-we saw in the ISL days that Brits were not necessary to form a team when there was no import limit around-admittedly that league failed thanks to overspending and a ridiculously high wagecap-but there is nothing to say that the same blueprit couldn't work nowadays. The only reason it's not being put into place is because of British players being perceived as "not being given a fair chance".
Given that most British players are of just acceptable level at EIHL standard, particularly the young ones, an open league would likely mean they'd be competing with young Canadian/American/European players, who would be asking the same money but likely be of a higher standard. So British players have to ask for less money in order to make themselves attractive. However, given that the BNL had an import limit, most British players thought "sod that" and said "we'll come play for your BNL team, but since we think we're ISL standard, you can pay us a ton more". And it worked.

So, we're now in a situation where British players are essential parts of a team-get the wrong ones and you're screwed, get the right ones (or those who mean you can use an import somewhere where they're more needed) and you're golden. Trouble is, there aren't all that many good (as in top two line) British players around-and the third-liners vary widely in quality from young inexperienced to old-and-nearly-past-it-looking-for-one-last-payday.

Either way, you can't afford not to actively chase British players. And they know this. They also know that the EPL, with no wage-cap and even more need for Brits, is going to offer them a decent amount of money and allow them to be part-time. This is why players like Gary Clarke, Adam Carr and Lee Richardson (who could easily do a job on a EIHL third line), and Leigh Jamieson and Paul Moran (who aren't exactly superstars but have convinced many they're good enough to do an adequate job) are likely to be able to ask silly money relative to their talents-and why some stay in the EPL to be a big fish in a small pond rather than try and better themselves.

The problem gets even more pronounced at the top level. Jonathan Weaver, for example. A very good player but probably able to add two or three hundred quid to his salary compared with an import of similar quality, just because he can turn round and say "well, I'm British". Compare his ECHL stats and you can see that players like him are ten-a-penny in North America or in Europe...trouble is they can't come in because of an artificially-imposed rule that makes Brits valuable and so clubs have to spend 2-300 more a week on them-which only a few can do. Trouble is, as soon as they start doing this for one player, all the other EIHL Brits go "right, I'm having some of that"...and then clubs who can't afford to waste a ton of money chasing a top Brit and have to spend similar on players of lesser quality suffer, both in the standings and in the cash vaults.

I don't have a solution to this, aside from the dreaded "chop the import limit" idea. In fact, if you've stuck with the rambling this far I'm impressed, as it's essentially a rant on how stupid it is that people should be paid considerably more simply based on their nationality thanks to a ruddy stupid rule which isn't even doing what it was intended to do (get more Brits playing at the top level, for the top clubs, all the time). Most teams go with two lines of imports to do all the major stuff and then throw out a third line of youngsters just to give the stars a rest one shift in every four...and that isn't worth spending a few hundred a week for, nor is it helping the quality a huge amount. British players complain about how hard life is in the EIHL. Frankly, they should listen to Supermac (no, not Sean McAslan but ex PM Harold Macmillan) with his famous words "You've never had it so good".

enough of the rambling, anyway. Apologies if you find this post somewhat disjointed...however, I would appreciate your views on whether the import limit is in fact harming the very game it was meant to save after the ISL years, as I believe.

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...