(Warning: this post may contain a naughty word or two. Nothing too bad but probably best you don't read it out in church):
I know it's been a little while since I've posted on here (two weeks, in fact) and in that time Belfast have completed their roster, or near as dammit, Sheffield have completed theirs, and Coventry have lost their inspirational captain Sylvain Cloutier. We'll get to the third of these three in a minute, but first fairness compels me to consider the fact that a club in the UK are now charging £17 to watch their games-and it isn't Coventry!
Thank you, Manchester...I spend most of November praising your efforts and then you go and raise ticket prices to seventeen pounds for walkups. Has anyone told them we're currently in a credit crunch? Come to that, has anyone told any of the Elite teams? Or the EPL?
In Manchester's favour, it will still (relatively) cost about the same for families thanks to a chop in the kids prices-but even so...how many away fans can say now they'll definitely make all three league trips to Manchester (another way of saving money for the walk-ups).
The real tragedy of this is that there are some very good rosters being built this season (including in Manchester)-but with economics being the way they are, there may well be fewer people to watch them...
Newcastle get a big Mac: And for once, there's not a topless football fan in sight. Chris McAllister is back in the UK-all 6'7 of him. Maybe Hull won't have it all their own way. This monster can play too...
Plug of the Week: Given that I always keep an eye out for newbies in the hockey blogosphere (apart from the Snowplough-which was good when it got Carlyle Lewis coming to the Blaze right (after me, by the way) but not great since then, I recommend that this week, as well as all on the blogroll at left, you add Four Point Four Seconds to your trawl through the blog world. Yes, it's by a Panthers fan, and thus may contain some anti-Sheffield/Coventry/refereeness but it's ruddy good thus far, and another quality addition to the expanding world of UK hockey blogs...
Let's see-we now have Edinburgh, Coventry, Belfast, Manchester, Hull, and Nottingham covered, plus the EPL...four more teams and the (EIHL and EPL) scene is well and truly covered. Plus the Ice Hockey Annual blog (link to follow)
Where's Sylvain Cloutier-gone to the U.S.A: Apologies to Panthers fans for nicking their song, but come on...you grinned...and predictably, there is an outbreak of holier-than-thou-ness on the hockey forums when Dan Tessier is mentioned as his replacement, with many (Blaze fans in particular) saying that they wouldn't inmediately sign Dan Tessier-who was rumoured to be coming in as injury cover in January, let's not forget. It seems to be one of the few things you can get Nottingham and Coventry fans to agree on. And I have three (one slightly naughty) words to anybody who is seriously letting this "oh, he's a bit of a loner (to put it politely)" image cloud their view of him or any other similar player. And also to the whole "you need to be a nice guy to be an important part of a team-everyone has to have chemistry with everyone else".
Bollocks to it.
Dan Tessier scores goals. And sets them up. Very frequently indeed. Now, I accept that. if the reports are true, he is not the easiest guy to get on with. I also accept every team (supposedly) needs everyone to get on to do well (although I'm suspicious of that "truth" since we as hockey fans likely wouldn't give two flying pucks if there were bare-knuckle fights in the dressing room if our team was winning on the ice-have you never seen Slapshot and such like? There's so much stuff in the press about it that "he's a good team guy" is now a phrase used to excuse all manner of inability or shortcoming on the rink-people make decent, well-paid careers out of being "good team guys" with relatively little hockey ability, even in the NHL, for God's sake).
Games aren't won by "which team gets on the best" though. They're won by "who scores the most goals". And with Dan Tessier or someone like him in your side you will more often than not score more than the opposition. Which means trophies, wins, and everyone conveniently forgetting that someone isn't Mother Teresa. Quite frankly, were I a coach who had 20 players who never spoke to each other apart from training and games (when they played like they'd shared the ice with the other 19 all their lives) because they despise each other and was called on it, my first reply would be "hey-they win."
For this to come from Blaze and Panthers fans in particular is particularly rich-Panthers were the ones who brought Tess to the UK in the first place (and loved him until he left) and Blaze fans forgave the excesses of Andre Payette=who had at least one bare-knuckle training fight-oh, and offered out a team-mate (Doug Schueller) during a game. But Blaze won the treble, he was a major reason Dan Carlson and Adam Calder had the space to play (without a similar player they'd be checked into next week by legal and illegal means) and so these same people talking about Tessier's character flaws can, in the same breath, defend similar from a player who won them games.
So, Tess, as long as you keep being one of the best centres ever to play in the EIHL, bollocks to the doom-mongers or the people who will turn down someone unless they hug kittens, get on with everyone and are GOOD TEAM GUYS. I will join every other fan in the league with an import slot still open in whispering, even if they will never admit it...
"come and play for the team I support. Please?"
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3 comments:
Hmm... The price rise. To be fair, if you book just a few hours before the game (I think the box office shuts at half 12 on the day of the game), you can still get your ticket at £15.
Thing is, I think it's a complete marketing ploy. I can't imagine a couple of quid on every walk up ticket is going to keep the club going through hard economic times. I read a book once that had a bit in it about pricing in practically every business in the world. A simple example is the £100 bottle of wine in a restaurant is there to make you go for the £60 one, because it's the one they'll make the most money out of. A minority will go for that £100 bottle because it's the best but in comparison, the £60 one seems better value, so a bigger portion of customers will go for that one. A £60 bottle of wine on it's own at the top of the list is glaringly the most expensive and that sticks out so you're less likely to make the extra expenditure. We work on how things compare to those around them so just having one price there at £15 doesn't mean anything. Suddenly you can get a ticket priced nearly £17 for £15 and it looks a good deal.
Now with the tickets, it's not a case of best or worse but the club seem to be heavily gearing for a guaranteed income this year. They want the fans to pay their money up front because obviously it's easier to budget that way and like you've mentioned - we're in a credit crunch and every club in the league will have to deal with increased cost. Anyway, it's rare that people would just happen to turn up on passing - they're likely to do some research before so they'll see that if they book before the game they can get the tickets cheaper than on the door. The advantage of being in Manchester is that it's common to pay £20-30 or even more for a ticket to basically anything so seeing that cheaper price with a couple of quid knocked off looks pretty good.
The only real difficulty I think this faces is the trouble it will and has caused with away fans. It has put the wrong message out to travelling fans already despite all the ticket incentives being sent out and the messages that if you book before the game you get it at the same price as last year.
Sight lines are awful, I know, and even at £15 it still puts us at the most expensive in the league and it's a bit of a gripe to pay that out. The thing that travelling fans (particularly the Steelers, but that's probably because we see more of them) seem to forget is that we have to live with that every week, they only have to live with it 3/4/5 times a year at most :P I see the point tho.
I apologise for the essay :P
I can't promise that this comment will be anywhere near as long as Becky's, but the effort is there.
In fact, it's just going to be a short thankyou for the plug, i hope it's going to be worth the effort!
Good comment about Tessier Paul, as a Panthers fan I don't particularly like the guy, and will gladly boo him all game long, but I'd still be happy to see him return to us. Brings great quality at this level.
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