Welcome once again to your daily skate around the British hockey world...
It's important...there's a trophy, so it must be!: Tonight sees the ugly duckling of British cup competitions take centre stage (and how often can you say that) with the final quarter-final between Sheffield and Coventry being resolved. It's so important they're playing in Ice Sheffield (traditionally used by the Steelers only as a last resort) and even then it could be interesting to see just whether it's full or not...The tie itself is delicately poised, with Blaze carrying a one-goal lead, and there's some intrigue on both sides as Steelers defend their title and Blaze seek to win the only Elite League competition that they haven't already held. However, there's simply no escaping the fact that many see this as very much the poor relation of British hockey competitions at the moment-and with midweek games and teams seemingly allowed to opt out or simply not be asked to take part for simple logistics reasons (you can't have an odd number of teams in the semis, and giving a bye to the final would make the whole competition a mockery). I almost hope that Blaze don't win this competition this season-as seeing a team from the lower reaches of the league win some silverware would be good for the sport as a whole...
More Communication Kerfuffle: It seems my recent praise of the Bison's enews strategy has stirred things up a little, with it being pointed out that I in fact have my facts wrong, and that the Elite League clubs are in fact all open in communicating with their fans...
Thing is...I consider there to be a difference between the Bison (and to a lesser degree Phoenix) strategies of being open about almost all aspects of the club (even to the point of Tomas Enerston eschewing the usual platitudes of owners in favour of actually telling the fans exactly what is needed from the word go), and the approach of many other teams, which is essentially always "everything is fine, the team are determined to do well-everyone is positive-come and buy the stuff that's on sale, and tell your friends about the hockey" which appears in the Panthers, Steelers etc "newsletters".
I'm not asking to be told how every penny is spent, I'm not asking to be told just how my team's star defenceman spends his Wednesday nights or which pub they drink at. But I, and I would have thought others, am asking for a little more than the same stuff you could read on every other forum or every other press release.
It's also mentioned that some teams have sponsors which produce stuff for them...and this is why they have an advantage. Well...
here's the list of Blaze sponsors. Notice the "media design" companies and radio stations...surely one of them could produce something similar to the Phoenix efforts given half a chance? Looking through the list of sponsors of other teams, it's notable that a similar situation exists with all of them-yet only the Bison and the Phoenix are really making use of it to build a genuine two-way relationship with fans beyond the simple promotional appearances, PR releases in bland media-ese, or media interviews. And this is why I say they're templates to follow for the rest of the EIHL.
After all-British hockey fans, like the rest of the population, are fast becoming more savvy to the efforts of bland, samey "spin" and PR (the Stingrays in particular have become a bit of a target this season for my humour and the ire of their own fans because of their stream of cookie-cutter PR releases), and are more willing to get out there and either look for or produce stuff which makes them and others feel part of things. Why not use some of them to try and do it professionally-or at least get them more involved in the promotion of clubs beyond simply sticking up flyers....there's no better advert for a sport than the people who genuinely love what they do, after all...just like Tomas Enerston seems to.
For the record-it may sound like I'm belittling the efforts of the PR departments of the EIHL as a whole. I'm not-I appreciate how hard it is to get noticed from trying to build up a readership for this blog...and like them I appreciate every comment and (hopefully like the teams :)) also am grateful for every individual who takes the time to read (or in the team's case, go to games).
However-there's a lot of hockey fans out there, all with talents of their own-why not cast a net and see what happens? It's certainly worked for the Bison in recent weeks...
Warm up the Fax Machines...because the ice-hockey transfer deadline is in two weeks time-as of the 31st of January, the EIHL rosters are set until the end of the season unless exceptional reasons force a change (like a season-ending injury to the starting goalie). With Cardiff, Hull and Nottingham at least still on the prowl looking to give their team that final ingredient for a title/playoff push, the player movement could be far from over...
That's your slightly shortened Wednesday musings...keep keeping your eye on the puck...
