Midweek Musings: Apocalypse Soon?

"Declare this an emergency
Come on and spread a sense of urgency
and pull us through...
This is the end
This is the end...of the world"

Muse: "Apocalypse Please"

"The horror...the horror..."
Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now"

For my day job, I currently work in a hospital, delivering supplies, portering and sometimes, cleaning up some very unpleasant messes (there's a reason that no-one ever wants to go into a mortuary through choice)...and during the day, being on the wards, I occasionally see and hear stuff that I'd probably rather not.

The other day, I was walking along a corridor on a ward when I passed a bed coming the other way with someone who had had a seriously bad time very recently on it. You could tell he'd had a bad time because both his legs were bandaged and bloody. They also ended in stumps just above the knee. Despite this, he was smiling and joking with the nurses, and something he said stayed with me that day...

"I'll be better off and have more fun now-they only ever caused me problems anyway"

With today's events in the EIHL (see here for Edinburgh's perspective, here for Manchester, or, in the interests of balance, here from the EIHL and here from Nottingham-the last two of which appears to be completely at odds with the first two and the NEP piece in particular so unbelievably optimistic and full of conjecture it gets to the point where you wonder whether they're living on the same planet as the one with a global recession and ice-hockey being a minority sport in the UK), that man seems to summarise the attitude in some areas of British hockey. However, rather than the original sense of admiration for the way this guy reacted to such an earthshattering event, that statemenr rings with an air of denial when applied to British hockey...mainly because the EIHL, by appearing to cut Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle out and running with a six team league this season, has, in my eyes,will slit its own throat, and possibly that of at least one club (Hull) within it.

That is if the "EIHL Six" are the ones at fault...because no-one really knows what's going on. But here's what we do know....

To summarise...the EIHL clubs have had many meetings, which may or may not have had input from all the teams (depending on which side you ask) and six teams (one of which, Hull, is generally believed by many to be more-than-slightly-influenced by Nottingham due, EIHL wisdom has it, to the relationship between Neil Black, Panthers' owner, and the Stingrays' continuing ability to fund top league hockey), to wit Sheffield, Nottingham, Cardiff, Coventry, and Hull, have agreed to continue hockey on its current path, or indeed bring it closer to the old ISL path of all-import hockey, at a time when many are drifting away from the sport due to the rising costs. They appear to believe that a six-team league on this model is sustainable in the current economic climate, and have frozen out any team that has argued otherwise, effectively leaving them to find their own path...

Or, the other three remaining EIHL teams (Manchester, Newcastle, and Edinburgh) have been behaving unreasonably despite being offered every chance to survive by the other six, and are now throwing their toys out of the pram.

All this, obviously, is written with no more knowledge of the inner workings of the EIHL than the above articles and posts on various forums.

I genuinely don't know what to believe.

The only thing I do know, however, is that this is the latest example of a situation where those who actually pay to go through the doors of a rink on a match night need to be united in telling the clubs.."for Christ's sake...can you please just cut the mud-slinging, bland-worded nothing-filled official league press releases appealing for calm or advising "information in due course", the spin, the petty quarrels over influence, and God only knows what else...and tell us pure and simply what is going on with the teams we invest time, money and emotion in to watch, without running them as your own personal warring factions?"

British hockey is a closed shop at the moment. If you're not an owner, you know nothing beyond the fact that the teams step onto the ice each week, until one day, eventually, they do not, with very little explanation as to why beyond "money".

If the league is going to be a six-team league next year because three teams can no longer afford to commit to it, say so. If it's going to be a six-team league because there was a terminal disagreement between owners on how to run the league, say that too. But don't blame each other or try to one-up each other in the process while using the fans as a captive audience...because that just makes people think you don't care about them. And if those running the teams don't care about those who pour their soul into supporting them, then why should we care about the teams at all?

The next instalment of this saga will see a statement released by Manchester at 7am tomorrow...

Until then, the EIHL sits at a crossroads. And its fans hold their breath to see what comes next...