Tuesday Thoughts: Decision Time...

"you live in an incestuous world
where your conscience holds no weight
you sold us down the river like rats..."
The Enemy: "You're Not Alone"

Or, alternatively...given that I was torn between a positive and negative opening to this post (Hull should perhaps take note of the title of the Gallows song, though, given their connections with Nottingham):

"The crowd go wild
And they signal applause
Well done for getting this far"
Gallows: "Just Because You Sleep Next To Me, Doesn't Mean You're Safe"

Well, the decision has been made. After all the thunder and lightning, sound and fury and arguments of the playoffs, the Elite League will stay pretty much as-you-were for next season. Rather than run through all the changes (well, all three of them) let's simply take the official Elite League press release, which can be found here, paragraph by paragraph...

Following pro-active negotiations at a meeting of the nine clubs on Monday, the Elite League are delighted to announce that a new format involving all the clubs has been reached.

So far, so PR fluff. Although whether "proactive" is Elite League-speak for "the majority tell the minority to fall in line or fall apart" or actually means that Phoenix, Vipers and Capitals were actively involved in the discussions, we'll likely never know-just as we'll never know whether Scott Neil's public statement that he would not be funding Elite League hockey in 2009/10 was genuine or just a very brave bluff indeed...

Chairman Eamon Convery confirmed, “we’ve just enjoyed a memorable Playoff Finals weekend, bringing the curtain down on the 2008-09 season and following today’s meeting all the clubs are looking forward to the 2009-10 campaign.”


The clubs may be, but whether or not their fans are so sure, given that the last season of the ISL began with similar positive noises after off-season rumours of trouble, remains to be seen. Certainly it seems very strange that such shrewd and switched-on businessmen as Neil Morris and Scott Neil can go from open rebellion to looking forward to carrying on based on one meeting-they may be continuing in the EIHL but this smacks of the EIHL quelling fan's fears to me rather than the absolute truth...

“Representatives of the Edinburgh Capitals, Manchester Phoenix and Newcastle Vipers joined with their counterparts from the Belfast Giants, Cardiff Devils, Coventry Blaze, Hull Stingrays, Nottingham Panthers and Sheffield Steelers and it’s my pleasure to advise that all are committed to the future of the Elite League.”

Interesting that the "little three" are given prominence in mentioning that all the clubs were at the meeting...surely there'd be no need to do this if, as we're told, all teams are invited and able to attend all meetings?

“The weekend was a spectacular success with both days sold out and it’s that level of success that these clubs and their officials have worked hard for since the inception of the league and wish to continue to build and improve upon. When we see so many supporters from all the clubs from across the country intermingling and everyone having a great time, it’s a massive endorsement of the product we’re promoting and keen to improve upon wherever possible.”

It's a "spectacular success" in ticket sales and the "festival of hockey" aspect off the ice...but there could be so much more done both to endorse it AND promote the sport. On more than one occasion throughout the weekend there were cries of "why don't the Elite League actually try and make something of this event to those outside the sport, or even at least make it feel like more than just three games of hockey that a lot of people happen to have turned up for?" Even if someone on the roof of the NIC had taken some footage of the hockey-shirted multitudes from all over the country gathered in Bolero Square, it could be used to show just how much of a following hockey has...the number of times people in Nottingham asked me what all these people were doing here and why it seemed to be the same every April was staggering...surely a few banners or billboards up in Nottingham City Centre for the week before the playoffs can't cost that much given that the EIHL must be raking it in from the weekend...

“To that effect, the Elite League in 2009-10 will operate with some revisions to the previous formats.

Hello...this could be interesting...

The clubs have agreed to a new maximum of ten import (ITC) players per roster on any given game night.

Per game-night roster? So that presumably means that, if you wished, you could have another ten sitting in the stands waiting for the next game?

Oh, and another thing...where's mention of the wage-cap? Let's see if we get that further on in the article...

The regular League season will see all teams meet each other three times home and away for a 48-game season.

Interesting...three home and three away doesn't seem too bad. Still no mention of a wage-cap, though...

The Knockout Cup as we know it will cease

Only two seasons too late...but nice to see that the EIHL top brass have finally realised that NO-ONE CARES ABOUT THE KO CUP, given that it was generally accepted as a filler to keep the league going after London died a few seasons ago...

but a new revised Challenge Cup will be unveiled and work on the full format of the competition, leading to a one-game, neutral venue final has begun already.”

Interesting...although perhaps they should bear in mind that "revised" doesn't mean "change the groups around a bit so everyone only plays each other once instead of three times". More like "all the early-season games count only to the CC, rather than just trying to fit two group competitions into the beginning of a league season so no-one's quite sure what rules we're playing under or where the points are going from night to night"...

“ The Elite League is also keen to introduce a new early-season tournament weekend and again, work on an exciting new three-day festival has already begun. And then of course, the culmination of the season will be the post-season playoffs and the goal of every club to get through to the Playoff Finals weekend.”

So...two playoff-weekend style events? In a credit crunch? With the prices of the first one already borderline silly? Hm...I'll reserve judgement on this one. The idea is good, but many a promising idea has been well and truly messed up by poor execution...Of course, if you revive the "Autumn Cup" to replace the KO Cup and have the Challenge Cup as a straight knock-out competition (with weekends dedicated to it FA Cup style from January onwards) then that would make a lot of sense...you'd need to get EPL clubs involved for it to work like that, though...Forget equalising the games with import levels etc, though-after all, the FA Cup doesn't try and give the big teams drop to the level of the smaller teams, which gives giant-killing its lustre when it happens...

“We will confirm exact details of the revised Challenge Cup format and the early-season tournament as soon as possible. Everyone left the meeting in a positive frame of mind and determined to continue to work toward a bright and exciting future.”

PR fluff again...Oh, and in case you're keeping score, still no mention of the wage cap...


“The Elite League has a tremendous product and I am of the firm belief that the agreements reached today and the revised competition formats will energise the supporters for another spectacular season of top-flight ice hockey.”

...and still no wage-cap. According to the Steelers forum, it will remain the same...which presumably means that the complete lack of enforcement will also remain the same, given that Belfast were widely accepted as being £4000 a week over it this year...and Nottingham and Sheffield were also mentioned by several league owners as being so, with figures of £3000 and £1500 excess quoted by several sources...

After all the claims and counter-claims, it seems that the more powerful teams, by dint of either numbers or a bit of networking behind the scenes, have got their way, presenting it as a great compromise because they've not tried to forge ahead selfishly and leave several other clubs for dead.

I hope that all this means that all teams survive and the EIHL continues beyond next season, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that, in refusing to adapt to a world where there is less money floating around ice-hockey than there was in the ISL era, and trying as hard as they can to keep their vision of hockey intact, the bigger clubs have once again failed to take into account the gap between the haves and have-nots in the EIHL...and thus there is no guarantee we'll not be back here again next season. Certainly, the "bright future" alluded to in the PR seems more to be the muted glow of a twilight sun at best, rather than the searing brightness of mid-day that they'd have us believe...

And as everyone knows, at twilight, the darkness of the lights going out is never far away...

Tomorrow, we'll consider the GB team as they prepare for their trip to Poland...tomorrow evening will also see live Twitter updates on their game in Coventry against Finland under-23's on the Breakaway's feed at www.twitter.com/breakawayblog...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...