Friday Snap-Shots...

"The knowledge that seeking the favor of another
Means the murder of self.
This is the resolution
The end of all progress"
Lamb of God: "Ruin"

The news keeps coming...it's been a busy week in the EIHL...Let's deal with the signings announced today first of all.

Greg Owen to Coventry: There is much joy in Coventry, and much envy everywhere else, as one of GB's premier forwards returns from his French excursion to join the Blaze-the ex-Bison centre won a regular-season championship with the Briancon Red Devils, and despite being offered a wage-rise by them, has returned to his home country...with the Blaze now containing six of the GB World Championship roster from this season.

Konstantin Kalmikov back to Hull: Another fan-favourite returns to the Stingrays-Hull now have a top-line to be reckoned with in Kalmikov, Cloutier and Huppe...there appears to be real optimism on Humberside for the first time in a long while.

The one problem I can see, exemplified more by the Owen signing than the Kalmikov one at the moment, is that there appears to be very little evidence that teams are budgeting to stay within a cap of any kind, with the Blaze at the moment perhaps providing the most glaring evidence. I don't claim to know the financial dealings of any team, but let's look at what we do know as hockey fans by having a gander at the current Blaze roster and their pedigree...

A few minutes research into all the players on the roster will make you think "hm, they're not coming cheap"...and with most of the imports still to sign, you wonder just how twenty players are going to fit within a budget when eight or nine of them can reasonably be expected to have already taken up a fair chunk...

The answer either involves very creative accounting indeed (not a first for the EIHL) or the simple declarative statement "they won't".

It would take a very naive mind to believe, at the moment at least, that everything is above-board when it comes to the "recommendations" the EIHL supposedly adopted in April.

So far, it looks like we're headed for another financial arms-race...and with less pounds to go round, and British hockey's penchant for spending money it doesn't have, the brave-new-world we were promised back in April appears to be some time in coming yet.