The Nightmare in Bisonland Is Over...

...but across the county line in Berkshire it may be just beginning. The rumour mentioned yesterday which linked Basingstoke with a Swedish saviour was, it appears, accurate, as David Taylor has been forced out of the Silverdome in favour of Tomas Enerston, a Swedish IT company owner who is new to the UK hockey scene. The news was announced as the man himself addressed around 350 fans at an emergency Fans' Forum in Basingstoke this evening, along with a new arrival for the Herd in Mikko Purontakanen, a defenseman from the Finnish Elite League who is on a 4-week trial to cover for the injured Kyle Peto. The news has been greeted with great joy by Bison fans, and well it should be, as the demise of Bison was looking more and more likely in recent weeks. On a personal note, I'm overjoyed by this, partly for the reasons in this post but mainly due to the fact that the last thing British hockey needed (and still needs), having gained a bit more exposure through the Sky Sports deal, was one of its clubs in the top league to go bankrupt. The new owner has made a positive first impression, with Bison fans praising his forthrightness and honesty when admitting that success would probably not come straight away, as well as his personality. Judge for yourself as BBC Berkshire has coverage of the fan's forum and a short interview with the new owner here-reading it and listening certainly gives a very good impression indeed, particularly with quotes such as...

""If there's bad news, you'll hear it. If there's good news, you'll hear it. It's going to be a very, very straight line."

Now that sounds like a man who intends to keep the fans fully up to date with what's going on-one of the major problems which seem to afflict several UK clubs, particularly when it comes to bad news. And as for marketing-

"If you don't tell anybody you're playing hockey, they don't know you're playing hockey. Marketing is what's needed on every level."

Are you listening, Elite League, and indeed every club within it? It seems that a lot of clubs (yes, including mine in Coventry) do so much and then stop. In this world, push, push, push is what's needed-there have been strides made this season, certainly-but here is a man who knows what is required to make the sport a force in this country.

"Look at the website, it looks pretty good, there's business names and you think oh, good, there must be sponsors. But you've only got one sponsor. An Elite hockey team with one sponsor, and do I need to say it's not even a major sponsor? It's one sponsor."

Ouch. But this is certainly straight-talking of the highest order.

On first impressions (and with Mr Enerston appearing live on BBC Berkshire tomorrow evening, those can be cemented or changed still), it appears that the Bison have a rough diamond. Hockey fans of at least one Southern team will certainly sleep far easier from now on...

But it's not all rosy. With David Taylor's company Berkshire Sports Marketing Ltd now clearly in trouble, fans of his "other" team, the Bracknell Bees, are surely seriously worried by events in Berkshire this week. With the players now in open revolt against the ownership, as detailed here, the Taylors have released a statement which is markedly similar to that released two weeks ago or so regarding the Bison issues-although the language is noticeably friendlier. It appears that the issues may be resolved for this week at least-however, with the current EPL champions facing such uncertainty and an owner who has clearly lost the trust of his players, fans are already wondering if the Bees could face the same uncertain period as the Bison have recently, and if so, who could be found to save them.

One thing is for certain from reading the various forums-the Taylors are now distrusted by a large number of fans of their former and current clubs, and things aren't over in Bracknell. However, for the Bison at least, things are finally starting to really look up...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Blood In The Water...

...and it appears the sharks are circling.

Ben O'Connor (see the rumour post below) is the latest player to leave Basingstoke as confirmed here, which makes two in as many days after Slava Koulikov was released on the signing of Curtis Cruikshank. Panic is beginning to spread in Hampshire as rumours spread of players not being paid for three weeks and refusing to train until they get paid, while posts like this are becoming the norm on fan forums all over the Internet. I cover the ongoing difficulties on Basingstoke in posts here, here, and here, with the Taylors (Bison owners) responding to the concerns here. Over the past few weeks things, while not exactly rosy, have at least looked better in the deep south, but now the silence is deafening from the ownership, and Bison fans everywhere are seemingly bracing themselves for the worst.

Off on a personal tangent here-some of my best memories of watching hockey come from following the Blaze down to Basingstoke-not so much because of the games themselves (although, in the eight years Bison and Blaze have been in the same division, the Silverdome has always been a fairly happy hunting ground) but because of the feel you got from the place. Sure, the rink isn't the best-it's bloody cold, the puck can get lost in the rafters and the view from the away section is only tolerable if you're right down the far end thanks to the siting of the DJ box. But it's a hockey town-the crowd aren't the biggest but they're passionate, the team always work hard, and unlike some teams (Hull, anyone?) you never go to a game thinking "oh, God, it's Basingstoke tonight", no matter how low in the league they may be.

In Coventry we've been pretty lucky-we've watched other teams die slowly and said "oh, how terrible" (although Manchester, one of the teams, has now returned and is running nicely), but for some reason this one has worried me more than all the others, maybe due to the fact that games against the Bison have become a part of mine and others' personal hockey landscape, like that friend who you just get used to having around. They may not be the best, the funniest or the most lively, but even so, when they're not there for whatever reason, everyone notices their absence, and the parties or whatever event is taking place are the poorer for it.

I have the feeling the Bison (along with the Capitals, perhaps) are that "unsung friendship" team for a lot of fans (or will be if they do go bankrupt), whether their team is in the Elite League or used to face them in the old BNL-and that's why it would be such a tragedy if the team were allowed to die.

For now, though, the Bison survive, although few people know for how long. For the sake of hockey in the UK, I hope it will be for many years...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...

Playing Catch-Up...again.

Believe it or not it's actually been a fairly quiet Friday and first half of Saturday-as noted by the fact that for once I didn't have to make five posts in the space of twenty-four hours just in order to keep up with the speed of information coming out onto the Internet. However, several things of note have happened in both the EIHL and the EPL, so here's a brief summary before I take a few hours off to watch the rugby this evening (come on England!) :)...

Hiking for Hockey is called off: See this post (scroll to the bottom) for the original idea from Rick Strang. He's now called it off, however, saying in a statement on the Hockey Forum that it just wouldn't be right to do now that Basingstoke are safe. Which is his decision...When I find a text of the full statement to link to, I shall place it on here.

Thornton to Sweden?: The rumours around players leaving the Bison just won't die-the latest one going around sees Steve Thornton wanting away from the Bison, with Sweden being quoted as the destination. At the moment, the 34 year-old centre is staying put, but there will no doubt be a queue of EIHL teams looking to go after the skilful ex-Belfast and Cardiff forward should the slightest hint of his becoming available surface.

Changes at Romford: Moving down to the EPL, Norm Pinnington has moved from the Isle of Wight to Romford in one of a raft of player changes this week in Essex. Mark Williams is said to be on his way out due to the well-known personal animosity between the two big bruisers, and there is much discussion as to just exactly where the Raiders will go from here threading through the EPL forums.

Meanwhile, back in Basingstoke...The statement from the Taylors which I analysed in detail here has not gone down well amongst the Bison fans, with more questions than answers (some of which I mention in the analysis) being raised ahead of tonight's game against the Bison. While the immediate survival of the Bison is by all accounts assured, there is a fast-developing rift between the ownership and fans. David Taylor was interviewed last night on BBC Radio Berkshire, available here. It's an interesting listen if you're a Bison fan...

And across the pond...First NHL mention-mainly just to check on how my Pens are doing...especially after their 6-4 come-from-behind win against the Leafs last Saturday, they do Carolina 4-3 again last night...Things are looking good in Steeltown for us long-suffering (well, ever since I've been watching, anyway) Pens fans...:)

And finally, a bit of blatant self-promotion: This site has been up and running properly for a week, after a few months or so of preparation, working out of format, etc. When I set it up I expected maybe 150 hits in the first week. As of today, there've been nearly 600. I'm overjoyed that people are coming to read what, at the moment, is essentially the ramblings of one hockey fan, and I thank every single visitor. If you've got any ideas for features etc that I've missed out or have an idea for something that I can discuss in a blog post which I may not be touching on, then feel free to use the email link at the side of the page...and keep coming back, cause I shall keep trying to improve the coverage of British hockey now that I know there is clearly a fair few people out there who want to read it.

And, as always, keep your eye on the puck...

Bison Problems: The Taylors Hit Back

Well, it appears that something has finally stirred down south, and the Bison fans' constant calls for answers from the management have borne fruit. The Taylors have released a long statement through the forums which can be found in full here. However, if I were a Bison fan there would be several quotes in that statement which I'd be questioning...The Taylors' statement is quoted in italics from now on...

At this moment we are sitting 1 point off the bottom of the Elite league, if we lose to Belfast tonight we will be bottom, we have put together a high profile team with one of the highest wage bills in the league, we were the only Elite team to reveal our wage bill to the board at the July meeting, hence the comments from some of the teams via their websites and local press.

Fair enough. So far, so standard "put the blame on the players for not performing"

It goes on to what will be the meat of the statement for many Bison fans-the financial questions...

The position with regard to the long term viability of the club is as follows, we believe that professional Ice Hockey is viable from the Basingstoke Arena, we gave our assurances to the board last week and stand by those assurances, Sharon and I have been financially supporting the club to the tune of £6,000 per week together with a pre season investment of £10,000, the reason for the wage cut of £1,500 per week was to firstly secure the long term financial viability of the club and to bring down the costs to a manageable level for us as owners, which at the same time allow us to develop the product,

So on the one hand, "developing the product" meant signing an expensive, highly-skilled team, but on the other hand the wages now need to be cut in order that this "developing the product" didn't cost the owners more than they can afford? Notice also that there's no mention of them putting money into the Bees-are we talking about the Bison as a team here or are we talking about putting money into the company? The obvious question here is, how exactly is making the product poorer by losing two of its top players developing it?

we are currently working with 2 corporate agencies specialising in sports sponsorship with the outcome being realised during this season,

Fair enough. But why, if this is going on, was nothing said about it earlier when fans were questioning the lack of marketing? All you have to do is say "the Bison are working with XYZ plc in order to explore new avenues of sponsorship", and people go "fair enough". I freely admit that you can't release details of actual sponsors until the deal is done, but why not at least say something to this effect earlier, rather than waiting until matters well and truly come to a head and it can easily be read as "telling the people what they want to hear?" I know if it were my team in the same position, I'd be asking a question or two about just why the owners saw the need to pay two consultancy agencies in order to find sponsorship rather than simply having employees of the club go out and do it themselves-or indeed simply by inviting companies along to a game or two and saying "look, here's a market"

the second reason was due to the performance of the team in recent games, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that changes have to be made to the team to return us to winning ways and to do justice to the Basingstoke Bison name, the new wage level is just below the wage cap and will allow Ryan (Aldridge, the Bison coach) to get the team back on track.

Read the bit I've highlighted again. Is this the owners effectively admitting they've broken the wage cap and thus league rules? Not the smartest thing to do in a press release.

The article from Ryan was based upon his request that if he can raise x amount per week from various fund raising concepts can he be allowed to spend that directly on strengthening the squad, my answer was yes he can, hence his comments about the money going to him.

So, effectively they're now making it sound like the fans are being asked to pay even more for a better team and to replace the two imports, by the coach, because the owners are putting in all the money they can. It seems a strange way to run a hockey club (I am aware that the Blaze have done it before by getting a small group of fans to subsidise the wages of certain players, but never thought it would be done in public...

As the owners we have expressed our concerns to and have been met with agreement from Ryan that 3 wins from 11 games is unacceptable, Ryan and I met Monday evening to decide the best way forward, the first instance was to look at our current squad to identify where the problems was, the decision was taken to release Peter Campbell and allow him to accept the offer he received from Belfast last week (whilst under contract to Basingstoke) and look immediately to replace him with a new playing partner to Steve Thornton, the players met on Monday evening again to confirm their commitment to the club, Tuesday morning Ryan woke to Stevie Lyle packing his suitcase (they share a flat together to keep the costs down) Stevie requested his release so he too can accept the offer and contract again put onto the table to him by Belfast last week.

This smacks of something of a smear campaign against both Peter Campbell and Stevie Lyle, particularly the "coach waking to find his starting goalie packing a suitcase" line. If the players wanted to leave then fair enough, but there is no need to make them out to be some sort of villains of the piece. Presumably, also, it is a coincidence that the two players who decided to leave were two of the highest-paid, and that Belfast only made approaches to them AFTER the rumours of financial trouble in the Silverdome came out, even according to the article, which quotes "last week" as when the offers were made.

The statement then makes reference to "vicious and uncalled-for personal attacks" which has made the Taylors decide not to appear at any public event for fear of it being turned into a witch-hunt. This is a fair decision-although their attempt to take the moral high-ground is somewhat harmed by this next section, referring to the Bison fans discussions of the issue on forums...

much of it is complete rubbish mixed in with some extremely un pleasant personal attacks on me by a large number of supposed supporters of the team, because of the vicious nature of this comments we will not be entering into any off ice event which runs the risk of being turned into a witch hunt against Sharon and I.What is required now is for all the persons who clearly seem intent on driving us from the club to shut up, get off our backs and get behind the team, we are in much better position financially now than we were at the start of the season and fully intend to build upon our current league position.

So, you're basically telling the people you need to get on your side to "shut up, stop behaving like idiots and sit down, children"-the language used is guaranteed to inflame the situation rather than calm it. No-one in any of the forums that I've read (THF and the Elite Forum) has openly made threats against the owners-a few have strongly expressed their dis-satisfaction but there is certainly no movement to "drive the Taylors from the club"

Finally...

Ryan was informed once our Accountants were able to confirm our exact income and outgoings we informed Ryan of the trading position, who in turn appraised the players hence the calls from some players to other clubs to possibly line up other options, with hindsight this may not have been the best course to take.I have raised the fact that 3 clubs have made offers to a couple of our players whilst they remain under contract to Basingstoke with the Elite League Board, we do not hold the players responsible for that but we are very disappointed with the clubs for not only negotiating with the players involved but also making offers to them, at the end of the day the players must do what they feel is best for them and their families.

Paraphrased as "we told the players what was going on, they did what they thought best, but our Elite League rivals behaved unfairly". How on the one hand can you not hold the players responsible for telling other clubs they could be available, but then criticise them for making offers? Either you criticise both or neither...

I have a feeling that this debate has some way to run yet, somehow-it will be interesting to see what effect this statement (even if it is somewhat contradictory and can be reads as covering of backs/blame-shifting in parts) will have on the situation. I shall keep monitoring things from up here in Coventry...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...