The British Hockey Thread 2016-17

[marksbros6]

Saw the two pen 'misses' mentioned on the match-feed. Not as easy to convert a penalty as it is in football!

[archibalduk]

Yeah definitely much harder. Satek had the right idea going high but unfortunately missed. I thought Ben would have scored though - but he went low which was a bit surprising given Odrobny's obvious preference to keep his pads to the ice.

Btw I'm still stuck at Gatwick airport! Flight delayed by 26 hours and counting!...

Named - I can provide you with details of the SNL. I think either NIHL-2 league would provide a starting point in terms of rules.

[marksbros6]

Crikey mate...you'd have been there if you'd swam it by now...

Odrobny has really impressed my this season. 'The Great Wall of Milton Keynes' and 'OOOOOOOOO- Shemmy Od-Rob-Neeee' (to the White Stripes) chant. Hoping he'll cut the mustard up in the Elite League next season, have a sneaky suspicion he'll be OK with a stronger D-corp in front of him.

[Calv]

Big Guildford news coming up at 3pm,i wonder what it could be

[archibalduk]

Guildford confirmed for next season: https://eliteleague.co.uk/guildford-fla ... te-league/

[MWE]

Very good news will be better next season with an extra 2 teams rather than the same old teams

Wonder what the conferences will look like.

[Calv]

Good news for the EIHL, so I'm happy! Looking forward to seeing the Flames again next season, im hoping the Flames, Lightning, and Storm are of similar quality next season as it could lead to an exciting mid-table battle

[archibalduk]

That's a good point - there should be a nice rivalry between the three of us!

Are many games streamed live by teams? I fear I will not renew my season ticket because it'll be silly to spend £300-£400 on a season ticket if I can only go to around 4 games a year (plus the travel and hotel costs) - and the travel disruption I suffered earlier this week has really put me off.

[Calv]

Only Nottingham and Braehead don't stream home games, and Neil Black reiterated this week that he won't until games consistently sellout.

Sheffield have started being a bit selective due to pubs paying £8 and then showing the games, they no longer stream Nottingham games but I'd imagine they'd stream games against the Flames. Dundee have stopped streaming games against Fife and Braehead.

[Calv]

I guess the big question is, do we sit with the Manchester or Guildford fans at next year's playoffs??

[archibalduk]

Haha! We'll have to find somewhere neutral! I really hope we can still get playoff tickets without any problems next season.

Thanks for the info on the streaming - it sounds like I'll be able to watch more Flames games than I can right now.

[Calv]

They can put in temporary seating at Nottingham, where the big EIHL banner goes at the playoffs. You can see it on the ticket website for the playoffs but you can't click on it (it shows as sold out). They could perhaps use that for MK and Guildford fans

[archibalduk]

I hope so. Plus it'd hopefully put an end the cheerleader and mascot dance-off nonsense!

[marksbros6]

Dance off? Pucky the Polar Bear would EAT the other mascots for breakfast...

[MWE]

Why don't they have it in Manchester Arena doesn't that hold like 17000 people

[Calv]

Why don't they have it in Manchester Arena doesn't that hold like 17000 people

No ice plant anymore and the scoreboard no longer works. Also the Nottingham Council subsidise the event so it is quite financially lucrative for the league and pays for the refs, etc for the whole year. It would be amazing at the Manchester Arena though (and incredibly close to my flat )

Dance off? Pucky the Polar Bear would EAT the other mascots for breakfast...

Pretty sure that would result in a lifetime ban

[marksbros6]

Telford win the EPIHL Regular-season title last night (aka the 'loophole' trophy).

Will be looking up to compare their points total to other recent winners I think just to see how their 'unbeatable' team compares to others who didn't go bust in-season.

Looking forward to the Playoffs but really hoping that Telford don't make the final!

[archibalduk]

Yeah I'm hoping somebody like Peterborough win the playoffs in what is probably going to be the final season of the "proper" EPL.

I can't see Guildford winning. We're far too inconsistent!

[marksbros6]

You guys reach the finals weekend you'll have as good a chance as anyone.

[Calv]

7-team EPL and seemingly 2 fingers up to the IHUK 2nd-tier plans?

[marksbros6]

'Premier Ice Hockey League' lol

[archibalduk]

PIHL fits in with NIHL rather well, doesn't it!!

It seems we're back at square one with any joined up thinking between the EPL and IHUK. I'm not all that sure how much interest there will be in a 7 or 8 team EPL compared with the current ten team league. They say cutting the number of imports will allow better financial stability yet it was only about 12 months ago when they were saying that increasing the number of imports would reduce costs. I wonder if the real reason is to make it easier for an NIHL team to make the jump.

I can't see this ending well in the long term. It feels like the BNL all over again.

[Calv]

So, who wants to buy 2 hockey teams then?

[archibalduk]

Just another normal day in British hockey!

Bad news for both teams as the PI/SB ownership seemed like a safe pair of hands. I hope they find decent owners. I haven't attempted to read through the guff on THF yet, but I'm guessing this wasn't what the EIHL expected when they accepted MK's application to join...

[Calv]

Just another normal day in British hockey!

Bad news for both teams as the PI/SB ownership seemed like a safe pair of hands. I hope they find decent owners. I haven't attempted to read through the guff on THF yet, but I'm guessing this wasn't what the EIHL expected when they accepted MK's application to join...

To me, it really depends on what 'fully committed' means. Will they continue to fund Storm (& MK) to the current levels, or will they start to cut back? I'm sure both clubs will have had ideas about how to grow the fanbase that require some initial investment, will PI/SB continue to supply this or will those have to be shelved?

Secondly, what happens if no buyer turns up next season, or the season after? How long will they be fully committed?

Real shame for the Storm because things appear to be heading in the right direction. Starting at about 800 fans at the beginning of last season regularly attending to 1,100 or so at the beginning of this season and now the average is around 1,300-1,400 (over 1,300 against Edinburgh is impressive). Hopefully this is a positive rather than a negative, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but unfortunately experience leaves me nervous.

In good news, the stage is not going up at the playoffs presumably meaning no cheerleaders or mascot dance offs https://sheffieldsteelers.co.uk/additio ... ff-finals/