Ice hockey: Sands of time are drifting away for any return
Pic: Steve Gunn
We’re hurtling towards mid January and the proposed Elite League mini season seems so remote the ice rinks may as well be on Mars.
If we haven’t reached the point of no return, then it surely must be a substantial shadow on the horizon.
With the country locking down ever tighter, it still feels like mission impossible to see a puck dropped at all.
Only one team, Sheffield Steelers, has continually banged the drum for it. The club never does knowingly under-sell anything, to be fair.
The other four English clubs seem to have gone to sleep.
Nottingham Panthers appear content re-running old games online, Coventry Blaze have an anniversary raffle, Guildford have yet to emerge from their festive break, and Manchester Storm are so up to date, their website is still wishing folk a Merry Christmas.
So the only cheerleader in town is the one clad in orange - but it’s hard to see what it has actually got to sell, other than hope.
False hope?
Listening to coach Aaron Fox talk of potential signings just feels like you’re eavesdropping on someone building their own team for a fantasy hockey league.
The carrot is, of course, a share of the £4m winter survival fund from the Government which only pays out if you actually play, but the fact that, deep in January, no-one knows whether it’s a loan or a grant - I’m just praying they know the difference - surely tells you all you need to know.
A recent Sheffield Star article dug into the financial support, and raised some interesting points.
The £4m package could be as much as two thirds loan to one third grant, making it completely unviable even before an import packs his skates into his kit bag and goes rummaging for his passport.
And it won’t all go to the teams. A slice of it will be handed to a management company set up to run the season.
 |
| Pic: Steve Gunn |
That may explain the lack of EIHL updates - in effect, this isn’t their puck to drop - but who will run the show isn’t yet clear.
And as for the show, it’s already on wheels and being shunted down the track, poossibly as far back as late March.
So, what we are looking at is a round-robin of challenge games crammed into six weeks simply to give some guys ice time ahead of any world championships.
And that assumes these competitions will even take place…
From the outside looking in, it feels like a lot of effort for, quite possibly, zero return.
The lack of public engagement from four of the teams says much more than Steelers’ regular updates.
The desire to play may be genuine, and the chance of seeing some action online will appeal to fans - or, at least, some of them - but, faced with a pandemic that is now driving the country deeper into lockdown, it feels almost hopeless.
Sometimes the simplest thing to do is also the best outcome.
Shut down, lock down and aim for a September return when, hopefully, we are through the other side of the global virus.
Ice hockey also thrives on its atmosphere - rival fans creating walls of noise which drive teams on.
You cannot manufacture that in an empty rink or stadium - being there is what it is all about.
Ice hockey, like football, without fans is nothing.
Comments
Post a Comment