Given the black clouds forming above Basingstoke this past week, there has been much debate as to what is the best way forward for the sport in the UK.
Some folks feel that all teams should drop to the level of the EPL (4 imports only), and anyone who can’t survive this/stomach it…tough.
Others think there should be no change, and that everything is rosy… it isnt.
I personally advocate a 3rd way. Its called compromise (a dirty word in British hockey circles).
Here’s my plan:
British Premier League:
8 Imports. Wage cap of £250k.
Teams:
Sheffield Steelers (N)
Nottingham Panthers (S)
Newcastle Vipers(N)
Hull Stingrays(N)
Manchester Phoenix(N)
Coventry Blaze(S)
Cardiff Devils(S)
Belfast Giants(N)
Edinburgh Capitals(N)
Beasingstoke Bison(S)
Guildford Flames(S)
Bracknell Bees(S)
Milton Keyenes Lightning(S)
Peterborough Phantoms(S)
Fife Flyers(N)
Dundee Stars(N)
These teams would be broken into 2 conferences: ‘North’ and ‘South’ (indicated above by an ‘N’ or an ‘S’)
You would play everyone in your own conference twice home and away, and the other conference once home and away (eg Manchester would play Sheffield 4 times, Nottingham 2 times), for a 24 game regular season. Play offs would be the top 4 from each conference, with the final 4 playing at the play off weekend.
Below this would be and English Premier League (consisting of the remaining current EPL sides, plus 3 or 4 of the larger ENL sides) playing with 3 imports. Below that would be The ENL (an d a Scottish league) playing with no imports.
Yes, this would piss off some fans (‘I don’t like conferences’, ‘Why is my team not in the BPL/EPL/ENL’, ‘Too many imports’, ‘Not Enough Imports’), but frankly, any league set up you can create is going to anger/upset someone. Thats just how it is, sadly.
Thoughts?
The British Premier League was an idea we were talking about almost to the letter whilst walking home the other night.
The structure looks good 🙂 now we can all sit back and think ‘if only…’
8 imports is the bit I’m liking most.
I’m actually in the process of responding to this on the Breakaway…but it’s one of those ideas that makes you look at straight away and think “there’s no way that can’t work if everyone buys into it”
Trouble is, what would you do about the seeming trend of the “BPL” clubs having ENL teams as their feeder system…surely there could be the odd bit of abuse as players get too old/slow whatever for the BPL, and just say “right, we’ll play for the feeder team instead”-which means you could have a situation where newly-blooded 16 year-olds are being walloped by players with a career equal to their lifetimes…
With the wagecap being 250k you’d have to have the brits take a cut in pay as well…or sign lower quality imports, which’ll set the moaners going. And some of them are so blinkered they won’t even accept “but it’ll save British hockey” as an excuse…
If only it was that simple. For the record I agree that a league that size, with that many imports and that wagecap would be brilliant for hockey in this country. Unfortunatly its not going to happen any time soon is it.
Guess I’ll be the moaner, Paul.
A 250k wage cap would surely mean having at least a few part timers for each team, I can’t see how you stretch that amount to at least 16 players otherwise. Less imports (lower standard perhaps?), part timers (almost certainly the Brits)? How does that not seriously water down the quality?
I can’t really see how hockey grows in the UK by providing the public with a weaker product than we have now, or for that matter how UK hockey (Team GB and all that) benefits from not having the Brits as full time professionals.
Not all fans are as committed to the game as those of you that write blogs on it (or those of us that read them), if the entertainment begins to drop off I’d wager so will audience figures, and then aren’t we back where we began, with the smaller teams unable to keep pace?
Maybe the simple, if harsh, reality is that there are just too many hockey teams in the UK fighting for their share of the total audience. Maybe the Bison are just too close to the Bees for their catchment area to support them? Perhaps they are, unfortunately, not saveable?