So, we only went and bloody did it! Typically for the Phoenix, we did it the hard way, but we still did it.
It all looked so simple 2 weekends ago: Head down to Swindon, pick up the win, and the home game against Basingstoke was a formality we could dispense with at a nice, easy pace without requiring a win. Naturally we lost to Swindon (with what some at the game called our worst display of the season), then had to bust a gut to defeat the Bison. Of course, winning the title at home was nice, but if only for the sake of my heart, it would have been a shit load nicer if we had not had to go through the bloody wringer like we did! The release of tension in the rink when the empty net goal went in with 2 seconds to spare was immense. Cheering, crying, shouting… and that was just me!
Anyways, we won it, in front of a bloody huge crowd too! My ‘guesstimate’ is around 1800 or so were in the building to see us take our 2nd league title in 5 seasons, and my oh my what a glorious noise we all made. Possibly aided by being on the lash all afternoon the Choirboys excelled themselves by drumming and chanting pretty much non stop all night, with the rest of the crowd joining in too. And kudos to the travelling Bison support for playing their part.
Following that we had the formality of 2 effective ‘dead rubbers’ for ourselves, and wouldn’t you know it, we only went and bagged a 4 point weekend from it to seal the season off on a high note. Another large crowd (1600 at a guess) turned up to see us collect the trophy and celebrate in style. The only downer from my perspective was the lack of an offical from the EIHA to perform the formalities of presenting us with the trophy for being their EPL champions. It just felt a tiny bit disrespectful to me. Now, i know it was an honour for the sponsor who did hand the trophy to Luke, but still….
So, what else? Season Ticket prices were announce to the inevitable ‘oh noes! you want me to pay MORE?’ complaints. Now, I’ve been throught he economics of ticket pricing before on here, and rather than bore the shit out of everyone again, the maths involved are never as simple as critics of the pricing make out. And ultimately, we are being asked to cough up £1 more per game than we have for the past 2 seasons. A side effect from this was the revelation publicly that it costs us £3000 in fees to the rink just to run each game. That doesn’t include fees for practise sessions either. Now this lead some people to pretty much demand we somehow cut this by negotiating with the rink as if we have the upper hand. Guess what? We don’t. They have the advantage in all negotiations, and like it or not, we need Silver Blades more than they need us. And hell, if it keeps the club on the ice, I’m certainly not going to complain about an extra quid a week.