Planet Petrouis….

Well, I thought I would be writing a nice pieces on here today, either congratulating the Phoenix on a play off finals win, or commiserating their loss. That can wait for another day.

What I am going to write about is Silver Blades. By now I’m sure we have all seen their frankly piss poor excuse for a ‘Press release’, issued after the Phoenix made it to the final of the play offs on Saturday night. For those who have not (or need to re-read it) here it is in all its ‘glory’:

Silver Blades (Altrincham) Statement: English Ice Hockey Premier League

Over the last few weeks there’s been a number of interesting changes within ice hockey and it is appropriate we outline plans for next season before the 2014/15 season ends.

It is the intention of Silver Blades (Altrincham) to operate the only senior hockey team that will compete out of Altrincham Ice Rink in the English Premier Ice Hockey League (EPIHL) in the 2015/16 season.

We would like to thank all the ice hockey supporters for a great season including the fans who have created such a fantastic atmosphere at the EPIHL playoff finals this weekend and we look forward to welcoming fans old and new to Altrincham next season.

We will provide additional information by 5pm Tuesday 7th April 2015.

So, to cut through the poor wording and almost total lack of punctuation, Silver Blades chose the very moment that the fans, players, and staff of the Manchester Phoenix should have been happiest to release the news that they were/are effectively kicking the club out of its home rink to line their own pockets and get one over on Wayne Scholes & Red Hockey.

But what has Wayne Scholes/Red Hockey done to upset Silver Blades (as we all know the relationship between Silver Blades and Neil Morris hasn’t always been the best)? Well, it isn’t Silver Blades, per se. It’s Silver Blades owner Mike Petrouis. You see, Mike Petrouis other rink management company Planet Ice has had run ins behind the scenes with Red Hockey (and I must point out at this point that the respective managements of both Silver Blades and Planet Ice insist on maintaining the fallacy that neither company has anything to do with the other… really? Tell that to the Manchester Arena who have an executive box with both companies listed as joint owners on the publicly visible door) . They were allegedly (and I can’t be clearer about this being allegedly) behind an attempt to refuse the Tigers a place in the EPIHL this past season, and were the ‘anonymous’ sponsor who put up the £5,000 prize for finishing 2nd in the league. Apparently Petrouis/PI/Silver Blades have not been happy about Red Hockey upsetting the status quo in the EPIHL, where for many years they have had indirect control over the league (running the Basingstoke, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Altrincham rinks, and having a hand in funding teams within some of these buildings to some extent). Whilst they have never had the majority of the rinks under their control, they have had a solid ‘block vote’, compared to the rest (a mix of private ownership and local authority rinks). Red Hockey has shifted the balance of power lately, owning the Tigers, buying 49% of the Bees and 34% of the Phoenix.

Clearly this was just too much for Planet Petrouis.

Which leads us to Saturday.

Now, if Petrouis wanted to force the hand of Morris & Scholes, then he couldn’t have chosen a more disruptive, underhanded and frankly disrespectful manner in which to do so. Given that he would know that the vast majority of the people who could respond to this statement were in HIS building in Coventry, and therefore unable to do so, he still ploughed on regardless. Never mind the distress this has caused to the fans, who he should remember are his paying customers, never mind the disruption to the players on the eve of the biggest game of their season. No, Petrouis wanted to play his pathetic power game.

Well, based on the response from the Phoenix faithful, this might just have backfired. Twitter, Facebook, and various forums have lit up, almost exclusively in condemnation of his move. And then the other stories began to circulate. This is seen as the opening shot in an attempt to force more money from the Phoenix/Red Hockey according to some. A rental fee increase from £3k per game to £9k per game was mentioned.  £9k to rent the Ice Dome? That’s £270k just to rent the ice for a season. Add in players wages, housing, travel, insurance etc and you are looking at the best part of £500k to run a team out of the Dome. Given we have about 800 paying fans, we would need a ticket price of at least £20 to cover costs. And that certainly ain’t going to happen anytime soon.

So where do we go from here? Well, I know that Morris & Scholes are hard at work on their end to sort this unholy mess out. But as fans, what can we do? Well, I believe we should exercise our right as customers to complain. We should let the rink know, politely mind you, about all the problems we have with the rink (like the mould encrusted toilet facilities, or the shocking state of the ice). We should, if you so wish, boycott any other use of the rink, such as for public skating. And we should let other rink users know what the rink are trying to do.

Mike Petrouis needs to remember that without the Manchester Phoenix, and Neil Morris, there wouldn’t be a rink in Altrincham for his Silver Blades brand to run in the first place. Hell, without the Phoenix fans, the building wouldn’t have even been ready for it’s opening night. It was Phoenix fans there cleaning everything, scrubbing toilets etc. Maybe, just maybe, he should remove the ££ covered glasses for a minute and take stock. Because we Phoenix fans won’t ga and watch his puppet team play in the Dome next season. Oh hell no.

We are Phoenix. We are Faithful. And we deserve better than Petrouis disdain and contempt.