I couldn’t agree more. The club must continually evolve and hopefully grow and this has to include an increased capacity at either IAW or an alternative at some point. We all like competing at a higher level in the CHL but we’ll never make any real impact on a competition like this until we can compete financially with the big boys. Our current capacity/arena corporate facilities restricts our potential for growth. It’s fine for the EIHL but is that enough longer term? Perhaps so for some. Personally, I think a capacity nearer 6000 for hockey would be ideal and this proposed new arena is probably too big for us to sustain. I’d love to be proved wrong though and if anyone can sell those extra tickets, our management can!
So shall we look at some of the facts here.
Cardiff Devils were established in 1986, they have been a fully functioning team for now 34 years.
At one point British ice hockey Finals were live on main stream terrestrial TV , we had a Super league on Sky Sports and we would have sometimes a full page in the sports section of the South Wales Echo with Terry Phillips writing it who would attend most matches at the WNIR .
During this period of high tv exposure of the team we had a capacity at the WNIR of 2800 and only 2/3 of a season were sell outs.
Now we have a 3,100 capacity arena with very little main stream TV exposure, even with the welsh news we're a foot note on ITV and again from what I've seen maybe 2/3 of a season are sell outs.
So the question is where do those extra 2,900 fans come from of a 6000 arena?
If we haven't been able to build up the numbers over 34 years with better exposure than we have now how are we going to gain that 2,900 fans needed?
That's nearly double the fan base that goes to the IAW now.