The future of the EIHL

[DevilDan]

To begin this isn't a slate at systems current or old, I'm just interested in finding out other peoples views and opinions.

A discussioin I've had with alot of people from all over the country over the past few years is the standard of the EIHL. Alot of people refure to us as a joke league or simply a poorly run one. Most of the time these people have nothing to back up these claims except the usual "I hate simms" or "sack everyone in sheffield" excuses but some people have come up with other options, maybe combining the EPL and the EIHL into one big league and having more variety of games than playing the same teams 3 or 4 + times a season. Maybe setting up a new system where the league is run indepently by a board unattached to any teams and so forth.

My personal opinion is that I'll support the Devils wherever we play and under whatever format.

BUT if you had the money/authority/opportunity to do things differently or make as many changes as you pleased, what would you do?



Again this isn't a negative slate of the EIHL, its just something that gets me thinking.. and I'd like to know other peoples views.

 

[Jacko]

1 thing the league should do post haste is get rid of the stupid and illegal import rules.

 

[El Supremo]

1 thing the league should do post haste is get rid of the stupid and illegal import rules.

I agree, the EIHL is not and should not be a development league.

 

[Huskie442]

Trouble is Jacko/El Supremo, that without the "Illegal import rules" and the similar situation with the "Wage cap", which you would have to remove in order to bring in the extra imports, you will get the ISL.
I loved the ISL but it was unsustainable as a league and it would be again. As soon as you take away what are actually league agreements and not exactly illegal rules, you get a free for all where the rich teams pay and get the best players and win everything. You may say that happens now, but imagine what would happen if you allow the teams that want to spend bigger sums to do so, you would make it a 5/6 team league at best and Panthers would win everything!

Personally I would spend the money on the Governing body and the officiating and make sure that costs stayed within a range that would ensure that a well balanced and equal league of 8/10 teams worked long term, with pathways for Brits to filter in from all teams throughout the league by partnerships with EPL/EPL or junior academies.
What we have at the moment is a Governing body without the funding or private backing to develop successful leagues and programmes and a disjointed structure that doesn't ensure that the needs of developing players or the National team are met and is solely dependant on the financial security of a few to keep it alive. Without a better structure the sport cant look at media and Sports funding opportunities and can't move on.
If this was North America or Russia and the people who buy Football teams would buy Hockey teams and money was no object on a Premier league/KHL/KHL scale then fine, have an Elite league with highly paid players and no restrictions. But if this was North America or Russia there would be a million teams and players at all levels and a sustainable sport. Unfortunately this is the UK and my imagination doesnt stretch that far.

 

[scottydoesntknow]

A few things that need to be sorted out in my opinion are...

1) I think they should either completely change the governing body, or apply some strict rules

2) I think that they should publish a rule book every season, so that it would stop these unfair suspensions

3) I think they should invest in some good officiating staff to prevent players from taking unnecasery penalties for a check etc.

4) I think the league should become strict with the wage cap, and actually enforce it for once.

theres just a few points, Im sure if I thought about it more, I could probably think of a few more things wrong with this league, but thats it for now.

Also not sure how it would work, but I would like to see some things like a division structure involving the EPL teams with promotion, relegation etc.
or atleast some kind of tournament where you would get to play some different teams.

 

[DevilDan]

Like the crossover cup used to be a few years back?

 

[TheStub]

Some points I agree with, and others I totally disagree with here.

We need the limits. Like it or not, the EIHl IS a development league. The standard of hockey in this country is too low for it to be anything else. I remember the ISL days, having just got into hockey before the fall. The standard of hockey was fantastic, but the crowds nowhere near big enough to sustain it.

If you want the ISL, you have to build to it. This is a long road - we have tried spending our way to a high level league, and it almost cost us the sport in this country.

Until our Brits can stand shoulder to shoulder with the imports (and we ha several reaching that level already) then we need to limit the number of imports. The imports are important, as they bring in the skill and experience that our young Brits need to develop in the sport.

Merging the EPL and EIHL would be a nice idea, with maybe a North and a South conference. But this would be a non-flier with the current state of play. The number of EPL teams that almost went to the wall, and the drop of the Bison and Phoenix last season shows how the finance isn't there to allow teams to reach the top flight (no matter how low flying that may be at the moment). Unless we homogenate the import/wage cap rules between the leagues (or at least closed the gap greatly) promotion/relegation wouldn't work. The jump up would be too great.

Don't believe because there would be a better standard of hockey, the crowds would turn up for a promoted EP side. An EPL game is played at a decent level, and the entertainment value as good as most EIHL teams. Hull were more exciting to watch BEFORE they made the step up to the Elite.

Officiating and media coverage are the areas I think we are really lacking. The Elite League (and I believe the EPL isn't much better) have the air of amateurism about them. For the top flight, the EIHL often feels like it is being run like a Sunday league side. Without too much cost or effort, the organisation could be revamped and start stepping up. Likewise, IHUK need a higher profile. As the governing body, they are anonymous.

The rule book should be there to download from the website - and articles about changes (proposed or actual) put out and easily available.

We are a long way from having professional referees, but something need to be done about the quality of the officiating - or rather the consistency. Personally, I think we lack from punditry. Bad calls get lost - but look at what happens in football. A bad call gets made, and there is articles and discussion in the media - in the end the league is forced to issue a release detailing the decision, and clarifying the position. Games can't be replayed, but sometimes a statement detailing what the actual call should have been would let all the officials know what they should (or shouldn't be calling).

This is getting a bit long and ranty, sorry.

 

[scottydoesntknow]

I have only ever heard about that.
But yeah, something along those lines would be interesting!
only been watching for 2 years!

 

[Finny]

Just a quick point:

The import limits aren't illegal. They don't discriminate on nationality, but only allow a certain number of players on each team who weren't trained in that country.

It's very similar to the rule that UEFA have not adopted - and they are hardly likely to break they law are they!

 

[nmase20]

Beyond me how anyone could want a league with no import limits, theres too large a divide as it is and the brits wouldn't stand a chance. Plus i wouldn't want to watch a sport where every player is from another country and i think you'd find the fan bases would fall massively. I would say Ice hockey in the uk is seen more as a minority foreign sport and removing the import limit would make that worse.
Whats been said about making the league independent and professional and trying to find someway of getting more teams too the eihl level is all thats needed to get things to a good standard for me.

 

[Jacko]

uefa havent adopted the rule just proposed it. I can assure you the current EIHL rules are illegal....just ask the Caps who got sued for it not so long ago. I had a nice long post made up an hour ago about how the notion that imports=extra expense was a flase economy...either my computer ate it or it was deleted. The jist basically is that the top level brits likes of Colin Shields Ashley Tait etc. get paid considerably more than imports of a similar quality in the EIHL. its a simple supply and demand scenario where there isnt a big enough talent pool of top quality Brits so those few that are there can demand whatever money they want. If you brought the EIHL rules into Line with EU employment law it would open up the european players which in turn would give the teams more conviction when negotiating with the top british players. Personally id also allow naturalised imports to play as british players in the league the likes of steve thornton or shane johnson, who both play for TEAM GB but are considered imports by the EIHL.
Im not saying i want to totally scrap the import limits, but make them slightly more realistic or else the top brits will demand more and more money, and more clubs will go the way of basinstoke and London.


an enforced wage cap would do more to secure the long term future of top level hockey than any import restriction.

on other points i agree that better refs would improve the league and a clearly defined rule book would help too. a cross over cup with EPL teams wouldnt work i think the gulf is far greater than the gulf between the BNL and EIHL was back then (lets face it, was basically the same rules in both leagues)

 

[Huskie442]

Descriminating against EU born players, or any Canadian who has access to a EU passport (which is an awful lot of them), or even anyone who fits the Kolpak rulings is illegal, an official import ban would be illegal, but a league choosing to not PLAY more than 10 imports at at any one time, can't be illegal can it, you are playing the guy and he has 10 spaces on the bench he can fill he just wasn't suitable or fit for that game, simple.
We have this discussion every year. If a player can prove they were descriminated against they have a case, however when all you have to say is that you chose local player A for reasons of economics or playing ability its tough to claim descrimination.

I doubt that you would lose many fans by making it open season on imports though, the stars of the British game tend to have funny accents and always have had, its just that we have done it before and I failed and a sport which isnt structured in a way that allows for a structured progression through leagues and junior structures is going to keep failing and will never be taken seriously by the guys who run sport in this country.

However, there is no conspiracy against Winter sports in the UK, this I can be sure of and we would be more successful if we had the structure, hence why I argued that if money was no object I would start with the Governing Body and the officiating. Get this in place and we could have a sustainable structure top to bottom that in the end was no longer reliant on imports and would be able to be backed for Olympic qualifying competitions etc just as the Sledge Hockey Team has been at 3 of the last 4 Paralympic Games under exactly the same funding as the Olympic side would be).

 

[Huskie442]

Further to my previous post, having argued in favour of import restrictions, I must admit I don't really think the rule stating that the diference between a Brit and an import comes down to where you were trained, would hold up. Personally if I had the purse strings and controlled the league I would be more comfortable with a ruling that said you are a Brit if you have a British passport before you arrive in the UK, which would make the likes of Thornton a Brit alongside his National Team status. I know a British passport stamp is no more relevent under EU law that a French or Italian stamp, so I am not basing it on that and I still believe that an import level can be set and justified within the law, but as I have been arguing for consistency throughout the sport, I think the rule should be if you could play for GB "when you arrive in the UK", then you are classed as a Brit.
This rule might also drive down the cost of the currently small group of "Super Brits" that can to some extent name a price above their real worth, while not opening things up so much that it destroys opportunities for local juniors comming through the system like the ISL did.
If it did restrict these players though, we would be back at square one with an unsustainble sport, so we would need to get it right.

 

[Finny]

Sorry guys but UEFA have been using this rule in the Champions League for at least one, maybe two seasons now.

It is not illegal. It is not discriminating against a players nationality - only where they were trained. So a russian who does 3 years of training at a british club is not classed as an import. But a british born player who was brough up and trained in Canada would be classed as an import.

 

[TheStub]

I think the fact we are seeing young players starting to come through, like Towe, Dowd, Davies, and Esters (plus a few other young Brits) and the sucess of Davey Philips getting into an NHL programme, shows why you want to keep the slots for young Brits.

The large salaries of a few super Brits is probably still a bit of a hang up of the ISL days. The pool seems to be growing, and the dominance of Tait, Longstaff, Weaver et al will fade as more Brits come through.

At the moment, we need the slots for the Brits to play. We also need a solid wage cap to help police this. One without the other will always cause problems.

Looking to the 'flagship' NHL - they don't have import limits, but they have a solid wage cap (miles above our granted). But now all the teams can develop, knowing that they need to be bringing in the young aspiring players (with lower wage demands) to allow them to afford the stars. Admittedly, they are also helped by the draft system. It would nice to see more coordination between all the leagues - and I am glad that this season has seen an increased number of 2 way contracts. Without promotion and relegation (which I think will never work) it would be nice to see more links, almost a franchise model, So an Elite team has an EPL and ENL feeder team. But, we need a load more British players before that can even be a pipe dream.

Another long rant - sorry.

I have to agree on getting the governing body sorted. How does one "step up" and get involved in making the changes happen?

 

[TheStub]

Just been to the Ice Hockey UK website:

http://icehockeyuk.co.uk/

it seems to have been given a revamp, and a load more content since I last looked at it over the summer.

The EPL website is still buried somewhere in the depths of the England Ice Hockey Association website. How can we have three governing bodies? *sigh*

 

[Jacko]

Sorry guys but UEFA have been using this rule in the Champions League for at least one, maybe two seasons now.

It is not illegal. It is not discriminating against a players nationality - only where they were trained. So a russian who does 3 years of training at a british club is not classed as an import. But a british born player who was brough up and trained in Canada would be classed as an import.

the rule i think your talking about only discriminates against players who have a non-eu nationality, Messi, Anderson, Kaka' etc.

The rule they are trying to bring in (but has already been challenged) says that you must have certain number of players trained in the country that your club is, eg Liverpool must have certain numbers of english trained players. Under these rules however Cesc Fabregasc would count as English cause he came here young. I cant see the EU lawers ratifing it myself.

If a player can prove they were descriminated against they have a case, however when all you have to say is that you chose local player A for reasons of economics or playing ability its tough to claim descrimination.

See Edinburgh Capitals press release start of this season for evidence to disprove this statement.

 

[Huskie442]

Did this case ever get decided one way or the other?

 

[Jacko]

caps settled out of court on advice.

 

[Huskie442]

Fair enough! I dont know enough about the case, but its a mine field thats for sure. But havent we changed the rules now, so that you can have as many players as you like on contract being payed, but not selected to play (see Panthers last year) and hasn't that got round the issue.
I think the rule that we should play 10 imports should stay, but a rule limiting players you can register and have on the books, pay or register at any one time, thats is a rule that I dont see being enforcable.