This article was originally written fot the webmaster of the Amiens website. Please go along there and say hi.
In the last two years, British hockey has gone through a revolution. Previously, the league was made up of a Premier Division, comprising the top ten sides in Britain, and Division One, with the remaining 14 British teams. Below this was the English Division One, which had about 16 teams, some of which were senior teams, and some of which were junior teams for clubs with teams in the British League. There was promotion and relegation in the British League, with a play-off between the bottom two Premier sides, and the top six Division 1 sides, with the two top teams being in the Premier the following year.
There were many problems at this time with several of the smaller clubs going bankrupt, and having to reform under new ownership and a new name, only to go bankrupt again the next season. However, it was clear that changes were likely soon. The Sheffield Arena opened seven years ago, and has a capacity of over 9,000. The Sheffield Steelers, who play out of the Arena, quickly rose to being the best team in Britain, playing to a full house most weeks. Three years ago, the Nynex Arena in Manchester also opened, with a capacity of 17,500. It was conceived as impossible that teams with these sorts of venues play in a league alongside teams with only 300 seats. The final nail in the British League's coffin was when Sir John Hall, the owner of Newcastle United Football Club and one of Britain's richest men, bought the Durham Wasps and installed them as the Newcastle Cobras in the new 5,000 seater Newcastle Arena.
The British League was broken up, and in it's place three separate leagues grew up. The top league is the Ice Hockey Super League (ISL), with the eight top teams. These teams have gone totally professional, and the standards of hockey have risen dramatically. However, this is mainly because they have brought in almost totally foreign players, from very high leagues, such as the AHL/IHL in North America, and even some NHLers. There is no promotion or relegation. Instead, the league is based on a franchise system (like the NHL), with new entrants having to apply for a franchise, and needing sound financial status, and a capacity of at least 3,000, before they can gain entrance. This is hoped to gain some stability at the top of British hockey, but causes much resentment amongst other teams.
Below the ISL there were the two Premier Leagues. The first was the Premier League (PIHL), with teams from England. They had similar rules to the ISL regarding players - basically there were no restrictions. Thanks to the Bosman ruling, anybody with European descent (which meant most Canadians and Americans, as well as any European) could play unrestricted in the UK. The Southern Premier teams therefore played with mainly Canadians, and some British players, but with smaller budgets than the ISL and in smaller rinks.
The Northern Premier League (NPIHL), however, was different. It was made up of Scottish and Northern English teams. Many of these had smaller rinks than their southern counterparts. They were worried about the danger of losing all homegrown players if the Canadian exodus wasn't countered, and they were also worried about wage increases, so they made a gentleman's agreement (a rule would have been illegal in European Law) not to exceed three players who were not British born and trained in each team. And so the season started. Every season, there is the Benson and Hedges Cup First Round before the league begins. Entrance to the cup is by invitation, and usually involves the top teams plus any from the lower leagues who are felt would add to the competition. Last year, 16 teams entered, with the first round being a mini-league series. All 8 teams to qualify for the quarter-finals, however, were ISL teams, with the Premier teams not having any chance. This year, because of that, only 4 teams from either Premier League has entered the cup, so the First Round is made up of two groups of six, with the top four from each going through. Again, everyone expects the 8 ISL teams to qualify. Benson and Hedges are the only competition sponsors British Hockey has at the moment. The old British League was sponsored by Heinekin for 10 years, but they pulled out five years ago. Since then, no league has managed to find a sponsor, despite many promises of being close to an agreement. There was a big scare from the Hockey fraternity when Labour's first law passed after being elected was to ban cigarette advertising, including sports sponsorship, as the B+H Cup is worth £500,000 to Hockey. However, it now seems that Labour may be prepared to change its mind over banning sports sponsorship.
After the B+H first round was out of the way, the leagues started up. The ISL seemed incredible to us, with the standard of hockey being higher than we'd ever seen before. Obviously, many of us were very worried by the sudden influx of so many foreigners, but we still enjoyed the performances they put out. Scorelines dropped significantly, making the matches much tenser and exciting. A match that is 2-1 with five minutes to go is so much more thrilling than a game that is 12-4, as had previously been the case. Another surprise was the parity within the league. Although it was clear the champions would still only be from two or three teams, no team was cannon fodder last season, with every club beating each other at least once, and with even the bottom team finishing with almost a third of their matches won.
At the end of the season there were the play-offs. Unfortunately, with there only being 8 teams in the ISL, everyone had automatic entry into the play-offs. The first round was a round robin system, with two groups of four playing each other home and away in a mini-league, the top two teams from each group qualifying for the semi-fnals. The semis were held at the Nynex Arena, where league Champions, Cardiff Devils, were beaten by the Sheffield Steelers, despite everyone having written off the Steelers. However, the Steelers have a habit of digging in when necessary, and were deserving winners. Next, the Nottingham Panthers played the Ayr Scottish Eagles. This was Ayr's first season, and they had impressed greatly, having already reached the B+H Cup Final (where they last to the Panthers), and finished third in the league. Indeed, they seemed to have made another final, leading Panthers 5-2 in the third period. However, Panthers made a dramatic comeback, with three goals in two minutes, to take the match into overtime. After six periods of overtime (116 minutes into the game), Nottingham scored a shorthanded winner to go into the final.
The following week, Sheffield and Nottingham arrived at the Nynex for their final. Now, it's worth noting that these teams hate each other. They're about 30 miles apart, and when Sheffield started up, they took several of the Panthers squad away from Nottingham. So there's a history of bad blood between them. It all set up an excellent match, which saw Sheffield the eventual victors, and first ISL play-off champions. According to the IIHF, this qualified them for the EHL. However, the BIHA wanted to send Cardiff, the league champions, instead, because they rated the league better than the play-offs. There was much controversy, and Sheffield withdrew from the EHL in support of Cardiff. Cardiff were then allowed into the EHL so long as they played at the Nynex. They asked for compensation, as Manchester is 300 miles from Cardiff, and were again thrown out, with Sheffield not being allowed back in. Instead, Britain's place was given to Bratislava. So, only the Manchester Storm are in the EHL, and they only qualified by virtue of the wildcard place, the advantage of a 17,500 arena!
What are my expectations of the Storm in Europe? Well, talking to other Storm fans, we feel the Storm should be able to beat Bolzano at home, but not away, and will be destroyed by Sparta Prague and Dinamo Moscow. Unfortunately, Bristish teams always suffer in Europe from being too physical. We play a very tough, Canadian style hockey, unlike the rest of Europe, and so we suffer for it when reffed by the less lenient Europeans. The Storm showed against Amiens that when allowed to play their own style, they can just crowd out European teams and win comfortably, but that was with more lenient British refs. However, with more experience of European play, plus the influence of the EU players now in the ISL, we should improve over the years, and hopefully rise in level.
As for the GB Team, after almost qualifying for the final Olympic Qualifing Group, where we would have had a very good chance of going through, we had a terrible World Championships. Unfortunately, the team is made up of ageing Canadians (with British passports) and has a very unadventurous coach. Despite not having the danger of relegation, Peter Woods still refused to give some younger, British players a chance in the squad, in the hope of giving them International experience, instead sticking with the older, Canadian players. Unfortunately, these players will soon be retired, and we will have no-one to take their place. We would like to think that we could be in the top 16 in Europe for hockey, but until we actually give the British players a chance, we will never achieve any more than our own unambitious goals. It does not help that the national coach is only part-time, and so more worried about his league team than the national team.
However, despite this, the British Hockey scene is looking very rosy right now. The league is better standard than ever, we have coverage on satellite television, crowds are up, big arenas are looking to host teams, we have the European attendance record (17,245 Manchester Strom vs Sheffield Steelers) and all the top teams are now being run like proper businesses. We shall just have to hope that we can maintain this.