The Official British Hockey Thread 2012-2013

[archibalduk]

Paul Thompson is moving to Sweden for next season. Gonna be an assistant coach for Troja-Ljungby in Swedish Allsvenskan (2nd tier)
He is bringing Shea Guthrie with him

Troja had Robert Dowd on the team this season. He did ok

Apparently the move to Troja-Ljungby had been on the cards for quite some time. Although he's leaving his post as Head Coach at Coventry, he'll remain a director. He's arguably the best British-born EIHL coach. Some time ago he was offered a European scouting position with the Chicago Blackhawks but he turned it down.

[Mighty Knight]

The London Racers have reformed, and plan to play in the ENIHL2 next season! Don't have an official website yet, but for those of you on Twitter; https://twitter.com/racers_london

Brilliant news!!

I had heard rumours that the Harringay Greyhounds might be reforming following the refurbishment of the Ally Pally. I wonder if this is the alternative (because they Greyhounds would be starting in the NIHL-2) or whether both teams will be resurrected (surely fairly unlikely).

I read somewhere that they'll be the Harringay Racers officially, but are known as the London Racers online for 'marketing purposes', which seems somewhat bizarre to me. Supposedly they're the official reincarnation of the former EIHL team but appear to be playing - essentially - under two team names? From a personal point of view i'd love a London team, there are already several teams in London that represent different districts/boroughs (Lee Valley, Streatham, even the two Romford teams), but it'd be great to have a team represent London as a whole - it's never seemed 'right' to me that there isn't a team in the capital, especially not one in the EIHL. I wonder if Roger Black still owns the Racers? edit: Harrigey Racers website; http://haringeyracers.co.uk/

They've said they'll be announcing their Head Coach next week

[archibalduk]

Urgh seems a bit unnecessary if you ask me. Seems like they're trying to keep hold of the history (i.e. Harringay Racers) on the one hand and attract former London Racers on the other...

[Mighty Knight]

Urgh seems a bit unnecessary if you ask me. Seems like they're trying to keep hold of the history (i.e. Harringay Racers) on the one hand and attract former London Racers on the other...

Ditto. They also seem to be playing in a rink with no plexiglass - just netting?! I only ever saw them play at Lee Valley, did Ally Pally have glass when they were in the EIHlL?

[archibalduk]

As far as i know, Ally Pally has always had netting rather than glass. Not sure how that works in terms of checking into the boards...

The Racers didn't play at Ally Pally during their EIHL days - they played at the London Arena in the Docklands.

[MWE]

Steelers have signed Aaron Neil and former coach Ryan Finnerty has signed for Braehead

[MWE]

Robert Dowd has also signed for the Steelers from Troja Lungby

[archibalduk]

Robert Dowd has also signed for the Steelers from Troja Lungby

That's a big signing; particularly as he has an import level of talent but is British. I'm surprised he wasn't retained by Troja. He seemed to have a decent season with them.

[Manimal]

Robert Dowd has also signed for the Steelers from Troja Lungby

That's a big signing; particularly as he has an import level of talent but is British. I'm surprised he wasn't retained by Troja. He seemed to have a decent season with them.

I heard his gf/wife/partner was homesick

[archibalduk]

I heard his gf/wife/partner was homesick

Ah that's a shame. Sweden isn't all that far away!!

IIRC Ben O'Connor is the only remaining British-trained (more-or-less) player abroad. I haven't seen any news on his plans for next season, but I'd be surprised if Arlan Kokshetau didn't renew his contract given how well he played last season.

[gazzw87]

Robert Dowd returning to the Steelers ISN'T good news atall! For the Steelers yes It's great. For GB hockey in general it's terrible! Look at the state of the scores at the recent World Champs - we are shocking! We need all the players we can to leave the Elite League/EPL and go train somewhere better - Like Sweden!!

Archi - We have Joey Lewis abroad too. He plays for Hammer Eisbaren in the Oberliga West AKA Germany3

[archibalduk]

Bad news... It looks like Romford will be folding for possibly 2 years until they get a new rink built. Bad news for Romford and bad news for the NIHL S1.

With profound regret we must confirm that, short of a miracle, Romford Raiders will not be able to take their place in the NIHL this coming season.

Ollie will be making a personal statement in the next few days but to put some meat on the bones of the stark news, we have been left very disappointed by a change of stance from our prospective landlords. I will not personalise the story at this stage, so….we first met the Lee Valley rink management in November 2012 and were given a very positive welcome, a price for ice time Ollie could live with and a firm intention from them to try to find a way to accommodate us. I will stress now that at no point did Lee Valley commit or promise or otherwise guarantee that we would be able to play out of Lee Valley but they certainly led us to believe, clearly and without any form of contradiction, that we would. Ollie attended other meetings with the Lee Valley management over the ensuing months and made a formal request to them to provide us with the dates we needed for home fixtures in 2013/14.

On April 10th, Ollie received a letter from Lee Valley. Six months down the line from our inaugural meeting and raised by them for the very first time, we saw that the goalposts had moved.

Some of the dates we were given fell outside of the regular NIHL season and worse still, the face off times offered contravened the Rules of Competition of the NIHL. As Lee Valley Lions were and are a NIHL S2 team, we were surprised to see impossible face-off times offered for S1 fixtures.

The ice time fee, the only number we had ever discussed and by convention the price we were expecting, had now increased by 50% for game ice.

Finally, a 20% rake-off of gate receipts was required by Lee Valley.

None of this had ever been mentioned before.

On April 11th, we asked for a meeting to discuss our concerns and, not for the first time, found it incredibly difficult to arrange a face-to-face discussion with our prospective landlords. A meeting date was finally fixed for May 22nd (the first date Lee Valley could be properly represented) but yesterday, May 21st, Lee Valley attempted to cancel the meeting citing personnel sickness. With the Raiders players, sponsors and supporters in limbo, we reckoned that any further delay would be impossible to bear so Ollie pressed for a meeting. I have to report that the meeting didn’t happen and instead the business was conducted by email where Lee Valley stated that their previous offer was ‘not up for debate’.

The price was an issue but not insurmountable. What has finally stuffed us is Lee Valley’s refusal to even talk about moving other users back by 30 minutes. Literally, half an hour. Because of that we are faced with insufficient dates to complete a league programme and therefore cannot take our place.

I’ve been in touch with Danny today and he will be informing the players. There are lots of emotions floating around but the most overriding one for Dan, Ollie and me is heartbreak. Even today, I have been liaising with Havering Council who are still trying to help us find a home - but the chances are remote.

Ollie will have more to say in due course. We’re really, really sorry we couldn’t keep the Raiders on the ice. It wasn’t for the want of trying.

http://www.romfordraiders.co.uk/new/sit ... php?id=116

[MWE]

Chad Langlais has signed for the Steelers and Ashley Tait has moved to Coventry.

[archibalduk]

I believe Ling announced his retirement recently.

Romford Raiders have found a rink! They've managed to reach agreement with Lee Valley after all. However, they're renaming to the London Raiders to reflect the fact that they're moving to Lee Valley. Seems a bit of a shame, but it's probably the only way of getting locals interested (how many Londoners will want to watch an Essex team based at a London rink?!). I understand from Twitter that the London Racers aren't too happy about this!

The only drawback is that Romford are now several weeks behind everybody else in signing new players. And perhaps even worse, Invicta have already signed Romford's best player (Juraj Huska). So it remains to be seen whether Romford will be as competitive next season as they have been the previous seasons.

[MWE]

Steelers have signed Forward Ryan Menei who played for the Tulsa Oilers last season

[nino33]

I'm doing some EHM editing with the 2013 NHL Draft playing in the background when I noticed they're doing a little feature on...Tony Hand!

I'm aware of Hand and his story, but it seemed the interview was recent...the "new" thing I heard is Hand commenting that the fitness level of the NHL/Oilers impressed him at the time (and something about how he or maybe it was how hockey in Scotland was not at that level of fitness then..."still eating fish and chips before games" was his comment HaHa).

[archibalduk]

Heh that's neat!

The fitness levels in the UK have much improved from when Hand started playing. However, the third league (the NIHL 1st Division) is still a big mix of fit and not so fit players. For instance, the "man of the match" (aka the game MVP) wins a crate of beer!!

[rmt_1982]

Watched the Hand 'documentary' on Draft night, was really good to see, and some of the comments popping up on Twitter were quite complimentary as well..

[MWE]

Is there any link to that documentary online I would like to have a look?

[nino33]

Is there any link to that documentary online I would like to have a look?

http://video.tsn.ca/?dl=pipe42/latest/1 ... 3/clip/458

[Garethw87]

Yeah great little documentary about Tony Hand. I think it'll be a while till we see another one of him again! Had the pleasure to meet him too what a great guy!

Hand as said it too we need more Brits playing abroad to help us out. Adam Walker should try his chances in Europe next I think. Either that or return to the Man. Phoenix!

[rmt_1982]

Theres still the rumours of Robert Farmer going out to the ECHL persisting though...

[archibalduk]

Yeah great little documentary about Tony Hand. I think it'll be a while till we see another one of him again! Had the pleasure to meet him too what a great guy!

Hand as said it too we need more Brits playing abroad to help us out. Adam Walker should try his chances in Europe next I think. Either that or return to the Man. Phoenix!

Why the new user profile?!...

I've been a fan of Adam Walker since he played for the Phoenix, but I'm not convinced he's good enough to cut it abroad (at least not outside of UK/Italy/France/Denmark/Norway/etc). Robert Farmer, on the other hand, I could imagine him doing well in a bigger league. That said, I don't see any Brit anywhere near Tony Hand's level of skill right now. We do have some decent players, but none of them tear the league apart like Hand did (i.e. 3 - 4 pts per game). Sure the EIHL is arguably more competitive now than back then, but even Biznasty, an NHL depth player, averaged 2 pts per game during his brief stint in the EIHL - this is the sort of level I think British players need to attain before they'll stand some sort of chance of being considered by an NHL scout. Hence I don't see another Brit getting drafted any time soon.

[Garethw87]

Yeah great little documentary about Tony Hand. I think it'll be a while till we see another one of him again! Had the pleasure to meet him too what a great guy!

Hand as said it too we need more Brits playing abroad to help us out. Adam Walker should try his chances in Europe next I think. Either that or return to the Man. Phoenix!

Why the new user profile?!...

I've been a fan of Adam Walker since he played for the Phoenix, but I'm not convinced he's good enough to cut it abroad (at least not outside of UK/Italy/France/Denmark/Norway/etc). Robert Farmer, on the other hand, I could imagine him doing well in a bigger league. That said, I don't see any Brit anywhere near Tony Hand's level of skill right now. We do have some decent players, but none of them tear the league apart like Hand did (i.e. 3 - 4 pts per game). Sure the EIHL is arguably more competitive now than back then, but even Biznasty, an NHL depth player, averaged 2 pts per game during his brief stint in the EIHL - this is the sort of level I think British players need to attain before they'll stand some sort of chance of being considered by an NHL scout. Hence I don't see another Brit getting drafted any time soon.

Hey Archi! I updated my profile on everything I use but for some reason I'd always forgot to change it on here! Hope you don't mind My old one is linked to gmail and that got overrun with rubbish.

I agree 100% we don't have any players anywhere near Hand's abilities. Even at 40 he was still dominating the league every year! But we do have players, like Farmer especially who could gain alot if they at least tried to go make a bigger league. It seems to be slowly happening though. Dowd went to Sweden but now he's back as we know. Look at Ben O'connor, going to Kazakhstan ,we need more people willing to at least try I think.

I think it's a sad day when Team Italy make the Elite and we barely stay in Div 1!

[rmt_1982]

There was some talk as well last season of some ECHL clubs looking at Robert Lachowicz as well, but, I'll believe them when I see them.