My understanding is that all of the debt is owed to Neil Morris, I think it was about ~£600k and that basically he couldn't fund them out of his own pocket anymore. There was talk of the EIHL giving them a bit of money ~£10k or so towards the end to help with costs, but as usual that is speculation and rumours. It wouldn't be the first time that the league has helped out a team though (they paid for some of Hull's travel expenses after the conference setup was introduced).archibalduk wrote:As I understand it, they're pretty heavily in debt. Aren't they still paying off debts to the EIHL or whoever helped bail them out in the final few EIHL seasons?marksbros6 wrote:Never been a fan of Phoenix, they certainly don't strike me as this plucky little club fighting the power! They're quite well backed sponsorship wise and always seemed to have plenty of cash.
It makes me laugh that they actually went to the trouble of registering companies with the Elite League name!! I don't really know what that was meant to achieve. It's also funny that one of the people that did this was the Fife Flyers owner, who are now back in the EIHL. I imagine there was a bit of apologising going on when they asked to joinarchibalduk wrote:I think we first went in 1999 (Storm vs Knights). I still actually have the game programmes from the two Storm games we watched. But I was always more interested in the NHL to begin with. I only started to get interested in seeing British hockey once I finished university and finally had some income to spend on seeing games (along with the spare time to travel by train to see the games as there were no teams near my uni).Calv wrote:A lot of that stuff goes back to before Colin & I really followed the sport. We watched Manchester Storm a few times, but not living that locally we didn't go very often. I think I was only 14 when they folded so I didn't know the politics etc.
British hockey is filled with rumours, people in the know, people pretending to be in the know, and people making stuff up. It's also filled with politics and teams regularly going bust!
This off season has been particularly turbulent!
As I understand it, the dispute/disjoint dates back from the time of the Ice Hockey Superleague which replaced the British Hockey League in 1995 or 1996 (but I'm not sure how or why). The Superleague was effectively a rival of the English Ice Hockey Association's leagues (i.e. the BNL and EPL). I don't think the rivalry is really there any more - but there's still a lack of cooperation and hence British hockey is so disjointed. It has been really detrimental to the development of young players and to the national team in general. The EPL is a bit confusing because it is classed as a developmental league for some reason (it's to get around immigration/EU, IIHF or tax rules - I can't remember which) - but really it's just a semi-pro league.
I think the EPL development tag is due to the work permit regulations or something (rather than IIHF).
He probably had a few more seasons left in him, but I certainly felt he'd slowed down this past season.
