- This topic has 17 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
From Slapshotprods. : merge the AIHL and NZIHL and have an australasian league. Not just 1 NZ team either, all 5. Lift the whole competition to professional.
While this idea is nice in theory, it is completely out of the realms of reality. Every player would need to be professional, therefore minimum you would have to play the players $25000 or something, making the increase in budgets $500,000 just for salaries.
Then the cost of travel between the two countries weekly, would increase the budget by a similar amount.
For this to occur we would need some deep pocketed millionaires to buy the teams, or some serious sponsorship, which would be impossible in the current climate for a minority sport. For just flights and salaries you are increasing the amount of money needed in the league by $6 million dollars.
"Azzy77":1ucjo12u wrote:Then the cost of travel between the two countries weekly, would increase the budget by a similar amount.
[/quote:1ucjo12u]I agree it’s unrealistic, but if you had professional players, why would you travel back and forth every week. You could travel to Australia for a week and probably play three rounds – only cross over twice in the whole season. If they’re professional players you don’t need to restrict your games to weekends.
I don’t think the aussie league can support a professional league. Some of the rinks couldn’t support the number of fans required (Canberra etc) to fund the salaries. New rink in Melbourne is a step in the right direction but pro hockey is a long way away.
I’m still waiting for the long awaited exhibition between an aihl team and an nzihl team. I’m also waiting to see full houses in Auckland and Dunedin before I think a pro league is a good idea.
Can you imagine a pro league with a team in chch and the rink forces run time so the public skaters can get on the ice in time?
(hey Crosby, you’re team is changing in the shipping container outside)With the Winter Games only weeks away I took a peak at the AIHL calender.
There are clashes with the Winter games so I guess they will send a team that is not playing and a couple of extra players from other teams, the same as last time. I had hoped for the might of Australia to show up!
It just makes beating them better.
their roster can probably be boosted by imports this way which means there should be some pretty good players coming
"vpatrol":ifjmqtj8 wrote:(hey Crosby, your team is changing in the shipping container outside)
[/quote:ifjmqtj8]Personally for me, the Stampede ‘shipping container’ was the only time this year our whole team (Swarm) got dressed in the same locker-room! It was close to the ice, plenty of room and was rather comfy… plus the fans in Queenstown were great. Top notch experience and by far my favorite series of the year!
That is not the container being referenced. You’ve obviously never experienced the Chch container outside which is actually a shipping container. Ask the old Swarm boys about it.
Yeah Queenstown is a shed. You can sit on the tractor sometimes, but you can’t shower.
ChCh Container was awful especially if you were in the far end you were pretty much trapped in there until the guy at the front had finished getting changed….
The whole team can get changed together in Dunedin I believe, and they can shower.
Guys we all know theres only 1 rink in New zealand which has all the facilities needed. I think its based in Dunedin and yes they have showers. Sorry we havnt put in underfloor heating though
Good facilities for players are very much secondary to good facilities for the punters in a professional sport. They’re the ones paying the bills after all.
Gidday,
the suggestion I made on twitter was in response to one from the AIHL asking where the next expansion team should come from.
When I was in Australia earlier this year, there was a lot of talk about that next team coming from NZ, but I don’t personally believe that is good for the game here because I don’t want to see the best NZIHL players taken out of the competition.
My personal belief is that the NZ game can grow faster than it currently is in Australia and that our league can supersede theirs in quality.
Yes there are a number of issues which need to be sorted BEFORE this can happen, but that tweet is all about getting other people thinking and making sure we don’t sell the quality of our teams and competition short.
I’m not saying this should happen now, but if the game is to be taken seriously in the years to come, then an australasian league would be one way to go.
From the people I have spoken with it would probably run as described above where a team would travel across the ditch and play all their games within a couple of weeks before returning. The competition could be split into 3 conferences where the teams play teams outside their conference home and away once, and the teams inside their conference home and away in double headers – followed by a finals series.
It’s unrealistic now, but a goal like this can change the game as much as any other factor. You could call it a dream goal, but if it means better lights, better facilities, better resources and financing for players – it’s worth at least thinking about.
The aussie teams don’t want to fly to Perth so it’s doubtful they would come here willingly. It’s a nice dream but a pipe dream. We can’t even fill our rinks, develop feeder leagues, run a website, develop refs etc. Joining the AIHL would be so far into the future that its not really worth exploring.
"vpatrol":1id5wdwi wrote:We can’t even fill our rinks, develop feeder leagues, [b:1id5wdwi]run a website[/b:1id5wdwi], develop refs etc.
[/quote:1id5wdwi]Crowds would be the only thing I would imagine we could get if we merged, even then its pretty hard to fill places like dunedin and avondale with the dust they put on the ice every week.
Website is poo this year, i thought we were trying to raise the profile of the league not look like a league that has been liquefied….
We really need to develop a better feeding league in chch not sure how the other centers senior leagues are but chch is horrible
As for officials, we need a lot more, and no female ones in the nzihl too. You should’ve also put in the need to re-train existing NZIHL refs i.e *PAUL SCOTT*
Another couple of things is:
Salaries – if any
Travel costs and accommodation
Getting the douche at chch rink to give ice hockey first priority (net worth 250k to him already)
Player quality – we could have 1 maybe 2 in the AIHL, (NORTH AND SOUTH) but 5… come on get a grip. maybe 2 teams play AIHL and then NZIHL still keeps going(once player depth had been met)
"jamrock":2lmfwwex wrote:Crowds would be the only thing I would imagine we could get if we merged, even then its pretty hard to fill places like dunedin and avondale with the dust they put on the ice every week.[/quote:2lmfwwex]
Dunedin has probably had more edge of your seat, overtime games in the last two years than any other rink. Excitement city.
Unfortunately excitement means you lose a point, even if you win.
Just saying…..
people need to remember that the team that NZ beat at the previous winter games was essentially an under-staffed AIHL team. That’s the quality we can expect. I think any of our nzihl teams would struggle to win against a fully stocked team like that. Focussing on the domestic is more important then trans tasman me thinks.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.