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My post might be two days before the competition, but even last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, etc no one out of the loop knew what teams were being organised or who was organizing them. Anyway, it wasn’t up here or on the DIHA website.
As for entering existing teams, SK8 was an existing team in the prems, but it seems the SK8 Easton Cup team is differnet from that team (or at least not all SK8 players were informed there was to be a SK8 team in the Easton cup).
People I’ve talked to have no idea who is organising the various teams or who to contact in order to play, so they don’t know how to participate in this tournament.
There might be wider participation in this tournament if it was known in advance what teams there are, or who is organizing a team. As it is, it is who you know (or who knows you?)
A call for teams isn’t the same as a call for players.
I guess it is a chicken & egg situation: Easton goes by team entry, but if a player doesn’t know of any teams, they aren’t going to end up playing.
So is there some central information point where one can find out what teams need players? Not that I plan to play, but I there are about 6 players I know of looking for a team…
For some reason, from the TV guide it doesn’t look like Prime is covering the USA v Canada game today.
And I checked SKY — the game is on 1:30 to 4, but it isn’t being replayed! So I’m having to learn in a hurry how to use my ancient VCR on a timer.
But for all you curling fans, there are plenty of curling replays on today.
Yeah, the Prime “coverage” is abysmal. An insult not only to hockey, but winter sports in general.
And the daytime emphasis on skating is getting tedious — dancing with the stars, except no stars except the skaters’ sequins.
And I’m no fan of Don Cherry, but that Pom who is commentating on the hockey is strictly from hunger, but maybe he dresses better than Don Cherry.
The Dunedin rink cost less than 10% than that 20 mil. I’m in Montreal now so don’t have the figures with me, but something like 1.2 mil seems to stick in my mind for the basic fitting out within the existing structure (which still needed a lot of expensive work done on it: insulation on the outside, fixed-up roof (both courtesy of our landlord), completely new electrics, fire compliance, plus there was 20k spent as I recall just for removing a huge pesky underground concrete support running across what is now the rink — left over from the original stadium before it was extended some years back). Of course, the rink has been worked on some more since it first opened, with the curling rink added (it has a concrete pad), plus now the mezzanine/closed-in part, and the new and hopefully improved changing rooms. But it still wouldn’t add up to much more than 2.5 mil I think all up.
The land it is on is Crown Reserve land, so it can’t be used for any commercial purpose and is pretty much limited to public recreation.
The best I could find on the web are the official scores: http://www.nzicehockey.co.nz/Nationals2008.html
And the awards and tournament teams/lines: http://www.nzicehockey.co.nz/NationalStandings.html
[quote:1ehe36ye]People playing r 6
need another 14 plus goalies. Any one from the bears playing?
[/quote:1ehe36ye]Yep — Count in Paul and Ben Roth.
Well, I’d like to be optimistic. There are some good players in Dunedin.
I can’t see the club growing much otherwise — at present, 3 years after the opening of the new rink we have about the same number of club members as we had when the Big Chill closed. Unless we get more ice hockey going here, the ice time cost, which is going to have to go up sooner or later (eg, electricity is going up now, the current very low rent isn’t guaranteed beyond 2009), is going to have to be spread around the same number of people.
When I was trying to raise money for coaching over the past 2 years, I was told more than once that we’d never get anywhere unless and until we had a team that played nationally. Ice hockey was compared in size and profile to archery. What do you think of that?
[i:2ti36na5]Moved from main forum by Ryan[/i:2ti36na5]
I have read Steve’s presentation, and if you read it carefully, it takes into account the larger National League context and Dunedin’s possible future place in it. Why else the great concern with the clash with Canterbury’s red colours?
In the discussion here, there has been no lack of focus as you say. The rebranding has to take into account the real likelihood that Dunedin will one day have a National League team. That is what people are saying, and that is implicit in Steve’s presentation. If we are talking about marketing ice hockey and growing the sport in Dunedin, this seems to be the key to it. Why is it prohibited to suggest that any branding exercise should take into account what the National League team is going to look like down the track?
If the Premiers are our best team, and they play no games to which locals can come and see them wear their flash new branded gear, how is that going to raise the profile of ice hockey in Dunedin? The Dunedin Premier team should be our National League team in waiting. Once they get into that league, then it seems to me they will have a brand to sell. I know we are all guys, but what is so wrong about thinking about more than one thing at the same time? Especially if they are linked?
Yeah, the Premiers. What are they? I’ve been on the ice hockey committee for years now and it has always been a mystery to me. I recall plenty of discussion about why they can’t play games, the difficulty or organising a league for them to play in, etc.
Who do they play? How do you get on the team? When can you watch the games? For a while, I think they had no other teams to play, then there seemed to be some combined regional teams. Talk about a low profile! It seems to be a secret league.
I’ve been managing the Juniors for a few years now. AFAIK, no one ever came by to recruit the promising 18 year old players. They mainly drift away from competitive hockey at that point because it isn’t clear what is available to them aside from SNC and the DIHL.
I think having a local National League team would be a shot in the arm that the local club needs to raise its profile.
Currently, we have youth levels, but after you turn 19 years old … what? Sure, there is SNC and social “beer” leagues, but nothing for the kids to really aspire to, no team to really look up to as the local “pros”. A National League team would put in place an important point of progression here that is currently lacking. There is the Southern Stampede, but that is based in Queenstown and dominated by Queenstown.
I guess I just see our profile being raised from the top down, rather than the bottom up.
By all means, let’s have a distinctive local name and logo, etc. But I don’t see any particular magic in that that will somehow automatically raise our profile. I realise that I’m an amateur here, but I always thought when you want to sell something, you brand it. What are we selling here?
[i:2akl0402]Moved from main forum by Ryan: Paul, [b:2akl0402]this is not helping!!!![/b:2akl0402]. These decisions have been made. If you had a problem with them you should have voiced your concern when these decisions were made. Please stop complaining about the commmittees decisions in public![/i:2akl0402]
Well, then, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
I think people only care about the name of the Dunedin National League team — looking back at the posts here,this is the direction the discussion took for most of it.
I’ve been involved in youth hockey in Dunedin for over 7 years now, and no one ever refers to other teams by any special name except “Queenstown”, “Gore”, “Maniototo”,and “Alex”. I am aware that Queenstown teams call themselves the “Rangers”, but we never refer to them as that.
With the same name being applied to all the different grades, it will be pretty confusing and people will continue to refer to individual teams as the “Dunedin Juniors”, “Dunedin Midgets”, etc.
There is no harm in agreeing upon colours and a design, though (too bad the Dunedin Pee Wees, Midgets, and Juniors have recently bought red jerseys).
So, I suppose the name would be only for local consumption — merchandising? But it wouldn’t assist in actual team identification at all.
Well, then, I guess we should be really clear on whether that is the case or not.
If it is, it will be really confusing. No one will know whether the National League team is being referred to, or a Pee Wee, Midgets, Junior, or SNC team.
The Southern National League team is called “Stampede”. The regional youth teams are called the “Southern Knights”. Are all Canterbury teams called “Red Devils”?
Here’s another suggestion for a team name: the Dunedin Stars or the Southern Stars. The Southern Cross could be part of the logo.
Given that the team wouldn’t be playing until next year at the earliest, there should still be some time to come up with and agree on a decent name for it.
There is only the one chance really to get it right.
