Few questions for you exotic british hockey people :)

[hockeyeurope]

Hi!

I am finnish hockey follower and I would like to get to know your hockey culture better. I was amazed to see how big community Nottingham's hockey team have. I would love to get few opinions from you to these questions

1. How do you see your league's level of hockey? Is it enjoyable (i don't know is that a word) when you are in the crowd? Did you notice any difference watching Nottingham's champions hockey league games against top teams outside the NHL&KHL? Do you feel positive about CHL? It's not very respected tournament in Finland or other top hockey countries but maybe the situation is different here?

2. Atmosphere in Nottingham's games. I've seen your attendance stats and the numbers are awesome! Do you have loud fan groups or is it more like NHL-type (casual people watching game they don't know anything about)?

3. Can you talk about Nottingham to anyone outside this forum? Can you go to work and talk about Nottingham's games? Does anyone there know the team? 

Also I'd like to know do you follow the British national team's performances or world champinships or olympic games hockey Are you just into your local team or hockey overall? 

Thank you, it's been great to follow this forum. Lookng forward to see Nottingham in Finland again (CHL) and next season I also want to visit your home game. 

[meadow]

Hi thought I may as well use my first post to help out here!


1) The EIHL used to draw a lot of comparisons skill-wise to the ECHL, however whilst we may have a few 'higher end' players than the ECHL here (Jason Williams etc) we don't have the depth of the ECHL or the better European leagues, which is arguably because we don't have a large home-grown talent pool to draw from. It's only really been the last couple of years where teams have had four lines, and it doesn't seem that long ago that a league champion Belfast team pretty much ran two lines all season with a third line of Brits who came on ever now and again to give them a rest!

I think most of us here would say that for any EIHL team the CHL is a nice chance to swim in the big fish pond and is great for league exposure or maybe recruiting players, but ultimately it'd take a miracle to get past the opening stages. If you look at the past form of EIHL teams in the CHL we only really have a chance against DEL or EBEL teams. At the minute I think the league is in a weird position where its trying its hardest to compete with the rest of europe by pumping in money and bringing in better imports, but unfortunately it lacks the base of a decent infrastructure to bring through UK talent to sustain it in a reasonable way.

2) I'd say the Panthers have a real core following of 3000-4000 fans, like the sort of guys on here, or who have season tickets, or follow them round Europe etc. Beyond that, because our arena is in the city centre there's also a lot of the more casual fans too who go to a saturday game for a few beers before hitting town, or who only go to the hyped-up rivalry game with Sheffield.

3) Generally people know who panthers around the city despite hockey not being a majority sport, to be fair to the club they do a reasonably decent job of getting branding on trams, buildings, buses and even dustbins! wherever i've worked in offices in the city theres usually one or two people who are fans, or who occasionally go to games.

4) Don't think it'd be unfair to say that generally people aren't as bothered by the GB national team as they are their domestic clubs - as a good example whilst panthers probably average around 5000 attendance, the GB games here probably get around 3000 tops. also, in my own experience theres quite a few panthers fans who are only panthers fans and aren't fussed by watching the NHL, olympics, KHL etc.

[Yotes]

Welcome to the forum, both of you.

Level seems to improve year on year, mainly down to getting more and better import players. Certainly some teams in the league play some stuff which I personally find very easy on the eye. Us less so, but that's the way we seem to want to play, and that's subjective of course. As meadow says, we were able to give a game to certain teams in the CHL (well, Hamburg the first time), and got our 1 win, but we got blown out by the better Scandinavian sides in our group as I recall. I like to see us in it though, gives you a chance of a few trips and it's just an enjoyable spectacle watching the better teams, even with no chance of winning it. I can see why the better teams might see a trip to Nottingham as a bit of a pain, but hopefully their fans at least enjoy a visit (I think groups have since come back, to our Play Off weekend and stuff like that).

The atmosphere at the arena can be OK, but is generally pretty quiet. I don't think certain things are conducive to a loud atmosphere - for example in Hamburg they had a standing section behind the goal where most of the noise came from, people who want to be involved with that can go and do it and people who don't know where to avoid. We don't have anything like that. Occasional groups try to get something going, but so far nothing has stuck.

I think most non-fans are aware of the Panthers in the city, although it's not something I personally spend a lot of time talking to colleagues about. Football is very much king in Britain, even with the local clubs being a bit in the doldrums at the moment.

World Champs and GB - I think this feeds back in to the view of the quality of our league, I'm sure we all follow our World Champs week and hope for the best, but quality British players are pretty thin on the ground, so we're unlikely to make any waves. With our (Panthers) Continental Cup win this year, it is a little amusing to hear the talk of us being the first British team to win it, when in reality we're more of a North American team than anything else, and have to be to maintain the levels we've become used to. I don't see that improving any time soon. We're hosting our group this year though, so hopefully we can do something, get a promotion. We're miles off the World Group though.

[BigLad]

Mar 17, 2017 9:13:48 GMT hockeyeurope said:

Hi!

I am finnish hockey follower and I would like to get to know your hockey culture better. I was amazed to see how big community Nottingham's hockey team have. I would love to get few opinions from you to these questions

1. How do you see your league's level of hockey? Is it enjoyable (i don't know is that a word) when you are in the crowd? Did you notice any difference watching Nottingham's champions hockey league games against top teams outside the NHL&KHL? Do you feel positive about CHL? It's not very respected tournament in Finland or other top hockey countries but maybe the situation is different here?

2. Atmosphere in Nottingham's games. I've seen your attendance stats and the numbers are awesome! Do you have loud fan groups or is it more like NHL-type (casual people watching game they don't know anything about)?

3. Can you talk about Nottingham to anyone outside this forum? Can you go to work and talk about Nottingham's games? Does anyone there know the team? 

Also I'd like to know do you follow the British national team's performances or world champinships or olympic games hockey Are you just into your local team or hockey overall? 

Thank you, it's been great to follow this forum. Lookng forward to see Nottingham in Finland again (CHL) and next season I also want to visit your home game. 

Welcome aboard. Firstly, please don't be put off by the vast array of negative opinions on this forum. Unfortunately our team haven't been performing that well for the last few years, which when you look at the trophies the team has won may seem a bit odd but in the UK the biggest prize is the league rather than the Play-Offs and it's our league form that has been poor...at times abysmal!

In answer to your questions:

1. Level: Meadow answered spot on.

Enjoyable: It can be...again depends mostly on how the team are performing.

CHL: The standard of Lulea and Lukko were far above us, although I think we surprised Lukko in our first game at home. We matched up well with Hamburg though. The crowds for the CHL games were slightly below what we'd usually get in the league. Personally I think the CHL is a great idea - like anything new it will take time to build up support though and it can only benefit European hockey in the long run.

2. When the crowd get going we have one of the loudest arenas. Unfortunately we have a fanbase where I'd guess around 40% are just there for the night out rather than a sporting event. Our away travelling support is the biggest in the league and naturally quite vocal.

3. The Panthers have a decent media presence on the local press/tv so it means that within Nottingham, the Panthers are quite well known - in my office of around 200 people, there are about 10 of us who are regular attendees, but the rest all know about the team and most have been to games.

Team GB has a vocal and loyal following - vast majority of UK fans back the team although only a small percentage of those will travel. We're hosting the World Championships in Belfast at the end of this season which I expect will be close to sold out.

[hockeyeurope]

Thank you for your answers! I read these with my friend and we were surprised of how big this team is in Nottingham even though hockey is marginal sport in UK. Your office numbers are great! The second surprising thing was that you have more interest in your own league than the CHL. I find it very respectful that you respect your own league and be part to make it better.

I've heard rumours about some British team joining the KHL which I see possible in next 5 years. Hockey is nowadays all about money (Kunlun from China is better than any of finnish league's teams) so that could be interesting thing to see in Britain. Also 84 hockey rinks you have in your country is a decent number. Maybe you get more hockey minded cities like Nottingham soon

Thank you, I will continue following the forum and maybe take part to discussion also. Have a nice walkover victory tomorrow and let McGrattan do his job

[kievthegreat]

Mar 21, 2017 19:57:45 GMT hockeyeurope said:

Thank you for your answers! I read these with my friend and we were surprised of how big this team is in Nottingham even though hockey is marginal sport in UK. Your office numbers are great! The second surprising thing was that you have more interest in your own league than the CHL. I find it very respectful that you respect your own league and be part to make it better.

I've heard rumours about some British team joining the KHL which I see possible in next 5 years. Hockey is nowadays all about money (Kunlun from China is better than any of finnish league's teams) so that could be interesting thing to see in Britain. Also 84 hockey rinks you have in your country is a decent number. Maybe you get more hockey minded cities like Nottingham soon

Thank you, I will continue following the forum and maybe take part to discussion also. Have a nice walkover victory tomorrow and let McGrattan do his job