Guildford 12th team?

[sparkymark75]

Guildford have applied to join the Elite League. If approved they will join at the start of next season along with Milton Keynes.

How do you think they will tweak the league structure?

- Add MK and Guildford to the Erdhart Conference and move Belfast to the Gardiner?
- Form 3 conferences of 4 teams? Could get pretty stale playing the same teams a lot!
- Ditch the conferences and return to a straight league format?

[Billkmc]

Jan 18, 2017 0:40:28 GMT sparkymark75 said:

Guildford have applied to join the Elite League. If approved they will join at the start of next season along with Milton Keynes.

How do you think they will tweak the league structure?

- Add MK and Guildford to the Erdhart Conference and move Belfast to the Gardiner?
- Form 3 conferences of 4 teams? Could get pretty stale playing the same teams a lot!
- Ditch the conferences and return to a straight league format?

I can't see them scrapping the conference system as it would mean less Nottingham vs Sheffield games and they love the attention. Also it is supposed to help some teams finances by cutting down travel and giving them larger traveling supports, so it makes sense to keep it.

Adding MK and the Flames to the erdhart makes most sense but I'm not sure Belfast would want to move so that could be an issue.

That only leaves 3 confs of 4 which seems like a dumb idea as it would become even more tedious than it is becoming already, so eihl logic dictates that this is the solution they will find.

[pingchowchi]

Im not sure why 3 conferences would be more tedious as I would assume if you had 3 conferences you would play 3 home and away matches against your conference rivials (so even less than you do now) and 2 home and away matches against opponents outside your conference.

[coloradoflyer]

logistically if they keep it as 2 conferences it will be it will be our conference as is with giants added and the other 4 teams plus the 2 new ones

if this is the way it goes will the current 10 teams ask for the import level to be dropped so they have extra cash for travel

[Billkmc]

Jan 18, 2017 8:01:52 GMT pingchowchi said:

Im not sure why 3 conferences would be more tedious as I would assume if you had 3 conferences you would play 3 home and away matches against your conference rivials (so even less than you do now) and 2 home and away matches against opponents outside your conference.

That would be the preferred games but that would mean less steelers panthers games and I can't see them wanting to lose that revenue. If anything with 4x3 they would want to play each other more.
If teams went 3h and 3a then there would be no point having the conference system as it is supposed to cut down traveling and help teams financially but 3 and 3 would negate that.

[toomanymen]

Are Flyers looking to go Tier 2/EPL style league next season? Stars, Caps, Solway too? who knows

[Dirty Lyle]

Jan 18, 2017 9:45:09 GMT toomanymen said:

Flyers looking to go Tier 2/EPL style league next season. Stars, Caps, Solway too? who knows

Commercial suicide for Flyers if they do,

[watcher]

Did I hear that Murrayfield was closing to be pulled down to build a hotel? Will Caps be around next season? Will we?!

[Billkmc]

Jan 18, 2017 13:15:35 GMT watcher said:

Did I hear that Murrayfield was closing to be pulled down to build a hotel? Will Caps be around next season? Will we?!

The story about murrayfield is to do with the redevelopment of the whole site around the rugby stadium. Part of that was either a redevelopment of the current ice rink or a brand new ice arena. A hotel and multi purpose pitches were also included in the plan.

[pingchowchi]

Jan 18, 2017 9:40:15 GMT Billkmc said:

That would be the preferred games but that would mean less steelers panthers games and I can't see them wanting to lose that revenue. If anything with 4x3 they would want to play each other more.

I can see the Panthers and Steelers worrying about this - but the Panthers and Steelers will play each other at least 12 times this season (8 league 4 CCup) and it's possible that they will play each other twice again in the playoffs ... it's too many times. It's starting to really bore me (Im a Panthers fan), I think we could cope with 2 less games against them.

I am hoping that its 3H 3A against your conference rivals and 2H 2A aginst the rest - that gives 50 league games, which is almost the same as now.

[boschman76]

Id make it Guildford mk Cardiff Belfast .panthers Steelers blaze storm .and 4 Scottish teams

[joestoyanovich]

The more teams the merrier I think.

I hope Flyers remain a part of the EIHL but I can see why we would leave if there were a viable alternative, one that reduced the ludicrous level of imports allowed.

[Dirty Lyle]

Jan 18, 2017 16:52:13 GMT joestoyanovich said:

The more teams the merrier I think.

I hope Flyers remain a part of the EIHL but I can see why we would leave if there were a viable alternative, one that reduced the ludicrous level of imports allowed.

I like watching imports, better skilled and a far higher level of hockey, watched flyers nearly every game in the SNL and bored me to tears at the end of it.

[stewartgibson]

Jan 18, 2017 16:52:13 GMT joestoyanovich said:

The more teams the merrier I think.

I hope Flyers remain a part of the EIHL but I can see why we would leave if there were a viable alternative, one that reduced the ludicrous level of imports allowed.

the import limit benefits us

[swarfiga]

If the import level was still 8 or 9 who the hell would actually be playing for the flyers? I also believe the higher import number actually benefits fife