New Ice Rink for Manchester ?

[mark]

Story here https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... y-28419815

My concern would be is that if it's run by Planet Ice then the Ice Hockey is a long way down it's list of priorities, they have a poor reputation to say the least.

[lovedenisvial]

Odd that the article doesn't mention specifically Ice Hockey?? If the building was geared to Ice sports then you would expect the EIHL to be one of their objectives?

[mark]

Odd that the article doesn't mention specifically Ice Hockey?? If the building was geared to Ice sports then you would expect the EIHL to be one of their objectives?

Depends on the setup of the whole project, having a regular attendance in the facility is a large and regular income stream for those trading within it, especially if the overall project is something like Braehead, even the retail park across the road from Sheffield Arena sees extra income on Steelers game nights, helped enormously by the crazy pricing for food and drink in the Arena of course but in Braehead the shops/food outlets within the rest of the complex also benefit the traders. I believe the issues are more likely to be around ice availability for training which doesn't bring in the public of course, the balance between public ice time and sports related ice time is a difficult one, hence the issues which tend to cause problems for PI based hockey teams, as well as the stories of poor maintenance which we hear about. If the Storm can negotiate a good contract that fulfils their requirements at a cost they can afford they would be silly not to take advantage of it, that wooden shed they currently use is abysmal and will forever prevent them returning to the top rank of EIHL clubs. Might not be a return to 17,000+ attendances for them but it has to be better than 3000 ( of which about half have a poor view ) that they get right now.

[Joesteeler]

Great news for Manchester and the EIHL.

I suspect the Storm will play out of the new arena, with a new NIHL team forming to play in Altrincham.