Frustration and anger linger after Elite League’s hopes of mini-series scuppered

Sheffield Steelers, owned by Smith, Nottingham Panthers, Coventry Blaze and Manchester Storm had hoped to press ahead with the one-off tournament over a six-eight week period, potentially based out of one venue with players living in Covid-secure bubbles close by.

But the money they were encouraged to apply for through the Department of Culture, Media and Sport via the government’s Sport Winter Survival Package, in order to do that eventually – after months of discussions and paperwork – simply failed to materialise.

During a Zoom call on Monday evening, officials from Sport England - the governing body administering the package on behalf of the government - left EIHL team owners floored when they were told the only money available to them would, in fact, be in the form of loans – in essence the one thing they had stated throughout the whole process that they could not practically consider.

Having already missed out on vital revenue streams since the sport at the top level in this country was shut down in March last year – the absence of two successive end-of-season playoff weekends in Nottingham are traditionally a big earner for all 10 teams – borrowing money to stage any kind of hockey was simply not possible, however few teams were going to take part.

An initial league statement on Tuesday afternoon made the frustrations of the four teams clear when stating: “On Monday we heard the full details of the Government Winter Survival package for the English Elite League teams. It was to begin season 2020-21 with no fans and government support only in the form of loans. To start on that basis would threaten the very future of professional ice hockey in the United Kingdom.”

Another day passed before some EIHL owners came out all guns blazing, Nottingham Panthers’ owner Neil Black blasting that the league had been “shafted” over the funding, while Smith has ensured everybody is aware of his own frustrations too.

“We’re frustrated without a doubt, we genuinely thought there was some funding coming to the Elite League,” Smith told The Yorkshire Post. “But we seem to have missed the boat - we’ve now not been offered anything; no grants, no loans etc, that would allow us to proceed and run a mini-series.

“Basically, the reason we were given by Sport England, was that what we were asking for was too expensive - that was the bottom line. We asked for grants to cover the cost of the mini-series – we’d stated all along that we wouldn’t run a mini-series if we had to fund it ourselves because that made no commercial sense.

“If it was grant-funded we’d be happy to take it and deal with it but there would be no point at all trying to run a mini-series and borrow money against it. That would be complete madness to have considered that. That was the basis on us talking to DCMS and Sport England.”

When the government announced its Winter Sport Survival Package in November, it stated there would be up to £4m available for Elite League hockey, Within days, the goalposts began to move, firstly with the EIHL discovering that the money would only be available for the five English-based clubs, meaning the likes of Cardiff, Belfast, fife, Dundee and Glasgow would have to try and secure financial backing from their own devolved administrations,

Before Christmas, Dundee and Fife revealed they would not play again until the 2021-22 season in September and, once Guildford announced they would not be taking part in the proposed mini-series, it left just four teams.

Although far from ideal, the English clubs decided to press on with the application, in part to enable them to give invaluable ice time to its GB internationals, many of who from last year’s Olympic Qualifying roster have been unable to secure regular ice time since the start of the pandemic.

Smith would not reveal the exact amount that the EIHL applied for - it is believed to be less than half of the £4m available - but, in the end, it still proved to be too much for the government.

“I don’t think it would be fair to advertise exactly how much we applied for, that’s something that should stay between DCMS, Sport England and ourselves,” added Smith. “But it is fair to say that we applied for a percentage of that £4m which would have been enough for four teams to run a mini-series for eight weeks.

“It was all going to be completely audited, it was clear that every penny that was spent would have been audited down the line. It was just a case of ‘this is what it is going to cost us, this is what we need to run the series’ and we thought we may get that over the line.

“We had a few meetings with DCMS and Sport England where they gave us what we thought was a steer as to which direction to go in terms of applying and how to make the applications.

“And there were many, many applications, we had four or five applications we had to submit along with cashflows etc etc that took a lot of time but, as I said we were left very frustrated because we actually got nothing out of it at all.

“We could have had that information a lot earlier in the process and it would have saved us all a lot of time and energy.”

Support The Yorkshire Post and become a subscriber today. Your subscription will help us to continue to bring quality news to the people of Yorkshire. In return, you’ll see fewer ads on site, get free access to our app and receive exclusive members-only offers. Click HERE to subscribe.