Twenty20 shelved as Stingrays fall by the wayside

Club owners Mike and Sue Pack said they were left with no alternative but to call it a day after seven years at Hull Arena after being unable to secure enough funding to guarantee another season of top-flight hockey in East Yorkshire.

It's thought they were eventually around 75,000 short of meeting their projected playing budget, leaving popular player-coach Sylvain Cloutier and the 15 players on his roster only a few weeks to find new clubs.

"Every day, every hour every minute we've been trying to work on different things and come up with some creative schemes that would enable us to go forward, but we've just had to say no," said Mike Pack.

"The best position we got to in terms of what we needed was around 25,000 about two or three weeksago. And at that time we were very confident that, given another couple of weeks we could have made it happen.

"We had what I feel was the best side we've ever signed up ready to go and so we think we owed it to the fans, particularly, and ourselves to make every effort to make it happen and take it up to the wire.

"Every day we were always hopeful that something positive would happen - but it wasn't to be."

After what at times was an emotional press conference for the couple, they faced a specially-arranged fans forum on Wednesday night in order to explain what had happened to the club.

For a time yesterday, the future of professional hockey in Hull generally was thrown into confusion when Nottingham Panthers' website carried a statement in response to the Stingrays' demise.

It appeared to suggest that there was still a possibility of professional hockey taking place in East Yorkshire, possibly this season.

"We know of some alternatives that are being developed at a high level regarding the future ownership of the Elite operation on Humberside and they may yet come to fruition," read the statement.

Forward Lee Mitchell, meanwhile, is one of the former Hull players now seeking alternative employment, although its not thought the talented 23-year-old Scot will have too much trouble finding a spot on another Elite League roster.

"To be honest, I wasn't totally surprised by the news," said Mitchell. "The lack of news and being unable to get in touch with people made me realise something wasn't quite right.

"It's very disappointing. I was excited about the new season under Clouts, but now I've got to try and sort something else out as quickly as possible.

"It's particularly disappointing for the fans. I had a good time in Hull and I'm sure it was tough for Mike and Sue."

Hull were one of six teams scheduled to take part in the Twenty20 Hockeyfest at Sheffield Arena on Bank Holiday Monday but that has now been postponed, according to league chairman Eamon Convery, who last night expressed his sadness over Hull's demise.

"We are of course very disappointed to lose Hull, however we accept that with a very significant last minute loss of sponsorship it left the owners with no alternative but to decide the club was unable to continue.

"We are progressing forward with nine teams and an announcement on the amended league, cup and play-off fixtures will be made very shortly."