League and clubs discuss 'super' deal

Ice hockey

STEVE PINDER

British Ice Hockey Association officials meet today with representatives of the larger Premier division sides to discuss the setting up of a Super League.

But the leading clubs have, by advertising for a chief executive, also advertised that if they don't get their way, they will look at forming their own league anyway. To some extent the situation mirrors football. The sport is now filling modern stadia such as Sheffield (Steelers), Manchester (Storm) and Newcastle (Warriors), with the last-named being joined in the city by Durham Wasps.

The problem is that Warriors, bottom of the premier division, and Storm, as a new team enforced to enter at First Division level, are playing to small crowd in a large stadium.

They, along with Cardiff Devils, Nottingham Panthers, Fife Flyers and Humberside Hawks among others, all of whom can accommodate at least 2,500 spectators, want to form a league that would allow new large facilities to either immediately enter at the top level or move in the same way American franchises do.

Results, Sporting Digest, Page 27