Posted by Håkan Ljung on 23rd October 2003 at 16:59 GMT
Posted from 212.105.7.131 (md4690783.utfors.se)
In reply to Elite League Questions posted by MurrayCraven24 on 23rd October 2003 at 12:46 GMT:
Hello Murray,
I will try to answer your 4 questions, even if I am a Swede. Both Sweden and Finland share many of these phenomen.
1, The change of jersyes is to try to make the team seem more fresh looking for the upcomming season. Personally, I believe it is nice with tradition and keep things as it is.
What I dont like is the change of the badgelike club logos into the "symbols" with nickname in English, similar like club teams have in North America. Apart from Britain, this is not a part of our European icehockey culture history. A European icehockey club should have a logo wich is exactly similar as the soccer teams have all over Europe. This is a part of our icehockey culture legacy. I think this has to do with bad confidence. Maybe this is something only club managers and marketers thinks we have to have. I hate it.
2, The team sponsors on the jerseys and helmets has to do that sponsors will only pay enough, if the companys name can be seen on the equipment on photo images. In Sweden and Finland this money pays the salary off-season. In order to maintain the quality of the sport, we also need to replace the players who leave for NHL. The players are employed with the clubs all 12 months of a year with only 6 weeks of holiday. We dont have 7-8 months season contracts like they have in North America, (Germany and Britain in icehockey). This is why NHL is not a very much better league than our leagues, even if it´s better. Swedish Elitserien and the Finnish SM liga are the second, respectivly the third best icehockey leagues in the world. They are far better than all the farm leagues to NHL.
The day when we will have a permanent European league we can begin to take comercials away. We dont have the media industri behind the sport yet, or to little of it since we are still isolated in our different countries. I hope we will take away all the sponsors comercials one day. It´s ugly.
3, This is not for warming the neck. This is a protection pad for the throat. We have had som accidents with iceskate cuting and some got a puck on the troat with terrible consequences. This injuris luckily did not happen so often in the past. The whole sport in Finland and Sweden was in turmoil after accidents and many question if it´s safe enough.
4, If a player has produced equally points as the one who has the golden helmet, the one with the golden heimet will still keep it on. You have to surpass him. In Sweden we dont use this anymore.
Hope I satisfied you.
Håkan