Sport that's incredibly niche in Australia starting pro league in smallest city available

[Puck_Pun]

Note: I can't find an appropriate subforum. Mods please move if there's one I missed

 

https://ministryofsport.com.au/adelaide-to-host-australias-first-ice-hockey-league/

 

Adelaide To Host Australia’s First Ice Hockey League

 

by Zoe Scott

 

Big news for Australian Ice Hockey fans as Adelaide will host the first professional Ice Hockey League in Australia.

 

The National Hockey Super League (NHSL) will comprise three teams and hope to have 15 teams by 2023.

 

Within the first year, the NHSL will feature three teams Noarlunga Stars, Port Adelaide Brewers and Adelaide XTream, made up of predominantly South Australian players, to then expand to a national level format next summer.

 

Games will be played in front of crowds at IceArena on Friday nights as the season is expected to kick-off at the beginning of November.

 

The league will feature a similar rulebook to the NHL as the general managers will be tasked to find a coach and draft their team from registered players.

 

Each general manager can contact two marquee players to build their team around; however, the player cannot be from the same club in the IHSA season.

 

If players want to be drafted, they must nominate themselves prior to the rest of the team being filled out at the NHSL draft in mid-October.

 

Draft teams, team names and lead rules will be announced soon after the draft, ready to commence the season starting in November.

 

 

 

Ok well this is moronic. 

 

Firstly, ice hockey is niche at best in Australia. The AIHL is semi-pro, with some player compensation (especially for imports) and is 8 teams big. The women's league is fully amateur and has five teams.

 

I live in SA, and while ice hockey has a following (there is/were consistently ~1000 people at home games for the Adrenaline despite their record) I question whether in a city of 1.5m people there is enough money to support three fully professional teams

 

Why isn't it starting in either Victoria or Sydney as rhey have bigger populations- Vic supports two AIHL teams and Sydney two (plus Newcastle). Were the teams there skeptical it would work, as I am?

 

How will this work with the AIHL? It looks to be a super league situation, with the diffetence being that a significant people actually cared about rugby. This could be enough to alienate people away from the sport due to confusion.

 

*sigh*. I'll probably go to games and if anyone's interested I'll provide info as to how things seem to be going. 

[SaucyJack]

Does it make sense to play in the Southern Hemisphere’s spring and summer?  (How much temperature difference is there in Australia between winter and summer?  If not very much, I can see it could make sense to have an ice hockey season in sync with North America and Europe/Russia.)

 

“Oice ‘ockey dain undah!  Crikey, mate!”  

[Puck_Pun]

20 minutes ago, SaucyJack said:

Does it make sense to play in the Southern Hemisphere’s spring and summer?  (How much temperature difference is there in Australia between winter and summer?  If not very much, I can see it could make sense to have an ice hockey season in sync with North America and Europe/Russia.)

 

“Oice ‘ockey dain undah!  Crikey, mate!”  

 

It wouldn't be able to compete with AFL/Rugby, summer is ideal as there's only cricket and soccer to compete with. Plus going into a cold hockey arena would be seen as a good thing when it's 40c outside (ice skating participation peaks in summer)

[Puck_Pun]

Jersey designs have been released. I first thought the Port Adelaide pic was in black and white but it turned out they decided to make their colours black, white, and grey. For some reason. 

 

In descending order: Noarlunga Stars, Port Adelaide Brewers, Adelaide X-treme

[Puck_Pun]

They've released the schedule for the first season. 

 

Something about this whole league smells. It's not endorsed by IHA, and the timetable from 'announce new league' to first game is absurdly short. It feels like there's something dodgy going on, like it's a tax write off, or some sort of vanity project created due to petty personal politics. 

 

Oh well. I'll be going if for no other reason than I haven't been to a hockey game since 2019. 

[WordsOfWisdom]

On 9/16/2021 at 1:37 AM, Puck_Pun said:

Adelaide To Host Australia’s First Ice Hockey League

 

On 9/16/2021 at 1:37 AM, Puck_Pun said:

Firstly, ice hockey is niche at best in Australia.

 

Unless/until the day comes when the game of hockey is played on anything other than ice at its highest level, people (and by people I mean anyone who isn't Canadian) are hereby ordered to stop referring to the game of hockey with the word "ice" in front of it.  NOBODY in Canada calls it that. It's just HOCKEY. 

 

(End rant.)

[Puck_Pun]

1 hour ago, WordsOfWisdom said:

 

 

Unless/until the day comes when the game of hockey is played on anything other than ice at its highest level, people (and by people I mean anyone who isn't Canadian) are hereby ordered to stop referring to the game of hockey with the word "ice" in front of it.  NOBODY in Canada calls it that. It's just HOCKEY. 

 

(End rant.)

 

In Australia hockey refers to field hockey. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey

 

I guess you would agree with the creators of soccer and only refer to it as football? 

[WordsOfWisdom]

13 hours ago, Puck_Pun said:

 

In Australia hockey refers to field hockey. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey

 

I guess you would agree with the creators of soccer and only refer to it as football? 

 

The four major North America pro sports are:

• Football
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Hockey

Since the NHL is based out of North America, and represents the game of hockey at its highest professional level, they get to set the name, and it's hockey. Just hockey. Field hockey is a high school level game (usually played by girls). 

 

The soccer vs football comparison doesn't hold because you have professional football in Europe and you have professional football in the US, and they're completely different games. The term soccer was created to avoid confusion between the two. 

 

When you talk about professional level hockey, there is no confusion. When you say hockey you are referring to the NHL game and that's it. There are no other professional hockey leagues playing it wildly different in other parts of the globe.

 

I imagine it's as irritating as someone referring to the NFL as "American football" every time... to American football fans. (Who probably look over and scowl.) 

 

 

[Math]

I think we should agree on a generic term that makes everybody happy: therefore I suggest the old italian name of "disco su ghiaccio", which litterally means "puck on ice".

[Puck_Pun]

11 minutes ago, WordsOfWisdom said:

 

The four major North America pro sports are:

• Football
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Hockey

Since the NHL is based out of North America, and represents the game of hockey at its highest professional level, they get to set the name, and it's hockey. Just hockey. Field hockey is a high school level game (usually played by girls). 

 

The soccer vs football comparison doesn't hold because you have professional football in Europe and you have professional football in the US, and they're completely different games. The term soccer was created to avoid confusion between the two. 

 

When you talk about professional level hockey, there is no confusion. When you say hockey you are referring to the NHL game and that's it. There are no other professional hockey leagues playing it wildly different in other parts of the globe.

 

I imagine it's as irritating as someone referring to the NFL as "American football" every time... to American football fans. (Who probably look over and scowl.) 

 

 

 

Field hockey is played at the Olympics, Australia regularly medals for it

[SaucyJack]

16 hours ago, WordsOfWisdom said:

The soccer vs football comparison doesn't hold because you have professional football in Europe and you have professional football in the US, and they're completely different games. The term soccer was created to avoid confusion between the two. 

Not really.  To their chagrin, the Brits themselves are guilty of coining “soccer” around 1900 or so.  Back then they differentiated between Rugby Football and Association Football.

 

Those rascally young Brits liked to add “-er” to words like nicknames.  They also did ‘er here with the sport name, making ‘soccer’ out of the too formal ‘association’.  At some point not too long after, it seems the common parlance in Britain became rugby and football, with ‘soccer’ less used…

 

…then in North America late in the century ‘soccer’ was used as the primary name of the game, as it made its initial major inroads.  That irked many Brits the same way it would have irked North Americans if their native football game (oddly dissociated from the foot with far more emphasis on leg and arm, per its own evolution) was mostly referred to as ‘gridiron’.

 

Finally, midway thru the 21st century, the Great Name War devastated large swaths of previously inhabitable territory on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 

Finally, and for reasons too complex to adequately discuss at the necessary lengths here, these titanic events affected sport greatly, with the gradual result that we now enjoy the great sport of Field Hockey across our still-inhabited 22nd century continental regions at World Cup, National Competition, and professional domestic club levels with unprecedented fan support interest.

[WordsOfWisdom]

On 11/29/2021 at 2:58 PM, Puck_Pun said:

 

Field hockey is played at the Olympics, Australia regularly medals for it

 

Just because something appears in the Olympics does not mean that there is a professional league where players can earn a living from doing it. Plus, even if there IS a league, it doesn't mean that it's a major pro sport. (Lacrosse has leagues in Canada, so does the CFL. They're both minor sports or minor pro leagues. They don't compare in any way to the big four.)

 

Also, shot-put is in the Olympics, but there is no such thing as a professional shot-putter.

 

Hockey as a professional sport is in Canada, US, Europe, and Russia. It's the same game everywhere you go with only minor differences such as rink size or rule alterations.

 

It seems that Australia is the outlier here.    

 

 

[WordsOfWisdom]

On 11/30/2021 at 7:14 AM, SaucyJack said:

Not really.  To their chagrin, the Brits themselves are guilty of coining “soccer” around 1900 or so.  Back then they differentiated between Rugby Football and Association Football.

 

Oh. My bad.   

 

On 11/30/2021 at 7:14 AM, SaucyJack said:

Those rascally young Brits liked to add “-er” to words like nicknames.  They also did ‘er here with the sport name, making ‘soccer’ out of the too formal ‘association’.  At some point not too long after, it seems the common parlance in Britain became rugby and football, with ‘soccer’ less used…

 

…then in North America late in the century ‘soccer’ was used as the primary name of the game, as it made its initial major inroads.  That irked many Brits the same way it would have irked North Americans if their native football game (oddly dissociated from the foot with far more emphasis on leg and arm, per its own evolution) was mostly referred to as ‘gridiron’.

 

Given the widely different versions of football out there, it makes sense to have a different name to describe each of them. To me, they're three completely different sports when you speak of soccer, football, and rugby. (I guess football and rugby are quite similar, but soccer bears no resemblance whatsoever to American-style football.)

 

On 11/30/2021 at 7:14 AM, SaucyJack said:

Finally, and for reasons too complex to adequately discuss at the necessary lengths here, these titanic events affected sport greatly, with the gradual result that we now enjoy the great sport of Field Hockey across our still-inhabited 22nd century continental regions at World Cup, National Competition, and professional domestic club levels with unprecedented fan support interest.

 

I think it's too niche to be considered as hockey (at the global level).  It will always be known as field hockey.   

 

[Puck_Pun]

An hour ago an announcement was made that yet another league will be formed. Called the Pacific Hockey League, little odd known about it. However we do know that the Adelaide team will be tbe Avalanche, which used to represent the state in the AIHL until financial issues forced them to be replaced by the Adrenaline. 

 

So in terms of hockey leagues we have-

 

NHSL, which is a pro league operating during the summer currently with 3 teams all based in SA but with plans to go national next year

 

AIHL, which is an amateur competition that operates during the winter with 8 teams. The last two seasons were cancelled due to covid but the 22 season will go ahead

 

AWIHL, the women's amateur competition. It operates during the summer and has five teams, however the last two seasons were cancelled because of covid. 

 

Now this Pacific league which promises at least five teams and in the future a NZ team (and possiy other Pacific nations?).

 

I've seen one person claim the new league is backed by the same people behind the NHSL and have the goal of starving AIHL teams of ice time. Who knows, I sure don't. 

 

It's all very weird, all these leagues now competing with each other in a space which- and I can't stress this enough- doesn't have that much money in it to begin with. There's a reason why the long running AIHL has been strictly amateur. The Ice Arena has a capacity of ~275 people and at $15 a ticket what sort of value would any league have with those numbers/ income? 

[WordsOfWisdom]

 

[Puck_Pun]

Accusations of corruption, stupid infighting, this drama has it all