Elite League changes get yes vote from Sheffield Steelers

Club owners - who have effectively run the league since the departure of former chairman Eamon Convery before Christmas - are preparing to ditch the current one league system in favour of two regionalised ‘conferences’, each comprised of five teams, for the 2012-13 season.

Yorkshire rivals Hull Stingrays have been placed alongside the four Scottish clubs - Braehead, Dundee, Edinburgh and Fife - while Steelers will form part of a much stronger ‘southern’ conference with Belfast, Nottingham, Coventry and Cardiff Devils.

Under the new system, teams in each conference will play each other four times at home and four times away, while playing teams in the other conference twice at home and twice away. In theory, that would cut down travel costs for most, if not all, clubs and possibly free up more money for team-building.

There will be a trophy for the winner of each conference as well as the overall regular season league championship, which will be decided on total points accumulated in all games played.

The two conference winners will also be seeded one and two for the post season play-offs.

“We decided we had to find a way forward and felt this was the best way,” said Smith, who chaired Monday‘s league meeting in Nottingham.

“It’s something that had been mentioned at league meetings before - probably two years ago or so - but it was brought up again at the last meeting and then brought to the table on Monday.

“The thinking behind this is that as a league we wanted to give the so-called smaller clubs more reason to be involved, make them more competitive. I think the league will become stronger and more competitive as a result.

“These are difficult times for both clubs and fans and we had to find a way of getting more bums on seats - for all clubs.

“If this works, great, if not then we can go back to how we were last season or look at other changes, but we felt we had to try something.

“We are only strong if the other clubs in the league are strong as well and we had to look at trying to do something different that helped the likes of Hull, Fife, Edinburgh and Dundee - we feel this new structure does that.”

The announcement, initially posted on the league website on Monday night, provoked furious debate among fans on various hockey forums and Twitter with opinion - not surprisingly - divided.

One of the chief criticisms seems to be that some spectators will refuse to come and watch their club play the same opponents too often.

Smith admitted the key to avoiding too much familiarity with conference rivals would lie in next month’s fixtures meeting for the 2012-13 season.

“For every fan who says we will be playing teams too often and therefore they won’t come, I can guarantee there will be as many saying they don’t want to come and watch games against teams they think we will beat easily,” added Smith.

“I’m sure there are a lot of those managers or owners sat round the table on Monday who would love to spend more money on improving their team - but can’t because they can’t afford to.

“The best way to do that is by getting more revenue into the club and we feel these changes present a good opportunity to do that because all the teams can be competitive in their own conference.

“You never know, this might present an opportunity for other teams to join the league in the future if they feel the conference format suits them.”

As well as the controversial restructure, the league also introduced a number of other changes at Monday‘s meeting in Nottingham.

The most significant of those is the raising of import levels to 11 players per team from the current 10. This is a direct response to the number of British players - including former Sheffield Steelers duo Robert Dowd and Robert Farmer - either moving abroad to further their careers or, like former Steelers’ forward Tom Squires, dropping down into the English Premier League.

According to the club owners, that has “stretched” the talent pool of British players, necessitating an increase in the number of foreign players allowed.

Other changes include a revised format of the Challenge Cup which has surprisingly been extended by adding a quarter-final section and the seeding process for the play-offs.