To answer Polish message : it was the same in France this year, the clubs had to pay the production costs to broadcast the final on cable TV. They didn't want to pay (mostly because of federation attitude towards hockey) and federation had to pay the bill at the end.
Unfortunately it's the trend now, the televisions won't pay for a minor sport as ice hockey, if they do it for free (that's to say if they pay the production costs) that's already a good thing.
German handball paid to be in TV, though it's quite popular. It's not the case yet for German ice hockey, but the era of the big contracts is over.
Wow Marc!
Great post! ;D
Just curious, what do you think is the long-term future of Hockey in your country (France)? Is there one?
Good question...
No, ice hockey is not popular only in the Alps.
I would say he's really popular in three cities, Rouen, Amiens and Grenoble. These are medium cities whose clubs knew how to establish a real ice hockey culture.
These are slightly bigger cities than Sanok but not big cities, because the competition is too strong in those big cities. The public is versatile and hard to keep. Moreover no French city has a team in both football first league and ice hockey "Super 16". Football kills everything.
(the same in Poland, as I see, where big cities have no ice hockey culture and little audience... But I think another problem in Poland is that ice hockey is not expanded enough throughout the territory. Most teams are in Silesia. Am I right ?)
As for the Alps, ice hockey lost interest there when they lost supremacy. In the 70s there was nothing to do in these villages on Saturday night except going to the rink. There was derbys every week between towns and villages who have a strong rivality with each other. Nowadays people there watch TV (With satellites and so on you can get a perfect image and sound even with mountains all around).
But they are still familiar with ice hockey. This year small club Morzine (who was never a force in the "great era" of the Alps and always was shadowed by his neighbours like Chamonix) won second league with a team of local players and a select of very good foreigners. In some weeks, the rink was far too small to contain the attendance, a supporters' club was created, there was sudden passion... Next year they'll join the elite and still have good flair in recruiting really good foreign players + youngsters. They will be the unexpected attraction.
So passion can still exist in the Alps. It's like an asleep volcano. It just needs to wake up, like in the 30-time champion Chamonix where the atmosphere in the rink looks like a funeral.
Brief history of French ice hockey :
- main date was 1968, Olympic Games in Grenoble, with games broadcasted live (like legendary Czechoslovakia-USSR duels) on the only French TV channel. French team finished dead last, but it was a detail.
An entire country discovered the sport. It existed only in the Alps and in rare other centers (Paris, Lyon), then it spreaded out throughout the country. Dozens of rinks were built in a 5-year period.
The clubs slowly grew (best example is Amiens : in the first years of the club, they started by being Under 11 national champion. This generation who began ice hockey with the new club matured, and when they became senior players, the team was promoted into the elite)
- Now, the 80s : the younger generations are clearly better than the previous ones. The sport come from the Alps towards the plain. There is more interest and more money. Clubs began to buy players, the began to be professional, they began to have foreign players and dual-nationals (Canadians born in France). Next step was a increasingly professional first division.
Then came the problems : the "pro" league was only "pro" because the players got paid. The organization was not pro at all. The national TV showed games live at that time, there was an interest for ice hockey, but the clubs prefered arguing with each other than making everything to have as much ice hockey as possible in the TV. They didn't understand the chance they had. The ice sports (not ice hockey) federation also wasted opportunities.
The worst thing was the financial attitude. The presidents prefred short-term success, not long-term building, and they spent more than they had. Then came bankruptcies, bankruptcies, bankruptcies... Ice hockey lost any credibility with public audience, public authorities, sponsors...
When the 1992 Albertville Olympic Games came, there were 6 teams remaining in the elite (including one "taken by force"). One of them folded. Next season they had to merge the two first divisions, start from zero, but they forgot the lesson of the past (there were no archives in French ice hockey, no memory at all), did a closed elite again, with no promotion/relegation and it folded again...
French national teams good results in the 90s were a miracle. They only came from a strong generation who grew in the previous era (beforehand there were half Canadians in French national team but they were slightly replaced by French-bred players).
In the 90s, the league was catastrophal, the federation itself went bankuptcy, there was less and less money for national team (for a doctor for example !)
In 2002 Canadian-born Luc Tardif, who came in France in the late 70s as a foreign player (he became the best scorer as the level was very low) and has stayed here, made the move to restart from zero : creating stable leagues whose formula won't change every year, bringing back a real promotion/relegation system, a salary cap, ensuring the clubs are financially well.
There were obliged to decreased the level at first, with only one game a week because with 16 teams many players were students or worked, but there was no other choice.
But Tardif's position as the ice hockey leader was unofficial. There still was an ice sports federation controled by ice skating and private interests. Tardif was dismissed last October because he wanted too much autonomy for ice hockey. This season was a disaster.
There were elections in ice sports federation (who again has no money at all...) in June, and all candidates promised autonomy to ice hockey. At last the clubs were united, behind Tardif, and ice hockey has a new leader organization.
Tardif has clear ideas, he wants to put sport first, and not the "be friend to the leaders" system, where some teams were favoured because they had money, because they were big cities, because they had relations... Now everyone is equal.
But there are still people who want to change everything every year, who don't care about the others, who think abour their interests first.
And, also, there is almost no money available at all. When federation did very bad with huge money, they now have to do the best with little money. I know the "Glen Sather" theorem" states that it's not impossible, but it won't be easy.
French ice hockey can have a good long-term future because it started again on a safe basis, but he also can waste everything again if the narrow-minded behaviours from the past appear again.