NIHL News

Solway Sharks: Inside the Ice Bowl

Shedding some light on the murky depths of the Dumfries Ice Bowl, Solway Sharks’ Vice Chairman Graham Robson reveals the true costs of an NIHL club, the reality behind the misconceptions and why it’s not all about winning…

Photo Credit: Duncan Speirs

Each year the signed players elect a committee of five (sometimes less) to run the club.

This is held at the AGM. The council, in the past, have helped out occasionally but they haven’t in the last six years. We pay ice fees to the council for our use of the ice, we provide our front desk staff to take in money and provide our own security on game nights. We have a Service Level Agreement with the council where our terms are set out – our own fixed changing room and lease of the bar.

Maybe in the past the council were involved with the club but not anymore.

It’s probably just a misconception that everyone outside of Dumfries still thinks it’s that way. We make our accounts available at our AGM. We self-fund by going out to find local sponsors and through grant-giving organisations like Holywood Trust. We raise money through raffles, our weekly Lotto and our leased bar from the council.

Our committee is made up of Chair Les Maxwell, me as Vice Chair, General Manager Robert Murray, Treasurer Ann Ferguson and Secretary Jack Bithell.

We all do it in our own time and for free. Time wise, I would guess I spend about 10-16 hours a week to fulfil my role as Vice Chair. Our Coach and Team Captain are welcome to all our committee meetings to hear problems that have arisen from coaching or the players. We don’t have many major issues and, when they do occur, we often know before the players. Our Coach and GM deal with player recruitment, we all work together to secure funding and to manage the day to day running of the club and Les deals with the league due to his years of experience as he has been at the club from the beginning. We seem to work well together. Only Rab Murray has a kid who plays but Ross Murray would get a game anyway regardless of his Dad being on the committee. I think I am trying to say that most of us have no vested interest in our kids playing. None of us have put large sums of our money in or have a rink or owner breathing down our neck. The Stars and the Warriors are owned by an individual and the Hawks are rink-owned. I suppose all of them need to turn over a profit whereas we don’t. We haven’t won anything in three years; if we had an owner, would we be under pressure to replace our coach? I’m not saying it’s all rosy; we have our rows and disagreements but we can usually find a way to sort things out.

Last season cost us about £63,000.

Players get travel and overnight accommodation if they are not from Dumfries. We have block bookings according to our schedule with a local hotel. Travel is at ‘x’ pence per mile, our hotel bill was about £7,000, including food and our equipment costs were £9,000. We paid out £5,000 for Lotto and ‘Toss a Tennis Ball’.  We had two away double headers and we stayed outside Birmingham both times. Players don’t pay for their travel, accommodation or food at double headers away. The bus bill was £13,000 for the whole season, slightly higher due to the extra game at Blackburn and playoff weekend. Player registration ITC cards and league affiliated fees were £2,500. Referees, ice hire to the council and security were £13,000. If we couldn’t fundraise and take enough in gate money, we wouldn’t play at this level. These are just some of our many expenses. If you take off gate money, we found £41,000 through grant giving, our leased bar, Sharks Lotto and sponsorship. Our ultimate aim is to find enough for the season and have a balance of 0.00 at the end of the campaign. If we have money left, it goes towards next season. We have no owners and don’t necessarily need to make a profit. 

There have been loads of unsuccessful meetings with sponsors.

You can work for weeks or months and get nothing. Sometimes a sponsor approaches us with an idea. It doesn’t always involve financial sponsorship. If any business approaches us, we can tailor their demands. Nothing is ever set in stone. When we approach a company, it’s sometimes by letter, email or just a general chat with someone that takes off from there. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

I got involved with Solway Sharks after that one season in Division Two.

I was asked by Rab and Les. I’ve been to the rink since about 1993/4 and was probably wanted to put up or shut up! According to Rab, Solway moved to the NIHL North Division Two in 2011 when Fife Flyers and Dundee Stars went to the Elite League. This left Solway with only a couple of options: drop down to the SNL or move to NIHL 2 as we could not afford to move to the EIHL. There was no negativity from the team over this, just positive thoughts. The only downside to this was, and still is, the cost of travel. My take is, with Fife moving to the Elite League (Dundee went the season before) they felt the team would stagnate in the SNL. Paisley were of a similar standard but Fife and Dundee moving took away competitive competition.

We can’t play home games on a Sunday.

As part of the deal to get into Division Two in September 2011, we can only play home games on a Saturday. We took a massive gamble moving from Scotland to the EIHA but we agreed to a Saturday straight away as that was our game night anyway.

We try to do things that are different.

We brought in ‘Owned and Loaned’ shirts, ‘Toss a Tennis Ball’ and charity partners. We have nothing to lose so we don’t mind trying. We brought in 'Owned and Loaned' shirts as a cheaper option for fans to get a shirt. Replica shirts were more than the £50 we charge for ‘Owned and Loaned’ shirts. ‘Toss a Tennis Ball’ was seen by Rab in Canada when Ross played over there when everyone else was doing pucks, ducks etc. to the centre spot. We chose to have charity partners to give something back. We have partnered with Cancer Research, Poppy Scotland, Alive Radio and, this year, DG Bloodbikes. We also don’t charge children under sixteen to get in as long as they are accompanied by an adult. We have tried to keep our adult price low too as we appreciate we are a minority sport in a small town.

Martin Grubb has been part of the club as coach and player-coach for a long time.

His role as hockey development officer and as GB U18 coach have been a great part of player development, his vast array of contacts have probably brought players to the club who probably wouldn’t have played for a different coach and he’s given some of our players the opportunity to have two-way contracts with Elite League teams. As part of his GB work, he gets to travel all over the place and his assistant Scott [McMeeken] does a great job taking up the flack.

I think that having no owners takes away a lot of the pressure from the team.

All of the committee are in constant communication via phone, text, email, Facebook and Twitter. Players have come here for the first time and can’t believe how open it is. We have no airs and graces. We just function as a club to keep the boys playing on the ice with no worries.

Honestly, the players don’t have to contribute a lot.

They voted us in to do it and I suppose they trust us. They only pay £5 a week towards the Lottery and that’s it.

It was very sad about the Spartans.

Sometimes it’s not all about winning; sometimes it’s the big picture of keeping the club stable for future players to have a pathway. We will have a full committee meeting next week and, if this season is financially stable, me and Rab will start on next season. We can’t rest on any success…an example when we lost to Blackburn in home and away playoffs: we had a huge meeting the next day to secure a two-year funding deal.

Links with Elite League clubs are established through the Coach and the General Manager but it works both ways; sometimes the Elite League approaches us.

Clan approached us a few years ago about a partnership. We seem to have gained a good reputation of player production/coaching and they think we are well-run or easy to deal with.

We borrowed a line from Paisley for the Dragons’ game and a line from the Senators for Sutton away.

We had three players away with GB. We could have asked for both games to be postponed under IIHF rules but didn’t when we were advised that we could loan players to cover them from a lower league. If we had postponed, it would have caused the Dragons problems and it could have worked badly. We could have lost those games. Like last season for the double points games, we didn’t ask for them. The first time, a road across the North East was covered in deep snow and the referees couldn’t get to the game yet Telford did up the M6 and the second time there was a huge crash on the M6 and Sutton got stuck.

I don’t actually have that many contacts.

Biggest loss in hockey recently…Bobby Dixon, we had amazing late night chats about hockey. I sought his council. He gave me good advice. He knew a lot and I trusted his view. I can listen to our fans all day but it was good to hear an opposing view. My main contact was Bobby Dixon and now David Mellstrom from Whitley. I am on the NIHL North Facebook page but rarely post in case I get in bother with the league’s social media policy. David’s work started through a conversation on a Facebook page about a picture he had made up and it looked like it was copied and I was apologising for it. It all started from there initially with programme covers and contents and it just sort of progressed. His work is excellent and is getting better all the time. We will continue to work with him and there are other secret projects being worked on!

2017 is the 25^th Anniversary of Dumfries Ice Bowl opening.

We will do something to commemorate this but I don’t know what yet. We will discuss this at the committee meeting next week and then talk to old members and players. We will need to work with others for it to be a success; it’s not just about us.

In five years’ time I see Solway in the KHL.

It’s hard to say where the club will be in five years’ time. There is talk of league reconstruction. There is always talk of changes. I think NIHL North is growing at the right pace and it would always be nice to see more teams come through. A playoff game versus the South winners would be good too. I hope ice hockey continues to grow in Dumfries. We are really lucky here as our rink attracts loads of International Tournaments. Other towns and cities get nothing. Last week’s Under 16 tournament was really well attended. I even met Rachel Hunter and Penny Lancaster because of ice hockey in Dumfries. Basically, we are really lucky. We have a rink which attracts International Tournaments, a GB coach, an announcer/DJ who also works with the IHUK and a brilliant team of off-ice helpers who give up their time to help us. Without them, we couldn’t play. Our website is now back, run by David Morrison who does an excellent job and, as I mentioned earlier, we now have David Mellstrom doing graphics too. 

Many thanks to Graham Robson for taking the time to speak to NIHL Northern Trio, and also to Robert Murray for his input.  

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