So what is the EIHL anyway? It’s tempting to call it the English Ice Hockey League, except that they have a more grandiose name for themselves, with the first “E” standing for “Elite.” North American fans are not unfamiliar with the use of such a name, as they’ve known about the Swedish Elite League, for years, for example. So what about hockey in Britain? The UK is not exactly on most fans’ radar as a contender at the world level.
The hockey itself is the quality you’d get from rosters made up of former ECHL and AHL players, which is what these rosters largely are. That is to say, hockey is played at a relatively respectable level, mostly contested by players not quite good enough to be drafted into the NHL but good enough to have played in Canadian Major Junior. Where you see their shortcomings on the ice is in mistakes. Turnovers. Giveaways. They’re rife, and they are the kind of plays that get you benched in the NHL, then demoted. Any league calling themselves “elite” should have to prove it, shouldn’t they? This suggests that the EIHL would be better named the VGEIHL (Very Good English Ice Hockey League).
The problem is that when these players get the puck, they do the first thing that occurs to them, which too often is not the right thing. It’s not a physical skill gap. It’s that they can’t think the game at the speed they’re playing it. Thus they do the wrong thing more than you’re used to if, for example, you watch NHL hockey. This is not to say the games are not fun, or not worth watching. They are. You just have to temper your expectations.
This is partly due to the fact that if these players were good enough to be in the Finnish or Swedish leagues, or even in Germany or other parts of Europe, they’d be there. Partly it’s a question of how rosters are assembled.
Each team is allowed 29 players on their longer roster. The game day roster is 20, 18 skaters and two netminders. On a given night’s roster, only 15 players (recently increased from 14) can be “non-homegrown,” in other words, non-English. This change was argued over, with the “increase” side saying that this heightens the level of competition and thus pushes the British players to play at an increased level. Those opposed see a roster spot for a Brit being lost. They are not concerned with the dilution of quality—they would rather see local talent develop. The rejoinder? “This is not a developmental league.”
The tiers below this “Elite” one can serve that purpose, the thinking goes. Plus, better competition should allow for greater skills development amongst the homegrown players who remain in the EIHL. Clearly, this is an argument nobody is going to win, but the rosters are just ever-so-slightly more imported than they were before this change.
The UK teams seem to prefer Canadians over Yanks, by the numbers. Look at the recent Championship Weekend’s final four: Belfast is 34.5% Canadian, 24.1% American. For Guildford, it’s 60% versus 16%. Sheffield comes in at 42.3% Canadian and 15.4% American. And finally, Cardiff has 54.2% Canadians and just 12.5% Americans. Mixed in with these are players from other parts of the UK, Finland, and even China.
The league is proud to say that 90% of Team GB in international competition is now made up of players from the Elite League. That does not translate, however, to fielding a team that can compete on a world stage. But it wasn’t long ago that people were saying that about the German League and other European leagues (excluding, of course, the Swedish and Finnish top leagues, which have long been recognized for their truly elite talent). There’s also kind of a slip of logic there, because if 90% of the GB squad comes from the EIHL, that could simply mean that the players aren’t good enough to go anywhere else to play their league games.
None of this is meant to detract from the enjoyment of watching these teams play. They are still better than most of us who love the game ever were. Take Sheffield’s Mitchell Balmas for instance. He had a very successful five-year run in Junior hockey, then did a couple of years at Saint Mary’s in Halifax, where I saw him play in 2019. He then bounced from AHL to ECHL to AHL again, and just finished his first year in England. His stats this year show him playing 53 games and notching 23-43-66 points. Clearly, he’s too good for this league. Why is he there?
“After Saint Mary’s, I transferred to the American Hockey League. Had some ups and downs there for sure, and then, making the trip over to England. Sheffield was high on my list since the early spring, and me and Foxy [Aaron Fox, Sheffield’s coach] had really good conversations on the phone. Hockey’s been taking me to a lot of places so far.” He said his agent works on his behalf, “making sure I have every opportunity possible for the following hockey season.” He said that his positive feelings about the coach make a huge difference.
As for where Balmas is going, he said, “We’ll worry about [the Championship game, which Sheffield won], then we’ll worry about next year.”
Is this a dead end? Unlikely for Balmas. Other players may be more in the mode of having to finally, in their mid- to late-20s, come to a parting of ways with their hockey dream. Before they go quietly, they can enjoy a last run at pro hockey, complete with vociferous fans who pack out their mid-sized arenas and enjoy a show that is high on the spectator engagement scale.
Note
I would have had more in the way of player interview material, but the media handler assigned to watch me as I interviewed a Belfast player got nervous when I asked him about fighting, and then called off the interview as “too gossipy” as I moved on to other things.
I’ve interviewed several hundred players over my 737-game NHL career thus far, and this was a first to me, and an unpleasant one at that. Note to self: Don’t ask players where they might next be playing if the league they’re in is too small for them.
