The Ice Arena Wales is our long awaited replacement for the big blue tent! so it surely deserves its own progress thread. Anyway this is what we are getting..



http://www.icearenawales.co.uk/#home

This was the site viewed from the swimming pool entrance on 2nd March 2014..



as ever the more photos shared on here the better - I know we've got some of our regular photographers pretty close!! hint hint!

Will this really be completed in time for summer 2015?

Hint taken , Paul. Here's a view of the site. Not a lot to see at the moment but the fence is going up well.

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That's a big bloody site, it's not all for the ice rink is it ?

No, the Ice Rink only accounts for about a third of it - from the plans I've seen it seems the rink itself isn't much bigger than the pool, and it's going to be next to the pool.
The rest of the site will be occupied by the ski slope, car park, shopping centre etc.


Here's an image to give some context

Thanks, I thought it looked a bit big. It looks like they are putting up hoardings around the whole site from the picture and I think that's what confused me.

So is the ski slope basically the top floor or two of a multi-story car park? Is anything else planned to go underneath it?

I read there will be a budget hotel going under the ski slope too (a separate hotel to the 30 story one):

Though based on Murfilicious findings I wouldn't go digging out your salopettes quite yet.

March 16th...

Oh my god finally it's taken years to finally build anything new to the sports village XD does anybody know what's going to happen to the blue tent after this one is built? anything good? i'm not expecting anything like Dubai XD

Hi Bute,

The plan is (eventually) for it to be offices and residential in the exact place of the blue tent:




I expect the tent itself will be destroyed in a humane way

More info about the whole area is here.

Here's an update on the work so far - there are lorry loads of earth being moved in and then levelled to the same height as the road it looks like.

It will probably feel a bit weird for all the people walking around in their swimming costume behind the glass walls of the swimming pool with all those builders looking in at them for the next year and a bit...

Shame so much space is going to residential buildings. NO news on bayscape hotel then? they could of built an aquarium but oh well

The levelling of the ground appears to have finished.

Looks like the build contract was signed today, and the foundation piles will start to go in next week - unless this is an April fools joke

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/olympic-standard-ice-arena-completed-6901573

The pile driver has moved in!

We talk about the arena a lot on here, but not much about the Devils who will play there. Here is a quick catch-up on their problems over the last season for those unaware:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/ice-hockey/terry-phillips-cardiff-devils-face-7005257

But worth noting that since this was written they have signed GB International Netminder Ben Bowns as part of re-building the club for the future.

How is this progressing, a month on?

I have heard that it has stopped, the project is not going ahead.

seriously, or random's own brand of humour?

Calling fake, ordinarily there is no space in username between Random and Comment ! #stalkeralert

They are still driving piles into the ground at the moment so no indication of work being stopped

It hasn't stopped? Who is that?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Who is that??

FYI, that wasn't me. Someone has now taken to mimicking me. Am currently at my dad's in Cardiff but a good way to check now is the IP address.

Seriously, there are some bloody idiots on this forum who get a kick out of childishness.

Well that IP is now banned - ruthless I am RUTHLESS!! Ok for all those still left

Jantra likes the new evil dictator that is paul. About bloody time too

Oh No!...Spoke too soon!! Crash gnash!!

Why have you banned Ruth?

There was an "ice cutting" ceremony last week to mark the start of work on site. See here for a piccie: https://twitter.com/IceArenaWales/status/472046881594695680/photo/1.

I didn't know where to put this, so I went for the 'skating' link and put it here.

Info on a new indoor skate facility off Newport Road. Something new for the city and good for the kids.

http://wearecardiff.co.uk/2014/06/11/spit-and-sawdust-opening-party-cardiff-skate-park-cafe-shop-and-art-space/

http://spitandsawdust.co.uk/

there is already one near the national lottery building in a warehouse. There is also the outdoor one on the barrage.

Hi all,

We're putting some photos up fairly regularly on the Inferno (fans forum) Flickr account if you're interested. https://www.flickr.com/photos/122778799@N03/

The last ones were taking a month or so ago, but they're still putting the foundations in so there's not a huge amount of noticeable difference at the moment.

There's been a significant piece of Devils news in the last week in that the club has been sold by Paul Ragan to a Canadian consortium headed by Steve King. It also involves Todd Kelman who will be an owner and General Manager. He's left the Belfast Giants to do this and is generally regarded as the best GM in the league.

http://www.cardiffdevils.com/news/devils-news/ragan-confirms-new-ownership-consortium/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/ice-hockey/27833165

The previous owner was unpopular and the club would likely be battling near the bottom of the league under him, so this is a big and unexpected turnaround for the Devils.

Cheers,

Aled

Thanks for this Aled, I've occasionally had a look on The-Inferno.co.uk to see how it was progressing. Slightly OT, what is the job/role of a General Manager and how does it compare/differ from a manager in say football? Cheers

You're welcome :)

It's a good question and to be honest I couldn't give you a definitive answer as it can vary dependent on the club, league and country.

In the NHL (best league in the world) the GM's job is extremely detailed. They're responsible for hiring and firing the coaching staff and signing the team, which has much greater implications in North America due to the budget cap, draft system, trade system etc. I could go into more detail on these individual topics, but I suspect you'd find better summaries on google. They're basically the number 2 underneath the owner.

In the Elite League, the role tends to be more limited in hockey areas and more wide-ranging off ice as the office staff is usually pretty small. Here, the GM is often ultimately responsible for the commercial running of the club...sponsorship, ticket initiatives etc. They may get involved in on ice related discussions with the coach (equivalent to manager in football), but it is the coach here that signs the team within the budget given to them and is responsible for on ice decisions. Hiring and firing of coaches is usually made by the owner here rather than the GM as well.

Hope that helps :)

That's brilliant, so the appointment of a new GM really is big news comercially and will hopefully let the Devils move to the next level as I heard Paul Ragan wasn't flavour of the month the past year! Do you think a 3k arena is big enough for the Devils in the long run or you just happy to be out of the Big Blue Tent? I'm just a casual sports fan who makes it to 1 game or so a year, same with Glammy in the cricket, but I'd thought that if the Devils did get their act together and were successful they could nudge 5k or am I being overly ambitious. Thanks for your insight anyway

I think 3K is a safe size although personally I'd have liked to see more ambition with the arena being closer to 5K.

Nottingham, Belfast and Sheffield regularly pull in around 5k all playing out of their cities' concert arenas. The difference with Cardiff will be that I believe the arrangement with the Devils is that they will pay little or maybe even no rent for the use of the ice, where as the those other clubs are paying huge rental fees. The other advantage is that the Devils are will be primary tenants unlike Nottingham etc who have to schedule fixtures around concerts at the Trent FM arena for example.

So, from a business side (crudely speaking) the Devils could make a similar profit with less people through the door and could therefore compete at the top in terms of team budget. I would think Kelman will be looking to get the place selling out regularly within a year or two.

The other huge advantage to the new arena is the scope for sponsorship. The corporate facilities are virtually non-existent in the blue tent so I'd expect to see a significant increase in this, particularly as Kelman has a proven record of attracting good sponsors.

One other area that's not been mentioned much so far is that the Giants get far more media coverage in Northern Ireland than the Devils. They have a weekly highlights package on the UTV website and get regularly BBC news coverage in Northern Ireland.

Sorry I've taken this a long way off topic!

Not at all, Aled. It's interesting.

I have to admit I haven't been to see a Devils match since the move to the BBT but I used to enjoy going to the old Arena in Bridge Street occasionaly. With the new rink, gradualy improving public transport to the ISV and improvement on the ice - I'd think that crowds of 3,000 are very achievable. Looking at the overall plans for the ISV it appears possible to increase capacity at a later date if that's required.

Thanks Aled. 1 last question, I remember in the late 90's/early 00's when Manchester Storm were getting massive crowds and ice hockey seemed to be doing really well in the country. Whats the likelihood Manchester and London having a teams again? Think the Sekonda Superleague was on regularly on Thursday nights on Sky Sports then too, would be good to see the sport reach it's potential here. Cheers

In the Superleague days the Storm were getting crowds close to 20K in the Manchester arena. I wasn't watching much UK hockey then, but from what I understand the suerleague was totally unsustainable. A few owners with big money came along and spent a lot of cash on the teams, but it grew too fast. The standard was the highest it's been at club level in the UK, but a lot of the Storm's tickets (for example) were freebies and promotions.

Personally I think there would be a market for bigger attendances,, but it would need to be properly franchised and owned/run centrally.

The biggest obstacle in my mind for the expansion of the sport is the people in charge. The Elite League (top league that the Devils play in) is run by the owners of the clubs and is separate to the rest of UK hockey. So while Elite League clubs co-operate with each other to a degree for the betterment of the league, they're ultimately looking after their own business first, rather than the sport in general.

There is and English Premier league and Scottish premier league underneath that, then english national league etc.

The biggest thing that could happen to expand the sport would be for GB to make the olympics as it would mean increased coverage (we all saw what the GB basketball team enjoyed even though hockey is a higher attended sport in the UK) Sadly, there is very little being done to develop the talent to make this a possibility. The Elite League (therefore the clubs) looks after itself and doesn't seem to be able to see the long term benefits of a successful GB team to it's own attendances.

The only real development system is through individual clubs then when players get to 18 they're looking for contracts. Some Elite league teams don't even have junior set ups. One example of the diss-harmony is that in Sheffield you have the Steelers (Elite league) and Steeldogs (EPL) which are separate clubs, so the Steeldogs don't act as a feeder club for the Steelers which in turn doesn't have a junior set up.

To answer your original question, there is recent proof that there is opportunity for growth in new markets. Neil Black (Nottingham owner) set up Braehead Clan 3 years ago playing out of the Braehead arena in Glasgow and they are now attracting around 3000 average attendance I believe. He is heavily rumoured to be looking to set up a team in London within the next couple of years. It's crazy that London doesn't currently have a team. Manchester does have a team (Phoenix) which plays in the English Premier League out of a temporary building in Altrincham.

This is a bit of a crude summary, but hopefully paints a picture.

Whatever happens, the new arena in Cardiff will benefit the sport in general, strengthening the league, but also providing more opportunity to develop players as even now, Cardiff has one of the best junior set ups in the UK.

sounds all too familiar

I'll tell you the problem with british ice hockey. London has no professional team. There is a few teams close to London but there abit far to travel for first timers. Birmingham has Solihull but it's on the edge and is semi pro. Coventry is not far away but again first timers may not want to travel. Other city's like Leeds, Liverpool and Leicester are in a similar position. And Manchester now play out of Altrincham Ice Dome which is much like what cardiff has right now and they play semi pro. So that's 1/4 of the population pretty much out before we start. Add to that a few other city's most towns and all villages and half the uk population isn't within 30 mins travel of a professional team. Then there is also the problem of bad seating, obstruted views and stands that make you feel separated from the game. Yes the Superleague failed i think the wage cap (£1m and 50k ) was 2 high to start with and that £900k was about right. The TV deal was poor £1million sounds good but the clubs had to pay for the filming ect and once everything was paid the clubs were only about £40k each better off. Also a problem was the diffrence in arena capacity/attendance. Manchester storm had 17245 capacity but some arena's had less then 2000 capacity. Then there was newcastle the problem there was the owner upset the durahm wasp fans so they refused to switch to newcastle when there rink was closed. But also from what i remember the arena at newcastle while new the seating was only on 3 sides ( like shefield). And so on

It's been pretty much confirmed that there will be a London team playing out of Wemblry Arena from the 2015/2016 season onwards which is great news for the sport.

Ha ha! Indeed :)

Something new on site. Knowing next to nothing about building, I've no idea if this is of any significance.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/122778799@N03/

Slightly off topic. There is a 'meet the owners' event tomorrow night so there should be some more info on the Devils future soon.

Edited to add.....I notice Chris Hartrey (who will manage the new rink) has tweeted that the first steels have been delivered and will be erected tomorrow.

It's a crane of sorts, they are often used in the construction of buildings

Dont take the piss Jantra, he's being helpful!

Sorry, it's my humour. I now feel appropriately chastised

It's about time I did an update: The piledriver has gone and they then dug the foundations which were swiftly filled with concrete and now the steel girders have arrived as can be seen in the picture.