Cardiff bay arena

Ocko

Well-Known Member
#21
If it’s a chance to grow the club and sport I’d be amazed if the ownership weren’t interested in at least discussions. We’ve been at the limit of IAW since season 1, and commercially cannot really get any bigger. A massive arena down the road with room for growth, why on earth wouldn’t the Devils be interested. I very much doubt IAW are reliant solely on the Devils to survive seeing as the club only pay for office rental (which wouldn’t change) and to my knowledge not a whole host of other things.
 

Diablo3

Well-Known Member
#22
I haven't seen anything about including a pad there, and given our arena isn't that old, I can't see it having one. Quite happy to be proved wrong though.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #23
Big problems with a ice pad at this gaff, where does the team train, where do public skating go, the ice skaters, junior teams, all the folks that helped getting our gaff built, Nottingham has 2 pads, Steelers have Ice Sheffield, would our place be profitable without the Devils, myself just my own view it won’t happen.
I would see it as a supplement to the existing arena, but you're right about the potential profitability impact on the viola. On the other hand, depending upon costs, more seats could mean more income for the club. I trust the the people doing the sums know the best way forward. But I do think that ultimately the club will need more seats to stay competitive in the next decade, particularly if more arena teams come on line.
 

Wannabe2

Well-Known Member
#24
The Devils pay zilch ice time at the Viola, if they played at the new proposed place they would be paying somewhere around the 15k fee for ice time, that equates to approx 1,200 seats,and would make nothing who Knows at the bar. It’s all pie in the sky at the moment, fortunately we have a pretty neat home as it is.
 

CaldicotDevil

Well-Known Member
#25
The Devils pay zilch ice time at the Viola, if they played at the new proposed place they would be paying somewhere around the 15k fee for ice time, that equates to approx 1,200 seats,and would make nothing who Knows at the bar. It’s all pie in the sky at the moment, fortunately we have a pretty neat home as it is.
Todd addressed this in the summer, Ice pad is free but they literally charge for everything else. He said he would prefer to pay rent and have more seats.
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
Thread starter #27
But they operate the Viola now, so things may have changed, anyway we have what we have let’s just keep winning.
No complaints about what we have, other than it already being at its limit in terms of capacity. The point here is that we need to anticipate the situation in 5 years time. If an arena is being built, then we'd be foolish not to at least make sure it ticked some basic boxes.
 

Slartibartfast

Well-Known Member
#28
I'm confused as to where a council that is broke can find the money to buy the Red Dragon Centre
Maybe its the money that Carwyn Jones set aside for the M4 relief road which Mark Drakeford is now using to upgrade Cardiff. Cardiff is going to be amazing but nobody east of it will ever be able to get there because they will be gridlocked at the Brynglas tunnels.
 

Mazzoak

Well-Known Member
#29
At the back of the councils offices are two bins for weekly paper recycling. One is a skip, the other a 25lt. The skip is used for the planned, but scrapped projects, the other, for the rest of their documents.

Also that time period fits in nicely to election periods.
 

Mazzoak

Well-Known Member
#30
The Devils pay zilch ice time at the Viola, if they played at the new proposed place they would be paying somewhere around the 15k fee for ice time, that equates to approx 1,200 seats,and would make nothing who Knows at the bar. It’s all pie in the sky at the moment, fortunately we have a pretty neat home as it is.
If that’s accurate the owners are in profit at the IAW to around £40K per home game, that’s a pretty good sum for a hobby with little interest in making money.

The only way l could see this happening is if we went the way Manchester did or Belfast bringing in touring NHL teams or their farm teams into the U.K. or possibly more European teams for one off exhibition games. That would bring in some serious cash.
 

d20

Active Member
#32
It'll happen as the city needs a big venue for numerous shows,concerts etc ..

cant see us going there but you never know but id like an ice plant in there so it could be used as a venue for maybe a play offs weekend these arenas have to be multi purpose so that could happen.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
#35
It'll happen as the city needs a big venue for numerous shows,concerts etc ..

cant see us going there but you never know but id like an ice plant in there so it could be used as a venue for maybe a play offs weekend these arenas have to be multi purpose so that could happen.
A big arena be good for something like the play offs or CC final but unless there's a huge explosion of interest in ice hockey in the south Wales area I can't see the Devils drawing attendances anywhere near what would be needed to make regular games in an arena that big viable.
 

Mazzoak

Well-Known Member
#36
With the capacity the Viola has the last thing we need is a massive explosion in popularity. Theres no point, plenty of other venues like this to choose from & Cardiff geographically isn’t surrounded by hockey clubs.
 

pjj365

Well-Known Member
#37
With the capacity the Viola has the last thing we need is a massive explosion in popularity. Theres no point, plenty of other venues like this to choose from & Cardiff geographically isn’t surrounded by hockey clubs.
I'm puzzled at your logic. Some random thoughts:

The club can afford a massive explosion in popularity at the Viola - spot on - in fact it's perfect. This puts tickets at a premium so cost could increase - watch out next season

A bigger "home" will be good for ticket prices. Just look at Cup semis - we don't do too bad on full price, Panthers have cut price - bring it on. Conversely - 4k fans in a 15k stadium - no thanks

I don't see any 15k stadiums within easy reach of Cardiff. They get good gigs p!ease tell me where so I can book

What does the number of hockey clubs near Cardiff have anything to do with this. We are only looking at Devils - see my first point
 

Imp

Active Member
#38
What does the number of hockey clubs near Cardiff have anything to do with this. We are only looking at Devils - see my first point
Cardiff Devils are literally the closest EIHL team for the whole of the South West of the UK.
With Bristol gone - or playing in Swindon? - Devils are very nearly the closest team, period. Gosport (Solent, NIHL 1) and Swindon (NIHL 2) are a little bit closer, if you live east of the M5, but they are not necessarily quicker or easier to reach and hardly comparable in terms of quality.
For ice hockey, Cardiff’s catchment area is huge (although perhaps not heavily populated).
It’s a reasonable assumption that most Devils fans are local but it seems likely that at least some would choose a nearer option if it existed. A decent team in Bristol might have a negative impact.

The flip-side is, I imagine, that more teams in the area might generate additional interest which would benefit Cardiff as the Elite team. It’s not exactly the most high-profile sport.
 

Mazzoak

Well-Known Member
#39
I'm puzzled at your logic. Some random thoughts:

The club can afford a massive explosion in popularity at the Viola - spot on - in fact it's perfect. This puts tickets at a premium so cost could increase - watch out next season

A bigger "home" will be good for ticket prices. Just look at Cup semis - we don't do too bad on full price, Panthers have cut price - bring it on. Conversely - 4k fans in a 15k stadium - no thanks

I don't see any 15k stadiums within easy reach of Cardiff. They get good gigs p!ease tell me where so I can book

What does the number of hockey clubs near Cardiff have anything to do with this. We are only looking at Devils - see my first point
I was coming from a fan prospect, if missing out or spending more money is good for you, great.
Geographically my point was travel time for the majority of fans.
 

jimmy snels

Well-Known Member
#40
I'm puzzled at your logic. Some random thoughts:

The club can afford a massive explosion in popularity at the Viola - spot on - in fact it's perfect. This puts tickets at a premium so cost could increase - watch out next season

A bigger "home" will be good for ticket prices. Just look at Cup semis - we don't do too bad on full price, Panthers have cut price - bring it on. Conversely - 4k fans in a 15k stadium - no thanks

the attendance for a semi final against a big team i thought was shocking and that was with a herd of people brought into block 14. empty seats everywhere. We certainly could do with more of that popularity you're talking about!
my thoughts on why:
*walk up ticket prices at all time high
*less crash bang hockey
*beer now expensive
*season tickets highest price ever - fans have already invested their cash in icehockey for the year
*January post xmas belt tightening
 
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