The club is run as a business so if the owners bought the rink why wouldn't it be bought as an asset to the business that is the club?
Where do I start??
Firstly, where does the revenue come from to make it a viable business? 36 weekends a year where 3000 people come through the door for one night, maybe sometimes two. The rest of the time, it's practically empty! Public skating during term time, you're talking maybe 8 people a day charged at £8 per person £64 a day, if they each spend £10 on food and drinks at the cafe you're still only making £144 a day during the week which means you're practically losing money daily right there.
Then you have the various ice hockey teams and clubs below the Devils who use the ice, £150 a week is all clubs like the junior Devils are paying, say for instance there are 10 teams paying that weekly, that's still only £1500 a week, not forgetting our lovely little £144 a day from the public skating (woooo) so making around £16008 a week if the Devils have no games that weekend at home.
Which I doubt even covers the Salary of the full time staff at the rink, plus the electricity bill.
So, how do they make up for this?
They hold events like the Netball (are we allowed to talk about that now? ) which was hiring out the rink for £20000+ to host an event at the venue, or they hold a night of boxing etc. Then for 30 weekends a year (averaged for the number of weekends the Devils would actually play home games) there are 3000+ people inside the rink, and IAW cannot staff themselves for it, because they have no money, therefore limiting their earning potential on those weekends. Bear in mind, all they make money on is the cafe and the bars during games.
Simple bit of math here, but 3000 people spending for instance £15 each at the cafe/bar still only makes them £45000. So 1.35mil a year made from match night...
Adding that on to our £16008 a week made elsewhere (rounded up) 2.2mil a year.
Do you really think IAW costs much less than three million pounds per year to run? Let alone a budget for a team?
In summary, (and in my view...you don't have to agree, and I wouldn't ask you to) it would be ridiculous to buy such an "asset" for our club which could end up burdening us for years to come, limiting our on ice budget and our potential to one day move on to somewhere bigger.
Don't forget, we're only getting such a high demand this season due to the fact that we have done so well across the board, who's to say that next year we won't end up having the CHL hang over us until Christmas time and finish up in 5th like Nottingham did this year after the Continental Cup? I wonder how many games we'd sell out when playing around in mid table...