Real Radio on Tuesday

[mazza03]

This is a copy of an e-mail I received today:

Ragan and Hope on the Real live sports phone in

New Chief Exec Paul Ragan will be joining Director of hockey Shannon Hope Tuesday night on the Real radio live sports phone in from 6:00pm. Ragan has been a part of the Cardiff Devils for just over a month and has already become an integral part of the team. Ragan, a successful entrepreneur and business leader in South Wales recently joined the Devils to help ensure the club gets their new home with the build of a new ice rink in Cardiff Bay.

After attending the Challenge Cup and Playoff Finals in Nottingham just last month, Ragan and his family have become hooked on hockey. "I am excited about the start of the 2010/11 season and look forward to developing the prospects of the club" says Ragan.

Both Hope and Ragan will be live on air from 6:00pm! Don't miss out on your chance to get to know the Devil's new CEO and his plans for the upcoming season. It's your chance to interact with the men on top!

Tune in to 105~106 fm to listen or why not give the guys a call on 0845 105 2 106 to ask them any of your burning questions. Don't worry- if you do not want to call in and still want to ask a question just text your question to 63344.

Come on Devil's fans- show us your support tomorrow night!

 

[El Supremo]

What questions should we ask? I think some of the following questions should be asked:

- there are rumours that Dundee (and perhaps Fife) have applied to join the Elite League? Is this true and have they (both?) been accepted?

- what is Paul Regan's position within the club? Has he invested into the club? Is he the new owner?

- what tv coverage will we have next season? Will we have more live games like we did for the playoff final?

- are the league close to acquiring a league sponsor?

 

[nmase20]

will we be getting games live online as was stated earlier on in the season

 

[El Supremo]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to listen to this live tonight. Therefore, is there a 'listen again' function on Real Radio's website and can someone ask about Dundee tonight?

 

[Martynwo]

I'm not able to listen tonight also, I want to know:

What is our budget this season, is it less than last years?

The usual 4 are going to have big budgets next season especially Sheffield after
this season debarcle.

 

[Finny]

Will try and post the questions and brief answers to what was mentioned as best as I can remember it:

Paul Ragan spoke first about his first 4 weeks in the job. Said he didn't expect their to be as much work to do as there is, but he is hooked on the sport and is hoping to improve on all the good work that is already going on.
Said he was very happy with the season ticket sales already, and that 20% of those were new fans which is great.

Q: "There are rumours about Dundee and Fife joining. What is happening? Will we have the return of Scottish double-headers?"
A: Shannon was hesitant about giving exact details but confirmed there had been an application from Dundee. Which then means there is a question about what Fife will do. There is a league meeting on 27th March and that will be the main item on the agenda. Scott Neil is keen on having double-headers up in Scotland and they are likely to happen. Shannon was also keep on having a Scottish Weekend in Cardiff to promote.

 

[Finny]

Q: "Do we find it difficult to get media coverage now that Cardiff City and the Blues are in a new stadium".

A: Paul answered and said not really. He admitted that with a new rink it would be easier but seemed happy with what we have at the moment. He also mentioned that he was putting a lot of money into the club and he wouldn't be doing that if he didn't think the club would be a success.

 

[Finny]

Q: "Are we in talks with a new main sponsor for next season?"

A: Paul answered and said we were in talks and had a shortlist of around 4 companies. But he obviously wouldn't say who they were. He said that the media exposure for the club is better than he though, what with us being on Sky Sports and mentioned on the radio. And that the website gets around 40,000 hits a month.

 

[Finny]

Q: "Now we are in Year 3 of a 3 year plan, what should we expect next?"

A: Shannon answered and said "Years 4 and 5". He went on to say they wanted to improve the team further and increase season ticket sales and crowds. Paul then explained that he will be concentrating on getting the new arena sorted, and that they plan on doing more work with the DCF and helping the community. Someone from Ty Hafan then rang in and thanked the guys for all the work they had done with the charity and raising money and said the response they had had from the families was fantastic and it's probably earned the club lots of new fans.

 

[Finny]

Q: "What are the plans for the new arena? And what size will it be?"

A: Paul answered and said that they are in the process of applying for a tender for the lease, and that whilst nothing was confirmed yet they were expecting to be on the shortlist which would mean a busy 6 weeks ahead.
At the moment the exact specifications are up to the council, but the club are working on the basis of it being a 3000 seat arena with 400-500 standing. Shannon later said that they were looking at increasing the icepad slightly to be NHL size, but they didn't want it to be as big as 'Olympic' size. Though in the recent Olympics they were NHL size because it was in Canada and so that was the size they were aiming for.
Paul later said that they were designing the arena so that it would be used for other ice sports such as speed skating, figure skating, curling and disabled sports. It would also have the facility to stage other sports such as gymnatics as the council were in the process of putting together a tender to host the Commenwealth Games (Is that supposed to be public knowledge ????)

However, the most interesting bit was regarding the ownership of the rink. Paul said that they felt they had a good case towards them winning the tender. Whilst they were still planning towards that, if they did lose out they would the try to strike a deal quickly with the winners to play out of it. If they couldn't agree a deal they deemed fair - they would go and build their own rink somewhere in Cardiff or on the outskirts!!!!!!!

 

[Finny]

Q: "Are we signing player X?"

A: A couple of people asked about whether we were signing certain players. Shannon explained that it was up to G who we signed, but that he had one-to-one talks with everyone before they left.
Voth - the club would like him to come back and he would still be their preferred enforcer. But he is going back home for a while and it will talk it through with his fiance and make a decision later in the summer.
Towe - Adams has signed the 3 key brits he wanted so that they couldn't be poached by other teams. Especially with the introduction of Braehead. Now though they will be focussing on signing up some imports and when they have a better idea of where they are with that, they will return to fill the remaining british places. However, there are several young local players that the club want to help through the system and it might be their turn to get a chance.

 

[Finny]

Q: "We should be cutting down the number of teams in the league not expanding".

A: Apologies if you emailed this in, but I think Shannon struggled to answer it politely without saying it was a stupid suggestion. The claim was if we cut the number of teams the league would be more competitive. Shannon replied by saying he felt the league was its most competitive this season, and that was partially down to the wagecap being followed. Paul then seemed to suggest that there would be a wagecap in place for next season, and that it was important for the sport as whole to grow whilst not overspending themselves.
Shannon also explained that next season only the top 6 teams from 9 or 10 in the league would qualify for the playoffs. That would mean that teams would still be fighting for something right until the end of the season and so it should make it even more competitive.

 

[Finny]

Q: "With Belfast signing McMorrow and Sheffield signing Sgroi, will there be more fighters in the EIHL next season?" Will we sign a big name if Voth doesn't return?"

A: Shannon said that he does think more teams will sign an enforcer as it helps to but bums on seats and in general the league is more north american than european. Shannon said that Voth was still their idea enforcing signing but if he didn't return they would look to sign a big name player who would put bums on seats like Voth does. He also joked he was considering returning to get his Penalty minutes record back off Voth.

 

[Finny]

Q: "Will we look to be signing players who will score more goals than we have recently?"

A: I missed some of this, but I think that Shannon said as the season went on he was more confident of the team scoring goals. That he was confident going into the playoff weekend and we scored 6 past Coventry, and that even when we were 2-0 down to Belfast he was still confident we would get back into the game.
Shannon also said he felt Max had a good season and he was glad he was returning. That they were a bit disappointed in Mark Smith's points production although it did get better as the season went along.

 

[Finny]

There were a couple of other comments regarding the juniors and so many welsh players in the GB squad, along with welcoming Paul to the club, but they were more just comments than questions.

As this was the first time I've heard Paul talk about the club without being heckled by Sheffield fans, I was very impressed with what he had to say. I got the feeling he was very enthusiastic about the club and had become a fan in a short space of time, and that he would have the main responsibility in trying to win the tender for the new arena.
Overall a very interesting hour of radio and I hope I haven't missed too much out.

 

[James]

Thanks for the updates Finny. Much appreciated.

 

[Chris]

Just occurred to me, should the league meeting not be the 27th of April?

March has already passed!

Chris.

 

[Finny]

Ahh crap. So it is. This is what happens when I get 2 weeks off work.

Better go turn my calendar over and see how many birthdays I've missed.....

 

[Koop11]

Appreciate the summary Finny as I only caught the last 10 minutes of the programme

 

[Centre Ice]

Q: "Do we find it difficult to get media coverage now that Cardiff City and the Blues are in a new stadium".

A: Paul answered and said not really. He admitted that with a new rink it would be easier but seemed happy with what we have at the moment. He also mentioned that he was putting a lot of money into the club and he wouldn't be doing that if he didn't think the club would be a success.

I was unable to listen to the radio programme.

However, if Paul Ragan is putting 'a lot of money' in to the club it would have been interesting for someone to ask where that money was going considering the player budget is being cut back for next season. Did anyone ask either of them about this?