genuine question here, do you feel our roster was on less money than the rest of the big teams and he's exceeded expectations? ...
It's a fair question and without knowing anything about our budget, I would hazard a guess that's it definitely competitive within our own league. That said, it would be pretty easy to hand pick players looking at their CVs and AHL experience etc... What Lord has done well, is recruit players and got them to buy into what the team wants to achieve. Look at some other EIHL teams and it's fair to say that some imports arrive looking to wind things down and pick up a wage. Fournier's recent comments were interesting (back from the awards night?); he mentioned along the lines of coming here and pretty much winding his career down with a view of retiring sooner rather than later. Instead, he rediscovered his game, started enjoying his hockey again and his career is on a upward trajectory again - Fournier has clearly been fantastic but it's Lord who's got him going again, it's down to good management. Quite a few of the team have been around for a few years now, they wouldn't be here that long if the management wasn't right.
Brand of hockey, everyone will have their own ideas but for whatever reason, players at his disposal/personal preference, Lord plays a certain way but it is backed up by trophies.
Game management, probably was the determining factor that saw us narrowly miss out on the league title, and it'll be interesting to see how that's addressed moving forward and that is, for me, the biggest challenge facing Lord for next season.
Sorry if was is a bit long winded, but in short I don't think any team can win consistently on budget alone and his record speaks for itself.
Any professional sport is a competitive industry, and if our name keeps popping up as being successful, it'll be a matter of time before some other owner or GM takes note of Lord.