Looking Forward to the 23-24 Season with Steve King

It's been a long time (over 5 years) since we've done any interviews here on the Inferno for a number of reasons, but with the off-season being an interesting one and looking forward to a new season with a new coach and a new look team, we thought it would be good to reach out to the owners and catch up with how the Devils have done and hopes for the future. As always Steve King was happy to chat and very generous with his time.

Welcome back Steve! It's been almost 5 years since we last spoke and it's certainly been an eventful few years...

Thank you!  I had started to think that I’d been fired by the Inferno considering it’s been so long but I’m glad that you reached out.  Who would have figured five years ago what was about to come about for the Devils and for the entire world.  It’s been a shocking period and one that I hope we never have to go through again.

Things were tough everywhere, but were there any significantly different challenges for the team or league to overcome and keep going during the covid lockdowns?

Every team had very different challenges during the lockdown.  For the Devils, we lost some valued employees and some fantastic players that unfortunately we would never see again.  But out of every hardship, positives always emerge.  In our case, our very small staff of Todd, Katrina and Corky worked so hard to take us through that period.  It also very much showed the depths of the partnership that this club has with its fan base.  Our fans stayed engaged and we were able to keep the lights on by selling raffle tickets for Devils equipment and paraphernalia.  It was a period that I’ll never forget and never take for granted.  Coming out of the lockdowns, the league governors worked tirelessly to make sure that all 10 teams were sound which led to some changes such as roster size and the wage cap.  These were effective measures during a very unique time-frame but the league now needs to look forward and look at growth as opposed to preservation and I’m sure the governors in the board meetings would agree with that.

The Calgary Summit this year seemed to be a great success, a brilliant intro and a number of new players announced! Can we please have more of this going forwards please?

I’m glad everybody enjoyed it.  As everyone that follows us knows, we’re a group that likes to have some fun and have never suffered from taking ourselves too seriously.  That said, we felt that we needed something that was more professionally done.  The live stream had too many technological challenges so getting the videos done in advance was the right call.  The Devils are blessed to have five ridiculously passionate owners that spend an inordinate amount of time talking and planning around the team so we try to share some of that with our fans.  We will definitely do more of that going forward.

The last few seasons have been tough results wise (relatively!), a lot of fans both on here and social media call for player changes but can you give us an idea of why they don't necessarily happen

I’m glad you used the word relatively in your question!  We all have some very high expectations for this club and we’ve created a culture where success is expected.  That said, perspective needs to be used in looking back at the last two years.  Each of the last two years saw the Devils achieve a .690 winning percentage.  That’s not what is required to win the championship in our league but to put that in perspective, only one team in the NHL last year had a better winning percentage than the Devils.  I love the passion, I love the expectations – all five of us absolutely share in all of that – but I do find it a little much to read so many outlandish statements about the last two years.  As for player changes mid-season, the Devils have built a reputation in the hockey industry as a place where players want to go play because of our commitment to players and their families at many different levels.  That has allowed us to sign players that normally would not come to our league and often times it allows us to sign a player that is deciding between us and one of our rivals for less money.  What a fan will sometimes view as a lack of effort or passion is way more often a situation where a player has not been put into the right situation or is perhaps going through something negative off the ice.  It is our coaching staff’s job to find out how to get that player back to where he needs to be.  It’s not a country club environment where players mail it in because they know we won’t cut them.  That almost never happens at this level of the sport.  Players come here to win and with every intention of being at their best.  I can probably count on one hand over the course of nine years the number of players that honestly did not give it their all.  Todd and Lordo were tremendous at creating player accountability and that’s one of the things we like so much about Pete is he has that same ethos.

Speaking of Pete Russell, how big of an opportunity do you think this is and how long was he on the radar?

Honestly to have brought in a coach with Pete’s CV is incredible not just for our team but for the league as well.  Pete is a proven winner, comes with a massive amount of passion for his profession and also has the benefit of knowing our league, our team, the players and also our city.  Going back to the previous question about player changes, the Devils reputation in the hockey industry also allowed us to attract a coach of Pete's caliber.  He shares those values and determined that if he was ever going to leave Germany, it would only be to become a Cardiff Devil.  Obviously coming home to work closer to his wife and daughter was also a huge pull for him but in talking to him, it was only a fit because of the way our club operates.  One of the things that excites me most about this season is how much the players are looking forward to having Pete as their coach.  They know that things will be much tougher for them than they were for the past two seasons.  They know that accountability will be dialed up and they want all of it.  Our group wants to win.

You mentioned roster size earlier. The import rules have changed again for this season, do you guys as owners get into the detail of the changes, or do you think there is perhaps any concern on the pipeline of British players coming through?

Todd is our representative on the board of governors for the EIHL so the four of us here in Calgary do not get involved in those types of changes.  At our annual meeting here in Calgary, we do go over league issues but given his knowledge of the league, Todd is the driver of league discussions.  Our input is typically at a higher/strategic level if there are any ideas we have that could help push the league further.  I believe that we have the best group of cities of any hockey league in Europe.  That is a huge opportunity for our league to increase revenue and exposure and become one of the top leagues in the world.  I have so much passion and belief in the sport of hockey that I’d really like to expand our horizons and bring in some true strategic thinking about how that can occur.  As I mentioned, we need to get out of survival mode and start thinking bigger.

We've seen some watch parties, but how often do a bunch of you get together to watch the Devils live? Is it just the landmark games? And how many Devils converts do we have in Calgary now? Which of the owners gets most involved and invested in the game?

Between the four of us in Calgary, we all watch essentially every game.  With busy lives and families, we don’t get together often enough in one place but the WhatsApp banter during a game is really something to behold!  Every now and then something will get posted that will even get Todd joining in live from the gantry.  Live viewing parties come together more based on all of us being in town at the same time and then yes, for big games as well.  Craig owns a pub in Calgary that we get together at relatively often and usually we’ll get several friends, family, Mark Louis’s Uncle and Brendan Mikkelson is a frequent guest.  It’s lots of fun and we always enjoy the reaction of the rest of the pub when the Devils score and our group erupts.  The Joey Martin song belted out by our group is always a pub favourite!

Second ice pad. Do you think that's gone forever or a temporary loss?

I hope it’s a temporary thing as I’d love to see ice sports continue to grow in demand in Cardiff.  Covid certainly seemed to have a negative impact with the pad being closed for so long.  I’m hoping that a few years from now that both ice pads will be fully booked.

And the big one... You've commented on the forum already, but the logo/branding redesign was a bit of a shock to a lot of fans, with hindsight do you think it could have been approached differently?

Ah yes.  The logo!  I can’t believe you waited this long to go there!!  As I stated on the Inferno after the logo launch, we feel that this is a move that is important for growing our brand.  Rebranding or logo changes are never ever met with unanimous positivity right off the hop so we knew there would be those that would be upset about it.  We also knew that there would be many that quite like it but maybe don’t go out of their way to express that online.  Sometimes running a business requires tough decisions that may create some short term pain but you know as a manager is the right long term decision.  Some fans have expressed frustration that we didn’t let the fans vote on the new logo.  I love the engagement and the concept behind that but I also know the reality of the social media world that creates an environment where negativity almost always drowns out positivity.  The reaction on the Inferno is a perfect case study in this effect.  In the thread talking about the logo change, there were somewhere between 400 and 500 posts on that thread.  Incredible to note that three very vocal fans posted more than 100 times just between the three of them.  So the default feeling of other fans becomes that of the most vocal.  This can many times erroneously be viewed as “general opinion” when it may not necessarily be the case (and in fact actual merchandise sales supports the fact that it was not the case).   I’m not saying those posters were wrong in their opinions or that they shouldn’t be posting.  It’s just the way social media works and can lead to a warped view of the world.  I find it fascinating to talk to my kids and hear their take on social media.  As a generation that has grown up with it, they know how this all works and are much less effected by it.  Us old people sometimes have a harder time with that! So to answer your question, I’m sure there were other ways of handling the launch that would have made some people happier but it is a fool’s errand to think that it could have been done without some very upset people regardless of what we did.  As a manager of my own business here in Calgary, you just have to trust your judgement and the judgement of the people around you and make sure that your objectives are still true to your values.  We love this club so much that we want nothing more than to see it grow and prosper so that we can get back to winning championships.  We truly feel that this rebrand will help us do that.

The logo has become a simpler version, what are the hopes for the brand going forwards?

If you look at the rebranding of other successful logos around the world and in various industries, logos have become simpler and less crowded.  With the ability to market a brand across so many media platforms and on so many different types of merchandise, a less complicated logo is much more effective according to the experts.  We’re certainly not alone in those thoughts and most would probably argue that our change is a little late in coming.  We haven’t updated the logo in almost 30 years but that also reflects the fact that we all loved our previous logo so much.  Take heart in the fact that both of our previous logos will still be used in special occasions in the future.  As an older guy, I like nothing better than some good retro gear.

You are more active in the fan community than most owners whilst doing a good job of maintaining a healthy distance too, but do you ever find it can have a detrimental effect? Is there a lot of having to 'bite your tongue'?

Oh yah.  My wife sits and laughs at me when I’m pulling my hair out at home, not being able to say what I really want to say sometimes!  I’m not someone that hides my feelings very well so it can be difficult but I absolutely love interacting with Devils fans.  Some of them reach out to me directly, sometimes on Twitter and often times on the Inferno.  The crux of it is that there’s never a time I don’t like talking about the Cardiff Devils.  It’s one of the great passions in my life and that goes for Brian, Craig and Kelly as well.  Aside from the obvious risk of saying something that will piss someone off, I’ve never understood why more owners aren’t more engaged.  We’re not fancy, unapproachable people.  We’re just fans of the club that all share the good fortune of being a part of an incredible Devils community.

We've got a new headline sponsor for the arena and changes are afoot, can you give us an update on where the team stands with the arena and making it feel more like our home?

I haven’t been privy to most of the arena changes unfortunately.  We certainly want our home to be a place that is very difficult to play in for opponents and that gives our fans a feeling of being in their own fortress but I’m not entirely sure what reign we have on those decisions given that we do not own the arena.  What I do know is that we’re incredibly lucky to have an arena sponsor like Vindico and a club title sponsor like Blues Electrical.  We also have a myriad of other sponsors that continue to step up and support the team in the most generous ways.  As a club and a league that does not get very much revenue at all from television, we are completely reliant on ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships to run this business.  Given our goal of icing a championship winning club, and the fact that we don’t have any more seats to sell tickets in our arena, sponsors play a massive role in what we are trying to accomplish.  I can also tell you that the way we treat our players, fans, employees and sponsors all comes together in being a club that sponsors want to be associated with.  It is our family values foundation that makes it all work and we’re determined to keep it that way.

Is there anything that we've missed, or that you would like to add?

The team!!!  I’m so excited about his team heading into the season.  We’re returning the best forward line in the EIHL intact this year and have also built what I think could be just as good a line behind them.  I also feel like we have more offensive depth coming from our blueline this year which will also help our forwards.  The other thing I’m super pumped about is our goaltending.  Bownsy proved in the second half of the season that he still one of the best goalies in our league and we’re bringing in a young guy that our coaches really believe could be a incredible goalie.  Booth has been behind some great goalies in his pro career and has consistently been viewed by those teams as someone that has the potential to be an NHL goalie.  But opportunities in that position are so few that sometimes a high end goalie never gets his shot.  I can’t wait to see what we have when we hit the ice to start this season.  Brian, Craig and myself will be coming to the preseason fixtures on September 9th and 10th so we hope to see as many of you there as possible.  Please come and say hello and thank you all so much for loving your club as much as you do.