Players
Elite League teams rely heavily on players from outside the United Kingdom (termed imports). The majority of these players are from North America, and typically played in the minor North American leagues such as the ECHL and AHL before coming to Britain. For example, of the 21 players to play for champions Belfast Giants in the 2005–06 season, 10 were Canadian, 8 were British and 3 were American. The league restricts the number of import players which can be dressed for a game, with a current limit of 10 imports. Player turnover is high, with a large proportion of players spending a single season at a team before moving on, and multi-year contracts are uncommon.
As would be expected in a league dominated by North American players, the style of ice hockey in Britain is similar to that played in North America, and has a more physical style than that played in other, technically natured European countries. This was demonstrated during the 2004–05 NHL lockout. Of the NHL players to join Elite League teams, the majority were players noted for physical strength rather than puck-handling skills, such as Wade Belak and Eric Cairns.
While British players account for a minority of Elite League players, the league supplies the majority of players for the Great Britain team. 20 of the 22 players in the Great Britain squad for the 2008 World Championships played for Elite League teams in the preceding season.
Read more about this topic: Elite Ice Hockey League
Famous quotes containing the word players:
“The players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out [a] line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand.””
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)
“Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)