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Ben Callaghan: Match Highlights Are Upping The Game
Swindon Wildcats fan and On The Prowl blogger Ben Callaghan discusses the world of ice hockey every Wednesday, only on Total Sport...
This week the EIHL announced they had signed a deal with Premier Sports to show a weekly program covering all the highlights in the Elite League. This made me think of how good it would be for the EPL to try and get something in place as well. Even if this were to be something that was online only on YouTube.
Many Clubs in the EPL do good highlight packages. It’s something which has really been stepped up in recent years. When I first started watching the EPL there were no highlight packages anywhere and all you could get from games you missed were the reports in the papers on the following Monday. I’d say the highlight packages in the EPL stepped up the year the Basingstoke Bison and Manchester Phoenix dropped from the EIHL to the EPL.
Since then other established EPL sides have decided to up their coverage for the fans. This is something Swindon have done themselves, with weekly highlight shows available towards the end of the week. These are well edited and usually have commentary on them as well which makes the even more enjoyable. These videos are valuable for many reasons. If the entire game is recorded then the coaching team have a DVD of things to analyse in the coming week. Once edited, the fans can re-live their favourite moments from each game as well as providing them something to keep them entertained in the summer months.
Finally, these highlight packages provide a great advertisement for the club, in the eyes of sponsors and potential new fans. If a prospective sponsor is unsure of the game of ice hockey you can send them a five minute video of a game where the team beat the league champions. They can see the emotion of the game, they can hear what it means to the fan base and they can see what they would get in return. As for the new fans it’s a similar thing, I’ve had people new to hockey ask me if there were any highlights they could watch before committing to coming to their first game.
For something which is relatively simple to do, having a camera recording the games is slowly becoming completely key for EPL sides. The next step is something the Wildcats did as an EPL first last year in streaming games live across the internet. Peterborough are doing it this year for their home games and is something which is well received, particularly with away fans who may not be able to travel to Bretton.
Like I said at the start of the column, a weekly highlight package for the EIHL is a good thing. I personally think the EPL could look at trying to get everything together in one place if possible to make things easier for prospective and established fans who’re looking for highlights from previous weeks.
Will it happen? Who knows.
Would it make a difference to the way the sport is viewed? I don’t see why not.
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