Presumably the "on ice trials during the summer" will have to be done elsewhere!

Also anyone else find the "a club spokesperson" interesting? Normally the say if they are quoting Mr Morris, Mr Costigan or whoever

At least a official start has been announced so praise where praise is due.

As you say it is a shame that it is a spokeperson instead of some one nailing there clolours to the mast.

Yet the junior development will be in place in some form instead of waiting another 12 months which is something that junior players may be thankfull with.

As not being a parent or player can not comment

Not sure about the bit saying "holding trials" for juniors?

I get the feeling they are going to try and pick the best of the players from other junior clubs!

Development should mean a new batch of kids starting from scratch and teaching them to play hockey and not taking the best kids from other clubs to make theirs look good!

I feel sorry for the coaches of the other clubs such as Bradford and Flintshire who have spent the last 3 years developing some good youngsters who may well move to the Altrincham club.

Whatever the Pheonix wish to call their age groups I will call them Altrincham *******'s as that is where they will be playing.

I will also be calling the new rink Altrincham Ice Arena instead of Rink but it still keeps the name fairly close.

What I won't be doing is calling it Manchester Ice Rink or Arena or anything with Manchester in it!!

Guess I'm just an old Alty Ice Rink boy at heart!!!!!

Or maybe they want a chance to do some preliminary work on assesing skill levels, etc?

I suspect they will argue that many of the kids started out in Altrincham before being forced elsewhere....

I as most of you know played at altrincham for five seasons until the rink closed since then i have played at bradford but would love a welcome return to playing hockey in manchester again. ask my dad would he prefer me to stay at bradford and have to drive me over for training twice a week or back to altrincham two minutes away I know what the answer will be at the end of the day none of us would have left had the rink not closed.alty forever

It would also be great to see all the ex Altrincham junior players being able to return to from there enforced exile playing out of your own community rink again

Like you say Hobbo what ever they want to call it the rink is a Altrincham rink and the juniors will be Altrincham juniors under the Phoenix umberela

Out of interest the Phoenix are saying they will dress and finance the juniors as a direct part of the Phoenix set up.

Yes apart from Coventry and Belfast as well the other Elite League teams have senior and junior teams playing at English level in the same town.

Are these teams under direct control and finance from the Elite League teams in the same city/town or separate teams working financially independent

Steady on Mark, give somebody else a chance to post. You have hogged the last three spots on this thread. ha ha

Nice to see you have kept your sense of humor.

Dont know how Aaron fox did it but he posted in between my posts but his post didnt split mine up hee heee