We’ve invested wisely.”We’ve got players with finesse, players who can put the puck in the net, and we’ve got players who can battle. That all makes for an entertaining package, and that has been reflected in the crowds we’ve been getting at the Newcastle Arena. Some of them have been well over 3,000.”It’s certainly back on the right track And, also, we’ve been winning games. It’s the best product since the move to Newcastle.”Smith has no regrets about that contentious move – away from the Wasps’ old nest, the Riverside rink in the heart of Durham City, which is now a bowling alley.”I think it was an inevitable step,” he said. “If you look at all the arenas around the country now, and at what’s happened to ice hockey in Britain, I think sooner or later the franchise in that area would have moved into a big arena. The sport had to grow and it outgrew Durham in my opinion.”There was a lot of emotion around at the time about the move and it wasn’t pleasant But look at the clubs who are playing in big arenas now …
Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle – Nottingham are a good example. They had a fabulous tradition in that old Lower Parliament Street building. Yeah, it wasn’t pleasant for them to move, but they’ve moved from a 2,800- seater into a 7,500-seater and they’re getting crowds of 5,000 in there at the moment.”It’s market forces People want better facilities There’s a bigger choice of entertainment out there. And if you’re not in the bigger arenas you can’t compete.”It remains to be seen, though, with what degree of success Smith’s Jesters can compete at the Sheffield Arena.
On Saturday night they will be attempting to end an 18-match winless streak in the so-called “house of steel”.. As a world-class ski-jumper in his time, Hubert Neuper thought he knew the meaning of fear. That was until themoment he stood in the airport at Vienna, waiting for Pele to step off a plane from Frankfurt. A posse of journalists also waited, but mostly for reality to dawn on one of Neuper’s more ambitious stunts. Pele visiting Austria? Are you crazy?
As a world-class ski-jumper in his time, Hubert Neuper thought he knew the meaning of fear.
That was until themoment he stood in the airport at Vienna, waiting for Pele to step off a plane from Frankfurt. A posse of journalists also waited, but mostly for reality to dawn on one of Neuper’s more ambitious stunts. Pele visiting Austria? Are you crazy?
The designated plane arrived No Pele Neuper even boarded the aircraft to look for himself “I was dead,” he recalls. “How can I go into this room and tell the journalists, ‘I’m sorry, he’s not here’.
None of them believed he would come anyway.” But there was one other chance, another flight due in from Frankfurt Again Neuper waited, again no Pele In desperation, Neuper asked once more. “Pele? The famous football player.” The girl at the desk scanned the list “No, no Pele.” Neuper’s life scrolled before his eyes. Oh well, it had been a big jump even for an Olympic silver medallist. Why should Pele or Muhammad Ali come to little old Austria just to honour some sport awards neither of them knew much about. “But,” came a voice, “we do have an Edson Arantes do Nascimento.”So Pele came and, a few days later, Ali arrived, then Carl Lewis, and the inaugural World Sports Awards were rapturously acclaimed by 2,300 people inside the Vienna State Opera House and an estimated television audience of 100 million outside Neuper had a hit on his hands “It was a very emotional evening,” he says. “You see a great sportsman like Boris Becker with tears in his eyes, talking to Ali, that doesn’t happen very often Ali had never met Mark Spitz before The winning and losing of the awards was not so important. It was the gathering of the family of sport to talk and to celebrate the spirit of sport.”Neuper is a restless and inventive soul with a flair for publicity and a sylvan tongue.