There have been rumors doing the rounds this past week that Dundalk may be ready to enter a team into the EIHL next season as the league looks to expand. It may answer why the league was looking to up the number of imports, if they are expecting more teams to join the league.

The Giants have played four games out of Dundalk already this season as the home team and the Giants fans have taken over the arena, selling it out on their last trip and making a serious amount of noise. With that, it poses the question, could Dundalk create it’s own set of fans to do the same?

It’s been debated on the message boards all week and well nobody really knows until it’s tried out. Some teams take years to get a strong fan-base, others - like the Giants in 2000 - are selling out games from the start and never really falling below 3000 fans on average. Dundalk holds 1600 people.

I’d love to see it work, it would make for a great rivalry and some superb road games, though with the arena being so small it would be interesting to see how many Giants fans could actually get tickets and if we might actually out number the home support like we have on road trips to Edinburgh in the past.

Would Dundalk be a competitive team right off the bat? It took the Giants one year to find their feet but by year two had won the league and year three the playoffs. Would Dundalk have the money behind their project to go the same way or follow more along the lines of Edinburgh or Hull? I tend to think it may be the later, but it wouldn’t take away from the rivalry I don’t believe.

Good luck to them, I hope they do get up and running, I hope they do put out a competitive team and I certainly hope they generate a fan base to fill that little cold rink.

Category: Elite League » Dundalk, Rumours |

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