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Phoenix devastated at Ice Dome delays

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Manchester Phoenix Managing Director Neil Morris emerged from Tuesday's crunch progress meeting with Ice Associates to declare himself 'devastated' at the news that the Altrincham Ice Dome will now not open till January 28th.

A visibly shaken Morris commented, "This is a hammer blow to our organisation and hopes for this season. We have been working toward and planning on a December 2nd opening date and when it started to become apparent that further delays might transpire due to the crane issues last week; we've quietly been preparing a second contingency plan. Those plans have now been shot to bits and we're having to go right back to the drawing board to see how we can try to make things work."

Morris added, "It's bad enough that we've got a competitive senior team who are training and playing every game on the road while we await our own facility, but we've also got three junior teams and all their support personnel and parents travelling to other rinks in order that they too can train and play games. More than anything, we want the youngsters of Manchester to have somewhere to take part in ice sports and activities and we have all been badly let down by today's news."

All the Phoenix teams are now faced with the prospect of further massive fixture rescheduling and even more disruption and inconvenience to their planning for the rest of this season, not least of which impacts upon the clubs supporters.

Phoenix GM Andy Costigan said, "Through all of this to date, our fans have remained faithful and loyal to the club and what we're trying to build. Whilst we're all shocked and dismayed by today's turn of events, we cannot put into words what we feel for our long-suffering and unbelievably resilient supporters. They have already gone above and beyond anything we could reasonably have expected and to now have to ask them to carry on travelling for another two months and slightly longer is something we never, ever dreamt would happen."