BLOG: Talking Clan Towers 2 – with Gareth Chalmers

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Hi everyone,

I’d just like to start by thanking every single person that has applied for a 2016/17 season ticket, as you may have seen on the braeheadclan.com last week we’ve already surpassed 1,500 season ticket sales which is a record for the club. We were delighted with the number of season tickets we’d sold last summer, however to close the early bird deadline with more ticket holders than we finished with last summer is outstanding for the organisation. Season ticket holders are the backbone of the club, they provide us with the much needed capital to ensure we can put the best possible team on the ice come September. We’ll soon be announcing a number of exciting discounts and promotions for season ticket holders, so keep checking braeheadclan.com for further updates. Hopefully everyone is finding the season ticket process to have improved this season, credit to Sean and Tracy in the office, they are working flat out currently to ensure communications and allocations are done as quickly as possible. Once again, thank you every single season ticket holder was has applied so far.

Since my last blog we’ve been able to announce the signings of Matt Keith, Bari McKenzie and Craig Peacock. Bringing back Matt was a priority for Ryan as over the past two season’s he has become the on ice talisman for the club. We really missed him during February when he sustained his injury in Nottingham, I believe that just shows how important he is to us. Bringing back Bari was also a very easy decision. Despite his limited ice time at times during last season, Bari’s attitude was always superb and he was a credit to the club. Always positive, hardworking and has bought into what we’re trying to achieve here. Welcome back to Matt and Bari. The signing of Craig Peacock is a marque addition for the club, when we became aware that Craig was going to be available, we made a move straight away. Craig is a current GB International, he fits into the club’s objective signing younger British players and to get him on a two year deal is somewhat of a coup. We welcomed Craig and his partner Meagan over in Glasgow to have a look around recently, he seems very excited at his new challenge ahead.

On the player front, we’re still very busy working on re-signing players and doing our research on new players to bring to the club. Our priority right now still remains to re-sign the players we want back from last season, we’re currently in negotiations with a number of them and have a number of offers out. We’re just in dialogue and should hopefully have a couple of announcements this week. Like every summer we will without doubt see a number of players leave the club, whether that’s the players decision or ours. However, Ryan and myself are fully aware of what is going on right now with last season’s players and we’re excited with how things are shaping up. With regards to new imports, other than a possible signing this week, the majority of our work will be done in June / July / early August again. We find that signing our new imports at this time really gives us our best options. As positions get filled in the top European leagues it causes a trickle-down effect. Clubs in the KHL, SHL, Finnish Liga, Czech Extraliga etc are all busy signing now, and we’ll find in a month or so they’ll be some very high calibre players looking for a job at a much more competitive price for our market. Some organisations prefer to get their teams signed up quickly, however we like to take our time to ensure we bring in the right players on and off the ice. However rest assured Ryan and I are working hard to ensure the best possible team is put on the ice for 2016/17.

Nothing to report on the fixtures front right now, I am busy talking to a number of clubs about pre-season games at the moment and hopefully we should have everything finalised this week. Ideally we’re looking to bring in a European team to Braehead to provide you with something different to what we see on a week to week basis with the EIHL teams. We’ve spoken to all the top German teams, however the majority have CHL and pre-season commitments. I’ve found following our inaugural CHL campaign last August, that our name and brand is a lot more respected throughout Europe which is only going to assist us in situations like this.

Myself and Andy McLaughlin will be attending the OSC Annual General Meeting this coming Wednesday (David Lloyds Club in Renfrew at 7:30pm). We’d like to see as many of you as possible come down and show your support for the OSC. I strongly believe that we have the best supporters club in the sport, they are an absolute credit to the organisation and the OSC’s growth is testament to the continued hard work put in by the committee.

Thanks for your continued support,

Gareth Chalmers (@garethchalmers)

Hockey & Operations Director