BRITISH ice hockey took a major step forward on Friday and the Basingstoke Bison will be at the forefront of the exciting developments.

The Elite League which the Wella-backed side are signed up to is set to gain affiliation to the English Ice Hockey Association. The news ends fears that the new top flight of the British game would have to operate as a rogue league for the coming season.

In a joint statement from Elite League chairman Eamon Convery and EIHA chairman Ken Taggart, they said: "An affiliation in principle has been made between the EIHL professional clubs and the EIHA clubs. Consequently there now exists a strong association and support structure between the professional arena based clubs and the junior clubs."

In doing this, the country's top sides are forming a link with the English Premier League and all junior leagues in the country to feed British players through the system from the youngest age group, to the top league in Britain.

Ken Taggart, chairman of the EIHA, said: "Fans, players, coaches, sponsors and promoters can look forward to enjoying the future development of the sport of ice hockey as a result of this joint announcement."

Mark Johnson, general manager of Planet Ice and owner of the Bison said: "This is great news for British ice hockey."

Last season the Bison twice used young English premier players, James Hutchinson and Mark Richardson, in their roster when they were not in action for their parent club.

This sort of action, if used on a wider scale by the Elite teams, can only benefit the development of these players.

The Elite League is made up of eight teams and the Bison will be locking horns with big city teams of Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield.

Basingstoke open their league campaign on September 13 away at Nottingham, before entertaining Belfast Giants in the first home game of the new set-up.

With this hurdle now out of the way and the sport's future a lot clearer, player/coach Steve Moria is expected to shortly announce his first new signings for the Herd, with an assistant/player coach top of his list.