Where are they now: Derek Schooley, the only coach Bob Morris has ever known

Of the 97 professional games on Derek Schooley's trading card, 77 of them were played in Huntington, encompassing the 1994-95 and '95-96 seasons. He came to Huntington fresh out of college: "I played college hockey at Western Michigan and Paul Pickard was a junior coach in Kalamazoo so he saw me play a lot in college. I played against his teams in junior hockey so his team competed against me and my team. He recruited me and I trusted him that he would put together a competitive team." Indeed, after a legendarily bad first season, Pickard's first season put the team in the playoffs. "We had a young team and a team that played with heart and enthusiasm. We all got along great. We had a very good team that had a great first half."

Callups battered the team late, however, resulting in a 2-vs-15 first round draw with the Dayton Bombers. "We had a short bench as we were expecting some players back from the AHL (and they didn't come back) and went to Hara Arena for the first two games. We were outshot badly in game 1 but won as Jeff Levy stood on his head. The next day we had a pregame skate and they left the shot clock on for the team to see how bad we were out shot. We had a very short bench but showed a lot of guts and hearts." This showed in the scores: while the Blizzard lost in four games, three of those games were decided by a single goal.

The offseason upheaval--which led to new ownership and a new coach--affected Schooley's outlook early on in the 1995-96 season; "[It] just wasn't the same from my perspective." While the Blizzard struggled that season, Schooley was traded after 11 games to Roanoke. "In my first week there, I hurt my knee so they released me. After my knee healed, I went to Quad City and then got traded to Flint... 4 teams in 4 years led me to decide to get into coaching." After a few games in the ECHL in 1996 he became an assistant coach for the NAHL's Chicago Freeze later that season.

For the 1997-98 season he would be an assistant at Cornell University, then moved on to the Air Force Academy. He spent five years there--four as assistant coach, one as associate head coach--and built a strong defensive club in Colorado Springs. Schooley also coached the USA Hockey Select 14-15 Festival in 2001 and was an assistant for the U18 Select team at the 2002 Junior World Cup in the Czech Republic.

2003 would see Derek Schooley named as the first coach ever for Robert Morris University as a NCAA Division 1 team. He spent the whole of 2003-04 recruiting, and the team took to the ice for College Hockey America in 2004-05. Their win totals increased every year, from 8 to 12 to 14 to 15 wins in 2007-08; despite a drop in their win total (10 wins) for 2008-09, they only narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament, losing in overtime in the CHA final to Bemidji State. This will be their last season in College Hockey America--and in fact the last season for the conference in men's hockey--as they join fellow conferencemate Niagara University in Atlantic Hockey next season...

A note on Barry Soskin

My schadenfreude light kicked on when I read in the last couple weeks that Barry Soskin has been booted out of the North American Hockey League as owner of the Albert Lea (MN) Thunder over a pay-to-play scheme--the players' families secure roster spots and playing time for large sums of money, a gross violation of the standards set in place for top-level Jr. A hockey.

In July Mr. Soskin sent me a message, on Facebook of all places:

I am looking into Hunn hockey and would like to talk to you about the possibility of bringing back minor pro hockey. Please email me your phone number so we can chat......
Barry

I did in fact have a couple phone conversations with Barry Soskin, who was interested in putting an IHL team in Huntington... THIS year. I told him the logistics would be VERY difficult for such a short timeframe, but I thought if done properly it would be a good move, and as far as official dealings directed him to contact AJ Boleski at the BSSA.

The schadenfreude: when I mentioned the Rutherford story--the USHL rumor--he went on a long rant basically saying that the USHL wasn't worth his time because, in a nutshell, the other junior leagues--namedropping the NAHL in particular--utilized older players that could/would beat the crap out of the primarily U17 stock in the USHL.

Of course now that this has come to light it seems having a team full of bruisers may have been secondary to having a team full of money...

No news on the home front...

...but Wheeling will still have a team.

It's been a while (or, gone but not out)

As I alluded to previously, I had my first child last month. This has taken up quite a bit of my time; it has also forced me to adjust my priorities somewhat, and with some mitigating factors coming into play, I am unfortunately not going to be living in the Huntington area past this month. That is not to say I am done with Huntington, and definitely not done with this website. I will continue to work with the material that I've culled thus far, as well as try to make a few excursions to fill in the blanks for the Tri-State League.

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in picking up where I'm (mostly) leaving off, consider this my request for applications for the open position... looking for hockey fans based in the Tri-State area interested in digging deeper into hockey in the Tri-State. Experiences and actual source material you might have in your possession is a plus; I can/will give access to what I have as well.

Beyond that, I will be watching from my perch on the other side of the state. My son's first hockey game will either be a Pens game or a Caps game in all likelihood (or a Johnstown Chiefs game--they're even closer); hopefully I can take him to a game at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in the near future as well.

Media time!

Last time I was on the radio I had VERY short notice, but this time around I can say next week I'll be on Tri-State Talk with Bobby Nelson on WRVC-AM/FM (930/94.1). Not sure what day--it may have to be on the phone, as they're inducing my wife on Tuesday!

Cleaning!

The other day my wife and I sorted through a box of random CDs in our apartment. Mixed in there, in a small group, was the audio from the Practice in Radio project that got this whole operation running back in 2007! While I'm going to be a bit busy handling baby-related things in the coming weeks, I will be bringing you guys some samplings--in text form at least--of those sessions.

Blink and you'll miss it

I just got to plug this fair webpage on Insider Sportsline--it was very out of nowhere, if I had more time I would have been able to plug it a little more. I discussed the Rutherford article and the prospects for hockey's return, as well as some of the other stuff you can flip through right here at this very page.

For those of you who just found this website from the aforementioned radio appearance--welcome! Feel free to drop a line.

Anyone want some Blizzard stuff?

Ebay lot up right now for a bunch of ticket stubs, a mini-stick, a team-autographed locker room collectible sign, and a photo autographed by a player who I can't quite make out from the picture given. Still pretty cool. I'd bid on it, but I'm in a real cash crunch right now :^(

Kids playing hockey

While we sit and wait to hear any more on Huntington's future prospects in organized hockey*, why not look at future hockey prospects from Huntington? Well, sort of. Back in the final years of the Tri-State Ice Arena, the Junior Blizzard competed in the Buckeye Travel Hockey League, competing in Midget (under 18) and Peewee (under 12) brackets. Their results? Not too bad I reckon...

2002-03: Midget 17U A-Bluegrass Division: 2nd, 9-6-1 (11-7-1 overall)
2003-04: Midget 17U A-Bluegrass Division: 3rd, 12-4-4 (12-6-4)
Peewee B: 7th, 4-16-1 (7-22-1)
2004-05: Midget 18: 8th, 3-20-1 (7-25-1)
Peewee B: 3rd, 6-9-1 (7-10-1)

After the rink in South Charleston was built, they set up their own program as well, which joined the league. There was a little overlap when the Jr. Blizzard and the South Charleston Chiefs played against each other...

2003-04:Midget 17U A-Bluegrass Division: 2nd, 14-5-1 (16-6-1)
2004-05:Midget 18: A 7th, 4-19-1 (5-22-2)

During this stretch Charleston won the series 4-1-2. Then Tri-State went dark, and South Charleston soldiered on...

2003-04: Bantam B-Bluegrass Division: 4th, 6-8-2 (9-9-3)
2005-06: Midget 18 A: 4th, 7-12-1 (8-14-1)

In 2006 the Bantam squad took the moniker "South Charleston Liberty", while the Midgets became merely the Charleston Chiefs. Maybe I read into omens a bit too much, but I don't think the name change had quite the desired effect:

LIBERTY:
2006-07: Bantam A-Mountaineer Division: 7th, 0-24-0 (0-26-0)
2007-08: Bantam A1: 7th, 0-24-0 (0-30-0)

Yes, that reads right--winless in two years of competition. The Chiefs weren't faring much better...

2006-07: Midget 18 A: 5th, 4-15-1 (5-17-1)
2007-08: Midget 18 A: 6th, 2-20-2 (2-26-2)

As far as I can tell the travel program did not continue past 2008, and I don't know what there was beforehand, so anyone out there (players, coaches, etc.) feel free to help me out!

*--something I've learned from following the Team US F1 story is that silence is not necessarily a bad thing.

Thanks Ernie

Ernie Salvatore has died at 87; when I was in the radio portion of this project he was a great help and a great deal of fun to talk with about items both past and present. One of my bigger regrets in this work is that I never got more chances to seek his input... he will be sorely missed throughout the Tri-State, in sports, media, and beyond.

Where are they now: Jim Mill

Dunno if this is a step sideways, but former Blizzard goalie Jim Mill (1993-95: 4 wins, 17 losses, 6.71 GAA, but then most of that was for the abysmal '93-94 season so we'll forgive him for that) has left his former position as executive VP of hockey operations for the American Hockey League to become assistant to Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher--a position that includes being GM himself of the AHL's Houston Aeros. Spiffy gig nonetheless, and congrats to him on the next step in what has been--despite not having the greatest goaltending stats--a long and successful career in hockey.

EDIT: 12:28pm: and also taking a new job in the AHL is Jared Bednar; he leaves his ECHL champion South Carolina Stingrays for an assistant coach's position with the new Abbotsford Heat. Congrats!

Where are they now--Jared Bednar

The South Carolina Stingrays won their third Kelly Cup this weekend, in former Blizzard D Jared Bednar's second year coaching them. Traded to the Stingrays in the middle of the 1995-96 season, he played parts of five of the next six seasons in North Charleston (when he wasn't being called up!), finally retiring after the 2001-02 season and moving into an assistant coach position with the Rays. He got the big bump up in '07-08, and has coached South Carolina to their first back-to-back 40-win seasons in a decade.

(Note--this will be the first of a recurring series :^))

Our man Tony gets sorted out

Former juniors announcer John Meissner sent a much more useful email to HNN than I did. Just to be clear, everyone knows now there is no USHL team in Dubuque.

What the next rush will entail

I've been somewhat dormant (given my recent trends at least)--quite a bit of fill-in work here at the station, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means I don't do as much with this as I'd like. Between this and family visits I won't get a lot of time with this for the next couple weeks, but for you regulars out there, here's what I've got in store:

• After some wrangling with CDs and DVDs, I'm going to FINALLY put up Blizzard-Admirals Game 3 from 2000, that was graciously passed along to me by Mike Holley (preview here).
• Inspired by our latest rumors, I'm going to try and get a hold of some more people involved in the last attempt to land a team at the BSSA. Emphasis there is on "try", but I'm a little more motivated as of late.
• Due to a lost bank card, my NewspaperArchive subscription has lapsed, which unfortunately means that until I can squeeze in a trip to Charleston, my work on the Tri-State League as a whole is a tick stalled. That being said, the Cabell County Library is still just a short jaunt downtown, and my next several trips there will be documenting the Huntington Stars. My wife keeps telling me I should write a book on this all, and if there is a book at this point it will be about the Tri-State League.

If I think of anything else I'll post it here. Just thought I'd let everyone know beforehand in case I can't update this too terribly often.

People I will not be speaking with anytime soon

Dan Battles, former Charleston hockey captain (and longtime skating instructor) died in 1986.
Bob McDonald, patron saint of Huntington ice hockey, died in 1995.
Luigi Narcise, would-be hockey investor, died in 2006.

I knew I had just missed Narcise, but I just found the others out today--I figured McDonald and Battles would be longshots at best, given their advanced age...

Picking up from yesterday

If the library had stayed open a few minutes longer I'da found my answer to the saga--Luigi Narcise, quoted in the 22 December 1959 Huntington Advertiser:

Andy (Mulligan, Toledo Mercurys GM) just waited too long and I'm going to tell him so."

Narcise and Arnold were open to hosting the March 1960 games, but as far as I can tell the Mercurys did not pick up the option. Huntington would next host a hockey game in 1966, as the NHL's impending expansion seemed certain to create an opening for Huntington. However, the games were not terribly well-attended, owing in large part to minimal promotion and one of the least inspiring lineups in the city's hockey history: back-to-back games with the top two teams in the OHA Major Intermediate A Hockey League, the Simcoe Gunners and the Port Colborne Sailors. The O is for Ontario, not Ohio--this would be the first and, as far as I can tell, only hockey game played in Huntington with no local interest whatsoever. Every other game before and since either featured a team from Huntington or someplace relatively close by.

BTW, in case anyone's wondering, Simcoe won both games, 5-4 on 23 April 1966 and 9-6 on the 24th.

Digging one tunnel, finding a new one (in more ways than one!)

The first three hockey games played at the Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse were all played with the Miami Valley Bruins in 1951. Based in Troy, OH, at that time they were an independent team; they would be rechristened the Troy Bruins for the 1951-52 season and were admitted into the IHL that season.

13 March 1951: Miami Valley Bruins 6, New York Rovers 4 (exhibition)
27 March 1951: Miami Valley Bruins 4, Hibbings Flyers 3 (OT) (semifinal of the National Independent Open Tournament; this would actually set up a rematch with the Rovers in the final of that tournament)
4 April 1951: Cleveland Barons 7, Miami Valley Bruins 3

Attendance was about 1500 for these games, and there were supposed to be more exhibition games played the next season, but so far no luck looking. (While looking this up, I noticed that there is a new incarnation of the Troy Bruins, in the UJHL independent junior league, which will be playing at Hobart Arena next season.)

Fast-forward to 1959, when the Toledo Mercurys found themselves booked out of half a season. Testing the waters in various temporary locales, they played an exhibition match against Huntington's old team, the Louisville Rebels, on 25 October (a 2-2 tie). Organized by Walter Arnold and Luigi Narcise--the same Narcise who tried to buy the Hornets a couple years earlier--they drew 2000 for the game, enough to warrant further consideration by the Mercurys.

While they unexpectedly elected to play some games in St. Louis (and this season they are referred to in the record books as the Toledo-St. Louis Mercurys), as of late December 1959 (when I stopped microfilming this afternoon), the Mercurys made an overture to Arnold and Narcise to play their February-March schedule in Huntington. As the Huntington Advertiser pointed out, however, this would have been problematic due to the coinciding Golden Gloves boxing tournament and West Virginia Catholic High School Basketball Tournament--half the dates would have to have been rescheduled.

Of most interest on my end of things, however, is--and this is not at all unexpected--Arnold and Narcise were using the Toledo match(es?) as a means to test the waters for an IHL expansion franchise in 1960-61. They had even considered buying the star-crossed Denver Mavericks team, but the combination of schedule mismatches and severe financial difficulties ultimately discouraged them (the team ultimately ended up in Minneapolis).

Help me gang--were there any other games, either with Troy or Toledo (or any other teams for that matter)? And whatever became of Arnold and Narcise's expansion efforts?

Rutherford: it's the USHL

Tony with another scoop (and a goof, I'll point it out momentarily):

Huntington, WV (HNN) – Prior to the Tuesday, May 26 Huntington City Council meeting, Big Sandy Superstore Arena Director A.J. Boleski has requested to make a presentation regarding the United States Hockey League.

Huntington has had several experiences with professional minor league hockey, which at its best with the team winning saw an increase in downtown traffic and good attendance to the lower echelons when the team was near the cellar. The same with Arena Football and variations thereof. Even, graduated MU football players couldn’t turn several of those teams into financial survivors.

Although nothing has been made public about the proposal, the United States Hockey League is the top junior ice hockey leave in the U.S. It’s a strictly amateur league with players 20 years and under. Since the league is amateur, the players do not lose NCAA playing status.

Currently, the league has twelve fourteen teams from mostly the Midwest, including Minneapolis, Minn., Dubuque, Iowa, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Columbus Youngstown, Ohio, and Fargo, N.D.

Junior hockey is something I'd considered, but again, the geography is off here as it is with every other league. It would be a good fit with Huntington's image as of late, however, as a center for amateur sports--WV high school tournaments in wrestling and volleyball, little league baseball, the soccer tournament in Barboursville, not to mention the decades of amateur boxing tradition here, either in Golden Gloves or Toughman.

Press--and A NEW HOCKEY TEAM?!

HuntingtonNews.net plugs this site while mentioning a group coming to Huntington this coming week with a proposal to city council re: a new hockey team!

A couple bits he did goof on though--the Hornets were 1956-57, and the Packers have both a for-profit and non-profit entity.

So welcome to all those dropping by, feel free to peruse this fine site and drop a line.

Whoo links!

I finally discovered the "links" tab on the side there and made some changes to it.

No-good news is no news

Something that's bothered me on the Stars/Comets end of things is that I have to go to Charleston's paper to find anything about Huntington's rink closing. There is a total whitewash in the Herald-Dispatch and Advertiser regarding the closure of Iceland, with articles talking about how Charleston doesn't want to play Huntington, fearing a bloodbath, while ads in the paper trumpet half-price hockey on a date when Toledo was supposed to be in town for a Tri-State League matchup...

A shoutout

I don't know how I JUST NOW got into this, but I thought I'd pass it along... a band called THE ZAMBONIS. I'd heard of them, but until about 15min ago I'd never actually listened to their music--EVERY SONG THEY MAKE IS ABOUT HOCKEY. Here's a link for yas :^D

Throw those attendance figures out the window

I've reached the point where the dung hit the fan as far as the Morris Jeffreys era--a near-million-dollar suit filed by Bank One regarding loans dating back to the Bob Henry era--and in the middle of it all a revelation that the attendance figures during the Henry years that their attendance figures were boosted by quite a few freebies. So THAT explains my little graph there...

Narrowed down the beginning of the end...

Attendance increased over the course of every Blizzard season* except one: the 1998-99 season. After this season Morris Jeffreys sold the team to David LeFevre and Beacon Sports, and after another season the team was out the door. The question: why? Where did it go wrong? As always, if anyone can chip in I'd appreciate the hell out of it; as it is I'll be hitting more microfilms this week.


*--although, as my earlier graph showed, not necessarily from one season to the next

The sports franchise as civic organization

With some more rumblings that Wheeling may not have a very long time left in the ECHL, some of the message board chatter brought up an interesting--but not unprecedented--concept: the operation of a sports franchise not strictly as a business, but as a civic organization. The most notable example of this is the Green Bay Packers, who have operated as a public corporation since their inception in the 1920s. The corporation's bylaws state that all profits from a relocation will go to local charity (previously the American Legion, now the Green Bay Packers Foundation), helping to ensure that a metropolitan area about the size of Huntington has continuously held an NFL franchise for over 80 years.

The Packers aren't entirely a non-profit entity--they're in the NFL, such a concept would be an oxymoron--but there are a few teams that actually are: the Memphis Redbirds (AAA baseball), the Great Lakes Loons (A baseball, Midland, MI), and the Kentucky Horsemen (Arena Football 2, Lexington, KY). I like the idea primarily because the investment by the community in a sports team is not purely financial, but equally if not moreso emotional. It goes well with the last bit I brought up, the idea of having control of a team shared among a relatively large group of local investors.

Of course Ernie knows best in these situations

Ernie Salvatore, longtime Huntington sportswriter, on the Blizzard's management turmoil, 7 June 1995:

This really is what's at stake here. Credibility. Honesty. Honor. Whatever. The Huntington Blizzard franchise... has retrogressed badly in these areas the past two months. Getting them back, once the fighting stops, won't be easy.

How much damage can a self-destructing management team do?

About 1500 fans/game worth. Season data is from the ECHL website; I've only gotten as far as season 3 (that big-ass drop on the graph) as far as game-to-game data.

An amusing exchange

Lost in my (relatively) dormant stretch in the last year or so was an article in the Reading Eagle on the five worst teams in ECHL history. Who was #1?

1. 1993-94 Huntington Blizzard (14-49-5)

Pro hockey returned to hard-scrabble Huntington, W.Va., in 1993 after a 40-year absence. The Blizzard had numerous ups and downs in their seven seasons, but were never so low as that inaugural year.

They still hold the ECHL marks for most goals allowed, 6.07 per game and 413 total, and their 14 wins are tied with the aforementioned Roanoke Valley and Greenville teams for fewest ever.

The Blizzard were also on the short end of two of the three worst whippings in league annals, a 15-0 loss to Greensboro and a 16-3 loss at Nashville on Super Bowl Sunday in which goalie Jim Mill played all 60 minutes.

This team, which once gave up 67 shots in a game against South Carolina, also had a 16-game winless streak, a league-record 12-game home winless streak, is second-worst all-time with just 33 points and is tied for the third-worst winning percentage at .243.

The Blizzard had three coaches that year, including former NHL player Bob "Battleship" Kelly, who was fired after a 5-14-2 start. Defenseman Jared Bednar finished with a plus-minus rating of minus-82.

What gives the Blizzard the slight edge over the 2003-04 Grrrowl and the 1992-93 Rampage, however, was that they lost four of seven games to a horrid Louisville (16-44-8) team.

The Blizzard bounced back to make the playoffs the following season. They stuck around until 2000, and there's a small movement online to bring them back.

O RLY?

Howdy,

Found your article from December on the 5 worst teams in ECHL history--certainly can't argue with the findings. I'd also like to add that the '93-94 Blizzard's top scorer (or at least he was at that point) quit the team... in the middle of a game.

I was most curious, though, about the comment at the end about the "small movement online" to bring a team back; I have a webpage up on hockey in Huntington from some work I did in college at Marshall and was wondering if you knew more (or if in fact you just managed to stumble upon my humble webpage--huntingtonhockey.blogspot.com). If it's not a movement of me, myself, and the voices in my head, I'd like to get a hold of them...

His reply:

Yeah, I stumbled onto your blog and dubbed it a small movement. I guess the movement is even smaller than I realized!

In related news, I might put a guestbook up...

Attendance recap: 1994-95

Average (regular season): 3747/game

Average including playoffs: 3677/game
--Huntington's two playoff games were on a Tuesday and Wednesday, which not surprisingly depressed attendance a bit

Monday games were surprisingly well-attended, averaging 4096/game; granted, one of these four games was the day after Christmas, while another was a special event for schoolkids (noon start, kids got a hockey game, a lecture on education from coach Paul Pickard, and a field trip for $4).

At this point Blizzard attendance had stabilized; there were only three games over 5000 fans in '94-95, yet their overall attendance inched slightly upward. Through 68 regular season games, the Blizzard's average attendance was 3743/game, which if they were competing in the ECHL today would only be about 500 off the league average, but then we're comparing the ECHL at its height (94-95 avg. 5315/game) to the ECHL in decline (4217/game). Still, things were looking promising by the end of that season....

A preview of things to come

Been slowly getting that Blizzard attendance recap thingy knocked out, almost done with the Bob Henry era. One thing I've noticed--which is a little surprising--is that, at least through almost two seasons, if you plot a curve for the attendance data, it comes out more or less flat... I was expecting some decay. Of course I'm still in the Bob Henry era, but it's interesting seeing the relative stability of the fanbase at this point in time.

The Obama Method

Forgive me if I insert a political reference, but the title there is my quick-and-dirty name for getting a lot of money in small amounts out of a lot of people. In the context of this page, a similar endeavor was attempted to keep the old IHL Hornets in town, but I'm invoking it right now because Dayton Bombers owner Costa Papista is trying a similar approach in readying his franchise for a 2010 return:

Papista plans to[...] offer minority investors the opportunity to buy into the team at the $5,000 level through a private placement memorandum.

The plan calls for the team to secure 230 of these investors within 60 days, along with a new majority owner. The makeup of ownership would thus be 50.5% new guy, 10% Costa Papista, 39.5% everyone else--for those counting, that means that to feasibly run an ECHL franchise costs around $3 million. For comparison's sake, let's set the WABAC machine for 4 January 1957 (from the Raleigh Journal, courtesy of the always awesome NewspaperArchive.com):

Huntington Group Nears Hornets Purchase Price

HUNTINGTON (AP) - A local group headed by promoter Dick Deutsch today was within $10,820 of the reported $35,000 needed to buy the Huntington Hornets International Hockey League club from its present Fort Wayne, Ind. owners.

Deutsch announced after a public meeting last night that Huntington business and private individuals had pledged to purchase 2,418 shares at $10 a share in a proposed "Huntington Hornet Corp."

Deutsch holds an option to buy the club. He says he wants the people of Huntington to feel that it is their team. The option expires Monday.

Evansville, Ind., also has made overtures to purchase the club and move the franchise there. The club was moved here from Grand Rapids, Mich., only last year.

Per the US Government, that would amount to an IHL franchise costing shade over a quarter-million dollars in 2009 money. One of those shares would be $75; Papista is taking season-ticket deposits at $50. My, how things change...

Help me internets!

I stumbled upon a Myspace page for "a group of individuals trying to bring a Professional Hockey Team to the City of Huntington WV."

One problem: the page has been deleted. I got that much from the Google-cache--I *just* missed these guys apparently.

So anyone out there stumbling upon this page, can you possibly help me out? I'm curious to know what happened...

While I'm stalledish on one angle though...

...new motivation to dig a little more on the Tri-State Hockey League. Of everything I've looked up in the two and a half years of semi-sporadic research (my wife is telling me as I type this that I should write a book of all this!), this is the corner that excites me the most. As far as I can tell West Virginia was in fact the site of the first organized ice hockey played in the Southern US, when Charleston's Ice Sports rink opened in 1937 (beating Miami's Tropical Hockey League by a season). Had the TSAHL gotten off the ground, it would have been something of a proto-ECHL, straddling what were the territories of the Eastern Hockey League and the Michigan-Ontario League:

• Huntington and Charleston, WV
• Akron and Toledo, OH
• plans for teams in Pittsburgh and Johnstown, PA, and Cleveland

Interestingly, on the territory note, the Toledo Babcocks were apparently in the MOHL while they were in the TSAHL; they were brought in when the proposed Pittsburgh entry failed to materialize, and Johnstown did in fact have a team the next season in the EHL, so talent-wise, I'm considering them to be essentially equal. Unfortunately, you'll notice that above I only list four teams that actually played, and two of them were a relatively close distance to each other--this ended up being the downfall of the league. Both Huntington and Charleston were on shaky ground, and were able to keep afloat because they were so close to each other, thus able to share costs for things like road trips. When Huntington's Iceland closed in February 1940, Charleston's Comets--barely able to keep going on their own, even with a fierce Huntington-Charleston rivalry--followed suit.

This much I know. What I'm curious about, though, is how they got from point A to B to C and so on...

Removed the ads from the page

Too much clutter. I'm gonna keep the little Feedjit widget though, just because I think it's neat.

CONSTRUCTIVE THINGS: well I've been moving, so I've been very constructive, but not necessarily on here (unsurprisingly). To those of you browsing on here, feel free to drop me a line if you've got a blank to fill in (or if you need a blank filled in) on the page :^)

An aside or two

Anyone out there in the Tri-State blogging as well, a friend of mine named Dan Koksal is trying to set up a local bloggers' network. His email is koksal@marshall.edu if anyone out there's interested in joining up!

Also, I've decided that, as much as I enjoy the hell out of digging up new finds in the Cabell County Library's H-D archive, I should keep one foot in the present. To that end, how bout them Jackets? :^D

(also, JEEBUS those are pricey. However, Marshall students out there, the Rush CBJ program is still going--$15 upper level and $25 lower level. VERY LIMITED, only available on gameday, but I called a while back and they WILL accept college IDs other than OSU...)

A few general notes

First off, you'll notice a couple new things, don't be alarmed. I've added ads on here, so apologies for the newfound clutter in the name of trying to gather an extra quarter here or there. I also have a little sidebar there that shows who comes here from where. This was something I noticed from a friend of mine who's taken to visualizing her Feedjit display on a map for her art exhibition; I thought "hey, this looks neat, I'll put it on my page".

While I'm working on my attendance geekery, props to perhaps the greatest attendance geek of them all, the one the only Hans Hornstein, who's been keeping track of hockey attendance for over a decade, including the last two seasons of Blizzard hockey.

One thing I'm going to look at with this is something originally done in an academic study in the Journal of Sports Management (yes, such a thing exists!), April 2006 edition, where they plotted out a curve determining how long it would take for attendance of a particular minor league baseball expansion team to drop to an unsustainable level (Those of you who can access it--I'm looking at you, Marshall students out there--can read the whole thing here.)! While such an analysis seems a tick pyrrhic, it could certainly be extrapolated into hockey.

Lastly, a news item that may interest quite a few--the SPHL is in Pensacola with an expansion proposal. Interesting bit is that--and as always feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--this seems to be the first time that an expansion effort has openly courted fan input.

Professional practice in South Charleston?

Just a thought--after flipping through the Blizzard's first season, it's apparent that not having a permanent practice facility, while problematic, is not an impossible burden. They simply practiced everywhere else--sometimes at the Civic Arena, sometimes in Kentucky, sometimes staying extra on road trips. This gets me wondering--it may not be the most convenient situation, but suddenly the fact that the closest municipal ice facility is 45 minutes away isn't as bad as I thought it would be. After all--as evidenced in earlier discussions on here--plenty of people come from Huntington to play hockey there already.

1993-94 attendance: 3740/game

High traffic days: Thursday-Saturday (3929, 4373, 4672 fans per game respectively)

7 games with over 5000 fans--six on Fri-Sun, one on Tuesday (the last game of the season)

Coolest find: the brawl at the end of that aforementioned last home game, in which a fan was ejected for spitting tobacco at a Nashville player. THAT's dedication... and lunacy, but there's a thin line between the two.

Progress report on that attendance thing

Going one month at a time due to my terrible motion sickness while dealing with microfilm (even Dramamine doesn't help all that much), almost done with the Blizzard's first season. Interesting bits:

--Because of their unusual alignment their first season, they played Huntsville and Birmingham, AL more often than they played against in-state rivals Wheeling
--Of the teams they played more than once (so far), they drew 4263 avg. against Birmingham, 4193 against Louisville, and 3891 against Dayton
--As would be expected, weekend dates are more lucrative; through 26 home dates they averaged 4389 fans on 12 Friday/Saturday games, against only 3177 fans/game the rest of the week
--Four games drew over 5000 fans--two on Friday, two on Saturday. Five games drew less than half-capacity (<2800)--two on Sunday, two on Wednesday (the H-D devoted a couple articles to the idea that the Blizzard wouldn't do well on church days), and one on Tuesday

I should have the whole 1993-94 breakdown for you guys tomorrow.

A moment of silence

The Dayton Bombers have suspended operations. There's going to be quite a bit of upheaval in minor league (and possibly major league) hockey in the next few months. Hopefully some of our neighbors and old rivals (Wheeling and Johnstown in particular) can keep things rolling next season...

Emails=instant motivation

I had a convo going back and forth with a reader, which reminded me that I haven't touched this page in forever. Damn obligations, why can't I have a hobby like normal kids? (oh wait... :^P) If my stomach will let me finish, I've started to go through Blizzard attendance records on the old microfilm machines... my stomach and my schedule let me go a month, but on a good day I should be able to make some headway there.

A lot going on here

I got sucked into Newspaper Archive for a while, then Christmas, marriage, and expectancy kicked in (August baby, for those keeping track). So forgive me if it's been a while since I've updated this. To make up, I'll put the exhibition games I've seen (so far) played at the Veterans Memorial Field House (no scores yet, long-overdue for a microfilm appointment):

March 11, 1951: Miami Valley Bruins vs New York Rovers (these two would become the IHL's Troy Bruins and the EHL's Long Island Ducks)

March 25, 1951: MVB vs Hibbings Flyers

April 4, 1951: MVB vs Cleveland Barons

October 25, 1959: Toledo Mercurys vs Louisville Rebels

As late as 1966 there was talk of Huntington angling for another professional hockey franchise; I'm still not sure when the ice was disabled at the Field House.

While I have the Field House on my mind, congrats to them for being the home of Huntington's latest professional sports franchise, the West Virginia Wild in the Continental Indoor Football League. They're in a division with the Wheeling Wildcats, which I imagine will confuse the hell out of the out of town writers.

Lastly, while I don't need any help getting distracted, I'm contemplating another project not too far away from the scope of this work, but at the same time significantly larger--I've opened up a Newspaper Archive folder on Huntington's urban renewal projects--the Superblock, the Civic Arena, and everything else that sprouted, that should have sprouted, and all the dram-a surrounding it. I think it might make for a good grad school project whenever I cross that bridge...