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.