It's amazing what a trip to Home Depot will get you

While we wait on hockey, Huntington this past week added ANOTHER indoor football team. This one will be in the brand-new Ultimate Indoor Football League, run by the founders of the AIFA that the old Heroes were in; presently the league ranks include just Huntington and Johnstown, but they still have a ways to the season opener (early next year, to be precise).

This--the West Virginia Wild joke nonwithstanding--would be the third indoor football team in Huntington in a decade. Needless to say the cost factors are significantly lower in this sport than in hockey, but how much so? Former Heroes GM Chip Rossetti went into hockey after leaving the AIFA, taking the GM reins for the Evansville Icemen; he says the annual budget for indoor football and low-level-A hockey is about the same--$300,000 per season. For comparison's sake, the SPHL (high-A) strives to keep its budgets in the $1,000,000/season neighborhood.

Then there's equipment. AJ Boleski, who will be landlord (or super I guess would be more accurate) for this newest endeavor at the BSSA, puts the cost of turf at $50,000 new, boards and pads for the boards (the pads basically go over conventional hockey boards) totalling a shade under $100,000, and the goalposts--well, THIS explains everything--$400 of PVC pipe and yellow paint. Total. For both of them. No, really.

All this is dwarfed by the cost of an ice surface, not counting upkeep. Sucks to say it, but hockey is a rather expensive sport.

"Time is of the essence"

Had a productive email session with Steve Williams, head of Huntington City Council's finance committee--while the tax boondoggle continues, they are in fact working on things with the Big Sandy Superstore Arena:

The City has requested proposals for Financial Advisors to assess the Arena
project and make recommendations as to how we should structure the bond issue,
determine the revenue source to pay for the bonds issued, and identify the
appropriate governmental entity to issue the bonds.

The city must pick one of these proposals to put forward to the Finance Committee, and things get rolling from there... important thing to note is that the bonds must be taken care of by September 1.

All-Blizzard Team

I just noticed in my Blogger dashboard that I made my 100th post the other day. This calls for a celebration, and as luck would have it, I had a nice little bit of inspiration pop into my head: what would an all-time Blizzard team look like? I admittedly am a poor judge, having become interested about two years too late to be of any use; thusly I am enlisting the help of you fine fellows out there.

What's your All-Blizzard Team? 3 forwards, 2 defensemen, 1 goalie, 1 coach. Only limit is that they have played, at some point, for the Huntington Blizzard. I'm taking votes here and at the Facebook page for the rest of the month starting... now.