Resting

Things are dormant at the moment. Nothing's going on with the arena for now--they have to solicit bids first--and work will not begin until June. I am only able to sporadically look at NewspaperArchive, so the historical end of things has really taken a back seat to the here-and-now, I'm afraid.

Two biggest pieces of news here:

--A challenger appears: the Northern Professional Hockey League, which is looking to do a SIGNIFICANTLY better job than the AAHL and its ilk. The league will be instituting strict standards on the arenas they play in (no rec rinks, 1500+ seats, to start with) and background checks on ownership groups (if you ain't got no money, take yo' broke @#$ home), and will not be starting play with fewer than 6 teams. Shooting for a 2011-12 launch, but again, unless they have six solid teams, they're willing to push it back a year. Good to see decisions being made for the sake of collective stability.

--Marshall thinks enough of hockey that they've licensed pucks! I've been told they're available at the Barboursville Target, but there's a link up there in case you don't feel like leaving the house (weather being as it is, can't say I blame ya).

--Oh, and tomorrow's the Backyard Brawl on Ice, WVU vs. Pitt @ South Charleston. Both teams are pretty much even--Mounties are 11-11-1, Panthers are 9-9-1, and WVU won their earlier meeting on the road 5-4.

I've infected everyone I guess

The general impression I've gotten lately is that the glass is half-full: the bonds were sold by HMDA for $4.692mil, lower than the $5.1mil they were going for, so the city/arena is going to see how much it costs to replace the seats and boiler (top priority) before determining how much of the ice/plaza repairs are done. I chatted with Bill Sawyers the other day and he suspects that they might in fact be able to get everything done for $4.7--he thinks that AJ Boleski aimed for the $5mil neighborhood to make sure that everything WOULD be done; as it stands, everything MIGHT be done. So we're a hell of a lot more optimistic round these parts than we were a couple weeks ago.