Why nothing is happening

On the historical front: I'm simply overworked from everything else. I do have some nuggets that I need to put on here, however.

On the will-we-get-another-team front: there are two major obstacles at this point. The first one I had alluded to earlier, which is that City Council--which dragged its feet so long in trying to get money for the Big Sandy Superstore Arena that the usable amount left shrank from about $5mil to about $4.5mil due to increased interest rates--has an issue with the Arena now taking the higher bid for seating, which actually met the standards that they were seeking, over the cheaper but less satisfactory bid. Let it be stated that I have no problems with the more expensive seats being used, so long as there is still money left over for everything else--and while keeping in mind that technically all the stuff we want/need is NOT included in the bond money, it has been made fairly clear to myself and others that the Arena very much wants to do some ice upgrades. To be quite honest, I'm amazed that anyone has been able to stand the amount of lollygagging going on with the municipal government; as the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day, but this has been dragging on for literally years now.

The second is the annual Minor League Death Pool Silly Season, in which we figure out which shaky teams end up falling apart before next season. This offseason is shaping up to be particularly tumultuous due to recent developments with the Central Hockey League, which I previously had on the shortlist of Places We Should Go. The rumor mill has been all over the place, with sentiment ranging from "keep calm and carry on" to "DEAR GOD THE SKY IS FALLING". Add to that the ripple effects from a potential move of the Phoenix Coyotes back to Winnipeg, and it might be well into summer before we know who will be playing where in what league to even begin to figure where a good fit for us would be. On the bright side, by that time everything with the Arena should be sorted out...

The importance of being comfy

Let's begin by reiterating where we stand as far as fixing up Big Sandy Superstore Arena:

1--they have $4.6mil to work with

2--they will first work on seats, then the boiler, then probably look at ice and such

3--because they took the ice work out of the wording for the bond in the first place.

So of course, first up is the seating. And we already have Steve Williams creating a roadblock. Why? Well the arena took two bids for seating. The winning bid was $3.8mil from Irwin Seating, but the low bid was $2.3mil from Hussey Seating. However, the latter is basically the updated version of the same seats that are presently in there and are presently considered inadequate.

Thusly the seating issue has been referred back to the Finance Committee to find "a more coherent matrix for determining the best choice." Or, basically, they're going to try and convince the arena to take the low bid anyway. I'm torn on this somewhat--naturally with that extra mil-and-a-half sitting around, there should be plenty left over for new hockey equipment. Remember, though, that when the hockey infrastructure segment was originally set aside in the bond measure, it was only $300,000. In other words, so long as fixing the boiler takes less than a half-million dollars, the hockey work should be doable anyway!

My personal preference is to have the nicer seats. My stronger preference, though, is to not have this held up unnecessarily...

An update on that musing from earlier

If Huntington ends up in the CHL, it will be as a brand new team: I've been told my tax lien sale idea would take about two years to finalize, while any other franchise acquisition would require the team to take the ice IMMEDIATELY. The ideal situation would involve about a year of off-ice prep--promotions and hype and such.

Marshall v Xavier, January 26, 1996

WMUL's broadcast of Marshall club hockey from the Huntington Civic Arena... playback is a little screwy, it got slower as the tape progressed and I was never able to remedy that. Still, this is a nice little nugget to chew on...

The entry cost for the Central Hockey League has plummeted...

...to $23,104. Any takers?

No, really. This is not an April Fool's joke.

Bloomington's management is in a total shambles. From the management at US Cellular Coliseum, there are groups interested in keeping hockey in the area, and most parties involved would prefer it be the CHL. I seriously think this could be an advantageous situation for everyone involved--get us a hockey team at a deep discount, but at the same time put an ownership group in Bloomington that won't beat the crap out of each other...