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...

Finds like this are why I started on this

Another thanks to Tom at the EHL webpage for hooking me up with NewspaperArchive. I've been so torn on what little revelation to put up here, but I think this one takes the cake. From the Charleston Daily Mail, November 5, 1940:

"Formation of a six-team hockey league in which the Charleston Comets would play 20 league games plus seven home matches with Huntington is the goal of James R. Chandlee, who will direct hockey activities this season at the Ice Sports rink.

At a meeting held recently at Pittsburgh, plans were discussed for organizing a league composed of teams from Charleston, Huntington, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron and Johnstown.

John Harris of Pittsburgh, manager of Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Hornets' hockey team, expressed enthusiasm over the proposed league, saying he will enter his Smoky City skaters.

Owners of the Cleveland arena will enter their Cleveland Barons. Akron's new rink will lie
completed about Dec. 1 and Rubber City hockey entrepreneurs are eager to join the loop. In fact, so enthusiastic are the Akronites about West Virginians, they will feature Charleston and Huntington in opening-night matches.

Johnstown hns a rink but has never had a hockey team, though visiting professional teams have played there periodically in the past. The Johnnies are eager to organize a team and enter the league.

The proposed league would operate under the jurisdiction of the Amateur Hockey Association, which withdrew from the A.A.U. three years ago. While carrying the rating of amateur hockey, the teams would actually be semi-pro.

Chandlee said he hopes to have one of the best teams in the league and offer Charleston a high-class brand of hockey.

A proposed schedule and other details will be worked out at a meeting to be held next week. Among those who have indicated they will attend the next meeting are directors of hockey at New York's Madison Square Garden and P.E.M. Thompson, president of the Amateur Hockey Association and owner of the Atlantic City Sea Gulls."