We have our day

Huntington City Council takes up the Big Sandy Superstore Arena's future on March 20. Yes, that's a Saturday, so for those of you that don't live five hours away, you have few excuses to drop by... unless of course we get another two feet of snow (the way this winter has been I wouldn't be surprised if it snows until April).

While we celebrate our hopes, a moment of silence...

...Johnstown is apparently set to lose the Chiefs to Greenville, SC. While I have a soft spot for Southern hockey fans--and Greenville had a good run with the Grrrowl (am I getting the number of r's correct there?)--Johnstown is the last original franchise still in its original city in the ECHL. This has potential ramifications down and across the state line in Wheeling, which for geographic and economic reasons is seemingly always paired with Johnstown when relocation/franchise fold rumors pop up...

Roller hockey!

Up the river in Portsmouth, Shawnee State University has run a club roller hockey team since 2007; they're currently in Division III of the National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association, where they've gone 13-11-3 in their two seasons at this level. With any luck they're about to pick up a down-river rival: a roller hockey club is now forming at Marshall. They've spent this season playing scrimmages, with an eye toward intercollegiate competition next fall.

For those interested, they play Monday nights @ 9 at the Fieldhouse; they have two full squads and a third looking for a goalie...

Finding more stuff on Facebook

Besides the Huntington and Roanoke groups, there is also now a group for the displaced fans of Greensboro. In the meantime, here's some bloodshed to tide you guys over!

Momentum is building

WSAZ ran a story on hockey's possible return yesterday. Meanwhile, the Facebook group--a little over three days old--is at over 200 members and growing, ranging from old-school Blizzard fans to high schoolers to even a few old Blizzard players! I'm excited, what about you guys?

More Facebooking!

We now have our own Facebook group, "Bring Hockey Back to Huntington, WV", thanks to the always awesome Bill Sawyers, who also found this bit uploaded by the WOWK Weather Center's YouTube account:

While we get buzzed about H-town, howzabout a travel buddy?

Tom over at the EHL Tribute Blog found a group--complete with Facebook page!--devoted to the return of professional hockey in Roanoke. Personally I've always wondered how the heck Roanoke's gone as long as they have without a team, for all the history in that area.

AJ: "From what I can tell, there's enough interest and buzz from the last time there was a team down here to sustain a team again"

The rest of the story, from the H-D: $5.1 million has already been approved--unanimously--by the Cabell County Commission for new seating, hockey stuff, a boiler and some concrete for the plaza out front. It's now up to City Council to figure out how to work it into the budget. This happens in March--if they can do it, we move a BIG step closer to a new team.

BULLETIN

I was starting to work on a piece hypothesizing what it would take to get Marshall a D-1 NCAA Hockey program, but that's on the backburner because Big Sandy Superstore Arena OFFICIALLY wants $5 million for upgrades. Unfortunately, this is a "print exclusive", and I'm 5 hours away from the nearest Herald-Dispatch, so if anyone could please fill in the blanks for me, I'd greatly appreciate it...

Reading tea leaves

Posted this comment regarding the status of our status farther down the page, thought it deserved its own entry:

Improvements do need to be made, and I know AJ at the BSSA wanted to have some improvements made. I don't foresee anything happening before July, however, with the municipal spending freeze taking effect earlier than usual (the new fiscal year kicks off July 1). Beyond this reading of tea leaves, however, I haven't heard of anything new...