Cowan excited by new challenge

WINSTON-SALEM, NC – Monday, November 3 in the offices of the Twin City Cyclones was supposed to simply be the day before Election Day. By the time the office closed that afternoon, it had become an episode of “Trading Places”. In a move that surprised many, Head Coach / General Manager Mark Richards gave up the GM’s chair to focus on coaching the team. In his place, Assistant Coach / Assistant General Manager Sean Cowan was promoted to the GM position where he will put all of his efforts toward the business side. “We all as an organization realized that the way we were going, it wasn’t working as well as we wanted it to. What was happening is that if one thing wasn’t suffering, the other thing was,” Cowan said. “Mr. (Robert) Kerzner (Twin City owner) made a decision and that’s what we’ve got. We’re all trying to do the best we can to be productive every day and make everything positive around here.” During the last year plus, Cowan had been working alongside Richards both on the ice and off. The problem was that both sides of the equation demanded more attention than either one could give. The lack of undivided attention combined with having a small staff took its toll in all areas of the organization. “I think just our results as far as wins and losses and corporate sales and ticket sales directly shows that,” he said. “It gave us accurate results that it just wasn’t the correct way to run it.” When the team was only able to pull in 2,963 fans combined during its first four home games – albeit one was played on a Sunday afternoon up against NFL football and another was played on Halloween night – everyone knew changes had to be made. SPHL Commissioner Jim Combs met with Kerzner at the team’s request to discuss recommendations and ideas on how to turn things around. One of the topics talked about was the lack of focus on both sides of the operation. When the decision was made to split Richards and Cowan up in relation to their responsibilities, Cowan’s experience with running his own business made him the natural candidate to be the GM. “Obviously he (Kerzner) being a business owner himself, I’m sure it did have something to do with it,” Cowan said. According to Cowan, operating his golf equipment retail sales business had some similarities to running a hockey team that were hard to ignore. “In minor league hockey or any hockey, you’re not just selling hockey. You’re trying to sell an experience for people to see for entertainment. You’ve got promotional stuff that goes on during the games,” he said. “The biggest thing other than that is trying to get the awareness that you’re here. This is a tough place to be sometimes when you’ve got Wake Forest football and basketball and other college teams not far away. We’re just trying to get our piece of the pie and give people an alternate option for affordable entertainment.” One of the first things that Cowan did was refocus the staff to utilize its time more efficiently by getting out into the community. “With the absence of someone being in the office all the time, its like anything. People need direction. I think that’s what we were lacking as far as eight to ten to fourteen hour days,” He said. “That’s what we’re trying to do now. We’re trying to spend our time being efficient and effective by getting out and seeing people and talking about it (the team) and trying to stay away from just sending emails and just phone calls – trying to make that person-to-person, face-to-face contact where it’s a little bit more personable.” Cowan has been leading the way, hitting the local colleges to establish communications regarding internship programs, meeting with corporate sponsors and becoming the face of the team. His staff was out on Election Day, talking to people waiting in line to vote. Cowan’s efforts have been bolstered by his fellow general managers around the league. He was very impressed with all the hints and advice sent his way. “All the other general managers in the league have been very responsive, very willing to give a helping hand. They’ve sent me information just to try to help me get off on the right foot,” he said. “It shows what kind of people that this league is involved with. These are good people who want to make it work and are committed just like we are here. It’s nice to know you’ve got the backing from the other organizations.” Cowan knows that the battle to win over the fans of Winston-Salem is going to be a difficult one but he’s willing to exhaust every avenue to keep the Cyclones alive and skating. “We’ve got to give it the best chance. Teams of the past have done it and tried it. I’m not going to say we have the answer but the way we started to do it was okay and I think some people were impressed by the limited numbers that we had that were better than some in years past,” he said. “Obviously we as a staff are not satisfied. Our owners are not satisfied. Making this change is just showing that we’re not throwing in the towel saying no. We’re going to make sure we look down every avenue to make this organization successful.” Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com