EVANSVILLE, Ind. — As most people can attest to, politics can make for strange bedfellows. Apparently, so can minor league hockey at its lowest level.
Following a summer of questions, announcements and deals, select members of the Mid Atlantic Hockey League (MAHL) and the Midwest Hockey League (MWHL) announced on September 23 that they had agreed to leave their respective leagues to form the brand new All American Hockey Association with plans to kick off its inaugural season in mid November.
The Evansville IceMen representing the MWHL and the Battle Creek Revolution, South Shore Shooters and Motor City Gamblers from the MAHL are the four cornerstone members of the new league. How the franchises got to the point of agreeing to join forces could be seen as a combination of what is right and wrong with minor league pro sports today.
“We’ve been working here in Evansville since April on this thing and we had made promises to the community in terms of the number of games that were going to be played, the level of competition and things like that,” IceMen General Manager Chip Rossetti said. “As it turned out, the other markets in the association had all basically done the same thing. It all just sort of made sense a couple of weeks ago that we find a way to make this thing (AAHA) happen for the purpose of having a successful season and trying to do things the way we had all set out to do them.”
Both the MWHL and the MAHL were trying to exist in the same general area – the upper Midwest. The MAHL, attempting to revive itself after a failed season last year, was set to have teams in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio while the newly born MWHL was setting up franchises in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan (the franchise in Louisville, Ky. was later sold and expected to be located in St. Louis, Missouri).
The Evansville and Indianapolis franchises set about laying the groundwork , selling tickets and making themselves known in the community. Other franchises didn’t fare as well, so much so that two prospective teams closed their doors. By the time late summer rolled around, Rossetti said that it became apparent that things were not well.
“Without going into too many particulars, we felt we were sort of misled a little bit on a few of the things that were going on. It just seemed to us that there were some franchises and some things that were being discussed that it turns out weren’t one hundred percent accurate,” he said. “When you’re trying to run a team and you’re banking on and relying on the league to be fulfilling its end of the bargain, so to speak, and you find out that things are not exactly as they seem, you kind of have to – for lack of a better way of putting it – you kind of have to find a way to cover your own rear end.”
While that was going on, the MAHL – and in particular Andrew Miller of the Battle Creek Revolution – was going through some issues of its own.
Back in August, Miller was successful in putting together an offer to buy the ownership of the league from founder Andrew Haines. In many people’s view, Haines was a lightning rod for controversy and as such had become a liability to the future of the league. The deal would allow Haines to maintain his ownership of the South Shore team but remove him from the operation of the league, opening up the path for potential new ownership groups and investors – some of whom had balked at Haines’ involvement – to join.
During a trip around the league cities in early September with Revolution media director/broadcaster John Meissner, Miller began to find that there were issues of a serious nature that Haines had not discussed with him during the negotiations. Needless to say, Miller was not happy and began the process of voiding the sale.
“In the course of that (trip), I discovered some stuff about the MAHL. I turned over some stones and found a lot of things that weren’t running,” Miller said. “I sought legal counsel and basically started proceedings to break my contract with Mr. Haines and to get out of the ownership aspect of the MAHL.”
As Miller was proceeding with the legal issues, he received a call from Rossetti. Rossetti had contacted the MAHL people a while back about a “joint venture” or merger, only to be politely told “we’re not interested”. This time, Miller, as an individual entity, was ready to listen but not quite set to act, wanting to wait until he was done with the Haines ordeal.
“I got some more information from him (Rossetti) about it (the association), talked about it and told him I couldn’t do anything until my legal issues with Mr. Haines were taken care of,” Miller said. “He said that he was going to proceed with the association and see what teams he could get to join.”
Rossetti began calling other teams who fit two particular criteria: a solid ownership group with a signed building lease with available dates. The first team to commit to the new association was the South Shore Shooters – Haines’ team which, according to Miller, he “gave“ to Rossetti before backing away. When word got out, Motor City owner Matt Mitchell was next to leave, paving the way for Miller to make the move.
“I was holding off, holding off, waiting to see what was going to happen with the MAHL, trying to see if the legal issue would get resolved in to time to do something for this season,” Miller said. “Obviously Mr. Haines giving his team over to the new association kind of showed that he wasn’t very confident about the MAHL season kicking off.”
With the cornerstones in place, the league hopes to have a schedule put together within the next two weeks, aiming for Friday, November 14 as opening night. Rossetti said that he has been contacted by other teams who may join the association as early as the end of this week. The 40-game schedule is expected to be kept to weekend nights, allowing for every team to have prime nights for marketing.
“I really commend everybody that is involved here for being willing to say we need to step back and we have to find a way to do something here,” Rossetti said. “It was really a cooperative effort on everybody’s part to find a way to make things work.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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