DANVILLE, IL – In 1852, Indiana newspaper writer John Soule first typed the sentence “Go West, young man and grow up with the country”, a phrase that would become popular in a shortened form when used by Horace Greeley. More than a century and a half later, those words are being taken to heart by a single-A hockey league.
Last week, on the cusp of the start of the Federal Hockey League’s championship series, the first year circuit unveiled the second expansion team for its sophomore season. Danville, Illinois will play home to the pioneer franchise in the FHL’s effort to expand into the Midwest for the 2011-2012 season. The league office is expected to release further information about more expansion markets within the next two months.
“It’s the right size city. The demographics looked good to us. The facility is just under 2,500 seats which is about the same as Danbury,” FHL Commissioner Don Kirnan said. 
“It will definitely be one of the top three or four facilities in the league from what we can see.”
The David S. Palmer Arena in downtown Danville will be the home ice for the yet-to-be-named team. The fans of Danville will get a say in things as team owner Barry Soskin will be accepting input from the community for everything from jersey colors to a name for the franchise. He is confident that the FHL has the right recipe to succeed beyond its current Northeastern footprint.
“Little by little in the Midwest here, there’s been a few different types of leagues that haven’t quite worked out for a lot of reasons. I think the FHL is taking those mistakes, correcting them and trying to move forward,” Soskin said. “I like what they (the FHL) are doing and I believe that my market (Danville) can support a budget that would in fact be able to compete in the FHL.”
As Soskin noted, Danville and the Palmer Arena are not strangers to hockey, having seen many teams, leagues and levels of the game in the past three decades. The first professional team to call the city home was the Danville Dashers of the Continental Hockey League. From their birth in 1981 to 1986 when the team closed up shop, the Dashers brought two championships to town. The Dashers were replaced in 1986 by the Fighting Saints of the All American Hockey League (not to be confused with the current AAHL) until ceasing operations in 1989.
Junior hockey first graced Danville in 1994 in the form of the North American Hockey League (NAHL) Danville Wings. They stayed in the city until 2003 when the franchise was moved to Indianapolis and the USHL. The last pro team in the city was the semi-professional Danville Pounders of the short-lived North Eastern Hockey League from 2006-2007. The last junior team to actually take the ice at the Palmer Arena was the Danville Inferno of the Great Lakes Junior Hockey League. The Inferno played for two seasons before relocating to Indianapolis following the 2009-2010 season.
Soskin had hoped to put a junior team, the Danville Express of his own Northern Junior Hockey League (NJHL), into the Palmer this past season. It was part of a two-year plan to bring pro and junior hockey back but unfortunately the puck never dropped.
“My goal was to have a junior team last season, mend fences and then this (coming) year have two teams – a pro team and a junior team,” Soskin said. “I believe the market can support a single-A level product that I want my coach to put on the ice, (a product) which is aggressive, hard-hitting, physical, creative hockey. I believe that there have been cases in the past in Danville where they have shown success at that pro level, however they were involved in a league that wasn’t successful so their success went by the wayside.”
Just like the City of Danville, Soskin has a history in both professional and junior hockey in the United States. The Arlington Heights, IL native and owner of Article II Gun World Range in the Chicago area actually has several championship rings in his possession. His most successful venture was his founding of the ECHL Toledo Storm in 1990. By the time he sold the franchise in 1998, the Storm won two Riley Cup titles. He would later return to the Storm to oversee operations as Team President from 2005-2007 until the Toledo Sports Arena was demolished.
A third title came after he purchased Pelham Prowlers (formerly the Alabama Gunners) of the Southern Elite Hockey League in 1999. The Prowlers won the championship that year under coach Lou Franceschetti before the league, which was a non-USA Hockey sanctioned junior-A league, went dark in 2000.
Soskin became one of the junior league founders of the Continental Elite Hockey League in 2001. He owned the CEHL Traverse City Enforcers the during the entire lifetime of the league (2001-2004). He resurrected the Enforcers in 2007 in the American East Hockey League as the Penn Enforcers. The AEHL went dark prior to the 2008-2009 season, resulting in the Enforcers and several other teams moving into the United Junior Hockey League. Soskin would own three teams in the league (Penn Enforcers, Jamestown Jets and Findlay Grrrowl (co-owned with former Toledo player, general manager/vice president Pat Pylypuik).
In 2009, Soskin founded the Northern Junior Hockey League (NJHL) with his Jamestown and Findlay franchises as two of the cornerstones. He would eventually start a third team in Indiana, PA with Dennis Canfield (Soskin and Canfield were president and vice president of the league). The league lasted one year before a mass exodus killed it prior to the start of this past season.
Unfortunately in minor league sports, usually there is bad to go with the good. Soskin has had some failures in his career as a league and team owner. During his short time as owner of the Nashville Nighthawks, a team that started in the Southern Hockey League and ended up in the CHL, Soskin was sued for $29,626.41 that was accrued from provided employment leasing services. By the following season, Soskin was no longer owner.
The most potentially damaging situation occurred during Soskin’s days as the owner of the Albert Lea (MN) team in the NAHL. He owned the team with Jim Perkins between 2008-2010. Late in 2009, it came to light that eight Albert Lea players were offered “advance player guarantees”, in which players would be guaranteed playing time in exchange for payments from the family of the player. The NAHL ultimately deemed the contracts as “pay to play”. Such contracts are illegal in USA Hockey Junior A tier II sanctioned leagues. In mid-November of 2009, the NAHL Board of Governors issued a memorandum in which they found that Soskin’s team had “willfully implemented a pay to play model”.
Additionally, the NAHL found that Albert Lea “misrepresented itself as being 100 percent owned by Barry Soskin” and had “failed to post adequate security in the form of a letter of credit or performance bond”. The league stated that the franchise would be terminated unless a $50,000 fine was paid to the NAHL, all of the money taken through the pay-to-play agreements (approximately $100,000) was returned and a $200,000 cash bond was provided. The franchise was eventually sold in 2010 and relocated to Amarillo, TX.
Although the Albert Lea scandal has tarnished Soskin’s reputation in junior hockey, he does not feel it should or will have any bearing on his FHL ownership. Further, he said he is willing to take ownership of the mistake despite the fact that he allegedly did not know about the contracts until after the fact and contacted the NAHL when he discovered them.
“I personally didn’t have anything to do with it (the Albert Lea situation), but as owner I accept responsibility,” he said. “No, this (FHL franchise) is professional (hockey). It has nothing to do with that. I don’t want to compare at all, but I don’t believe one has anything to do with the other.”
FHL Commissioner Kirnan said that he contacted the NAHL offices before committing ownership to Soskin. After that call and further consultation with FHL officials, he felt that Soskin’s past experiences in professional hockey far outweighed any prior scandals and ultimately made him a perfect candidate for a franchise. He added that the league has mechanisms in place to make sure the working relationships are maintained on both ends.
“There has to be protections for everyone before we go forward because we want to make sure that it’s going to work out,” Kirnan said. “If he’s (Soskin) ready and he’s ready to do the right things, there shouldn’t be any problems based on what we can see because we think it’s probably a good situation.”
Admittedly, the most recent semi-pro attempt (Danville Pounders) only lasting one season will make Soskin’s job of marketing his pro team to area fans challenging.
“(We will be) selling the community on the fact that we’re going to live up to some of the promises that past organizations weren’t as forthcoming with,” Soskin said. “There’s a lot of people that have been hurt in Danville so there are a lot of fences that my staff needs to mend and to gain the trust.”
Soskin has already begun to assemble that staff. He quickly named Scott Beneke as his head coach and director of hockey operations. During the 2008-2009 season, he served as general manager and head coach of the Hudson Valley Bears in the Eastern Professional Hockey League. Many of the players who played for Beneke are now members of the FHL. Prior to that, he coached the Valley Forge Freedom in the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League as well as spending many years coaching youth hockey.
“Anybody who has followed Scott Beneke knows that he is going to bring an explosive, dynamic team,” Soskin said. Beneke then hired Gabe Yeung as his player/assistant coach. The towering defenseman (6’5”, 240 lbs.) brings years of professional playing experience, including time spent in the ECHL , CHL, and overseas. Yeung is expected to join Beneke in building the franchise both on and off the ic e. The addition of Danville to the FHL does create one logistical situation – travel. Throughout its first season, the FHL lauded itself for having a small northeastern bus-league footprint that allowed teams to control their budgets better. When the league chose to truncate its season from 60 to 45 games, it was because of travel costs.
Danville is about three hours south of Chicago, which makes Rome, NY – the closest FHL city to Danville – a 13-hour one-way drive.
The original footprint of the Federal Hockey League (courtesy of FHL)
Kirnan and Soskin were able to reach a deal whereby the Danville team will provide a travel subsidy for the eastern teams above and beyond what they would normally spend on a road trip within their existing region. Kirnan estimated the subsidy will cost Danville about $40,000 per year, or 10 percent of the current teams’ operating budgets. Additionally, Soskin will use the two buses that he owns to bring the eastern teams west and when Danville goes east, they may be required to play four or five games in a trip.
“There have been leagues that failed because of travel. We need to make sure that we’re not one of those,” Soskin said.
Kirnan is well aware that Danville would benefit from having regional rivals which would require more western teams to come into existence sooner than later. He think that by the time the puck is dropped in October there will be two or three more teams closer to Danville.
“We’re trying to get things started out west. We think that there’s some opportunities in Pennsylvania. We’re looking at places in Ohio,” he said. “We feel that there’s an opportunity in some of those venues with our business model. We’re definitely looking to expand and we’re definitely trying to work out some regional rivalries.
For now, Soskin sees his team as the beginning of the FHL taking a solid foothold in the Midwest. Until the FHL brings more teams on board, he is more than willing to be the lone pioneer on the western front if it should come down to that.
“There are other situations out there that aren’t different than Danville’s past, that had shown success and for whatever reason it wasn’t stable around them,” he said. “This is a concept that I believe works. I’ve seen it work as long as the right ownership groups are in place. I know that my decision in Danville is a solid one.”
Contact the author at wendy.hull@prohockeynews.com
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