MAITLAND, FLA – Minor league professional sports team owners are an interesting lot. Most start off as fans who are successful businessmen or women and want to combine their interests. Many go out and hire people who have experience to run the team while they sit back and watch their investment either flourish or fail. A few are in it for short-term investment before selling at a profit a few years down the road.
Orlando Solar Bears owner Joe Haleski is in the business for a different reason: his family and the hockey fans of Central Florida.
“There’s no other reason I’m doing this other than I want to win and I want to make this – the Solar Bears – a legacy for my family. I mean my parents live here. I have two sisters and their families, seven nieces and nephews. They love coming to Solar Bears games,” Haleski said in a recent interview at the team’s offices. “My daughter just graduated from Rollins College with an MBA and she has a job in downtown Orlando. My son goes to UCF (University of Central Florida). They love Orlando. We sold our house in Pittsburgh – I finally got rid of that after two years – so we’re here full time.”
Haleski, a former executive at Pittsburgh hedge fund and investment company Duquesne Capital Management, recently took over day-to-day operations of the Solar Bears when team president/CEO Jason Siegel stepped down to explore other interests. Instead of going out and hiring someone to run the hockey operation, Haleski made the decision to roll up his sleeves and take over the operation.
“I was the investor so I had all the money that I put into this franchise and I let them (Siegel and former Solar Bears executive Bob Ohrablo who left two years ago) run it. As things progressed, I felt that I could do a good job running the organization and that it was time for me to step in. It’s 100 percent my money and I think I can do it,” Haleski said. “There’s no one better to represent myself than me so I’m coming in and I want to run the business. It’s a business that has hockey as part of it. It’s not a hockey business. It’s a business [and] that hockey is just part of the business.”
Haleski has been around hockey for a while. During his days up north, he was heavily involved with youth and high school hockey from advisory boards to coaching and even announcing Pennsylvania state hockey championship games back to the Pittsburgh area.
Being an owner was a big step, one that at first he may have underestimated but has grown to relish.
“I thought at first this wasn’t going to be a huge business, you know like alright I’ll own a hockey team but we make an impact in the community,” he said. “When I go down by the ice and I turn around and I see the fans reacting the way they are, it sends a chill through my spine that Ivhelped create this atmosphere for the fans. They love the team and that passion is fantastic.”
One of the first things Haleski had to finish off was a component of the excitement on the ice: a renewal of the affiliation with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and the AHL Toronto Marlies. Two days after Haleski took control of the office, the teams announced a one-year renewal with an option year in 2017-18. Despite coming off of a two-year exclusive agreement, Haleski said the change was not surprising but that he was pleased to be continuing to work with one of the NHL’s most storied franchises.
“They have a new general manager so that didn’t surprise me that he was going to change something, that something was going to change. I’m not worried about that at all,” Haleski said. “Our team changes so much every year but we’re confident in Toronto’s young team that they’re putting out on the ice. You can see what the Marlies are doing and they have a lot of young players in that system. They’re one of the top franchises in the league for sure and have been forever so we want to be affiliated with them.”
Last season was frustrating for Haleski both as a fan and an owner. After two consecutive years making the ECHL’s Kelly Cup playoffs, the Solar Bears failed to get into the post-season dance. He bemoaned the fact that in his opinion the Solar Bears “didn’t have a playoff-calibre roster” and vowed that 2016-17 will be different.
“I think we need to do a better job of getting the right type of players in this organization. Guys that want to win and want to play. Toronto has done a great job with sending us young talent but we need to do a better job of supplementing that talent with players that compliment them,” Haleski said. “They don’t need to be the same type of player [because] that’s not what is going to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have quite a few veterans on the team this year. We may get three or four – the [league] maximum is four so we’ll see what Anthony (Noreen, Solar Bears head coach) comes up with along with Toronto. Toronto is going to be involved in this process as well.”
Haleski was very quick to note that he believes totally in Noreen and assistant coach John Snowden and what they can do. He said that the pair are already doing their homework on players to target for next season.
“We need to have a little bit of everything – we need to have skill, we need to have speed, we need to have toughness, we need to have good goaltending,” he said. “If you go to the locker room right now, the coaching rooms are filled with players names across the walls. They’re doing their homework and they’re really diving in. Anthony is very committed and motivated to bring a championship here.”
Part of Haleski’s business philosophy, which he learned from Duquesne Capital Management founder Stan Druckenmiller, is that micromanagement does not suit all businesses. One of the biggest changes Haleski is making is his insistence on the young, talented current staff becoming more involved in coming up with ideas and implementing them.
“We have to unleash the potential of young guys like Jesse (Liebman, Solar Bears Director of Media Relations/Broadcaster) and I’m determined to do that. They’re going to have responsibilities. They’re going to be held accountable for what they do but there’s not going to be someone looking over their shoulder and micromanaging everything,” Haleski explained. “They know what people like to see these days so we’re going to let that happen. They’re going to have a lot of input into what happens in game presentation and social media stuff that we’re doing.”
The key component to the staff is their youth. Because many of them are in their mid to late 20’s or early 30’s, Haleski sees them as a gateway to reaching beyond the current fan base into other key demographic areas.
“We need to have more of a presence [in] downtown [Orlando] for sure. I think there’s a lot of opportunity that we haven’t taken advantage of with getting the downtown young people to come to a game,” he said. “On a Wednesday night, they can certainly come to a game. They don’t have to drive and they don’t have to pay for parking [because] they already live downtown.”
Expanding the fan base is directly tied to advertising and marketing. Haleski said that the staff is currently looking at how best to adjust the marketing budget to target specific ideas. Among the thoughts already on the table are improvement to the team website (including a direct link to the team’s radio broadcasts) as well as a possible return of a Solar Bears-centric radio show through the team’s partnership with iHeart Radio or other outlets in the market.
“We’re looking at our marketing budget and where we can pinpoint things, where we can cut things out to be more focused. We’re going to continue along with what we’ve been doing but I want to change up a few little things,” Haleski said. “There are so many people who still don’t know there’s a hockey team in Orlando after four years. We need to get out there and change that.”
Growing the fan base is great but taking care of the people who make a long term commitment – the season ticket holders – is just as if not more important. Haleski said he is committed to “much more communication with the fan base” and that he wants to add more events so that the season ticket holders and regular ticket buyers know how much they are valued.
“When we introduce the team this year – we’ve had a little event downtown where we’ve had some people that we invited – I want to make this open to all of our season ticket holders and fans. Whether we have an outdoor barbecue at RDV in the parking lot or we do something at Lake Eola when we introduce the team, it’s all the season ticket holders,” he said. “I want to do things like that, maybe in the off-season giving some of the season ticket holders a tour if the locker room over there. We just want to be more active with our fan base and [have] exclusive stuff for our season ticket holders so that they feel like they’re getting a value by being a season ticket holder with the Solar Bears.”
Along with growing the fan base, Haleski is very much interested in growing the sport of hockey in Central Florida. Much like the original IHL Solar Bears, the ECHL franchise is committed to introducing and teaching the game to the next generation. That is why the team decided to build a new practice facility with business space and event space in Winter Garden.
The project, which was announced at the 2015 ECHL All-Star game in Orlando, has yet to get going because of construction cost issues. Haleski said the initial numbers from the first contractor came in at 70 percent over budget, forcing the team to eat some of its expenses in order to get the figures more in line with potential revenues.
“It’s just trying to get the building to hit the business plan. I’m not going to put my family’s financial assets at risk to do something that doesn’t make sense. It’s trying to get the builders and sub-contractors to get to whatever the design of the building is so that it makes sense financially, that it can stand on its own as a business,” he explained. “It’s got to be the right thing (financially). It’s got to be able to support itself.”
Even though the Winter Garden project is still in a holding pattern, there have been many more things that Haleski is proud of accomplishing. One of the biggest is the work done by the Solar Bears Cares part of the team as well as the Haleski Foundation, established by Haleski and his wife Kate to assist local organizations help others.
One such situation was West Orange High School. The school was a little bit short on funding for its much-needed new field used for football and soccer among other things. The Solar Bears and the Haleski Foundation made a donation that helped the school finish the field in time for the 2015 fall sports season.
“They (West Orange H.S.) needed some money to finish their field. It’s not just the football team, it’s the soccer team, it’s the cheerleaders, it’s the band. It was the right thing to do,” Haleski said. “There are so many charities out there and there are so many people that are looking for help. We want to make a difference in Central Florida. We’re very proud of that and my wife and I will continue to be involved in the community here in Florida.”
Beyond the community impact, the Solar Bears have created a sizeable economic impact by hosting home games to the Amway Center each season.
“I’m most proud of the fact that our economic impact has been pretty substantial here in Central Florida.”We’re bringing 36 extra nights to the Amway Center for downtown businesses and people that work at the Amway Center,” he said. “They have to constantly change the ice over from basketball to ice. We’re putting people to work.”
In the end, Haleski hopes that all of the work will lead to more awareness of hockey and the Solar Bears. If it does, his investment will be returned many times over and the legacy he wants for his family will be secure.
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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